- #1
kiwi-awoo
- 3
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Hello PF I'm a regular lurker here
nice to have the chance to make a topic so please respond! even if you don't have much good advice I'm sure you can dig in
I'm going into my third year BSc physics next year and I'm trying to choose my courses, problem is I'm very indecisive so I want to get it right. I'm interested in theory (not completely useless in the lab but it's not my strength for sure,) I loved the QM module last semester and I enjoy maths so this the direction I want to go in.
I'm going to be taking advanced qm the as option for the first semester but the 2nd is more tricky. I am considering:
general relativity: I'm not interested in astronomy so this might not be the best option but I'm drawn to it as it looks interesting from the point of view of the maths involved, but I'm assured it won't be easy.
Integral transforms: I like the sound of this because I took a complex variables course last semester and liked that a lot, however it seems more useful for engineering/applied maths than physics... but maybe I'm wrong.
Intro to Hilbert Spaces: this is taught as a pure maths module so I might find this difficult. I know that this is important for the foundations of qm, but the question is if I went on to further study in QM would it even help if I could prove the spectral theorem etc
There is also a course in more general modern physics including variational methods, perturbation, Lagrangian mechanics and relativistic electrodynamics. But I'm not sure about this as I like courses which are a bit more self-contained.
So I would like to know, what course is not worth missing. Thankyou
![Whale :whale: :whale:](/styles/physicsforums/xenforo/smilies/icons/newicons/whale.png)
I'm going into my third year BSc physics next year and I'm trying to choose my courses, problem is I'm very indecisive so I want to get it right. I'm interested in theory (not completely useless in the lab but it's not my strength for sure,) I loved the QM module last semester and I enjoy maths so this the direction I want to go in.
I'm going to be taking advanced qm the as option for the first semester but the 2nd is more tricky. I am considering:
general relativity: I'm not interested in astronomy so this might not be the best option but I'm drawn to it as it looks interesting from the point of view of the maths involved, but I'm assured it won't be easy.
Integral transforms: I like the sound of this because I took a complex variables course last semester and liked that a lot, however it seems more useful for engineering/applied maths than physics... but maybe I'm wrong.
Intro to Hilbert Spaces: this is taught as a pure maths module so I might find this difficult. I know that this is important for the foundations of qm, but the question is if I went on to further study in QM would it even help if I could prove the spectral theorem etc
There is also a course in more general modern physics including variational methods, perturbation, Lagrangian mechanics and relativistic electrodynamics. But I'm not sure about this as I like courses which are a bit more self-contained.
So I would like to know, what course is not worth missing. Thankyou
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