What are you reading now? (STEM only)

[Frabjous]

Two words -- "Spiderman underwear". Worked for berkeboy.

I accept that toilette training is a STEM topic, but spiderman underwear sounds like a personal theory.

 

[berkeman]

I only have the one experiment to support my position, but it was very successful.

 

[Demystifier]

I accept that toilette training is a STEM topic

I would propose to extend STEM into STEMP, where P stands for psychology. One of the reasons is that we are in the phase when challenges to beat the pandemic or global warming have more to do with psychology than with medicine or environmental science.

 

[vanhees71]

Looking at a growing group of anti-corona measures and -vaccination propagandists in Germany, I'd suggest that P stands even for psychiatry, but that's indeed off-topic.

 

[Demystifier]

Looking at a growing group of anti-corona measures and -vaccination propagandists in Germany, I'd suggest that P stands even for psychiatry, but that's indeed off-topic.

From the way you put it, I'm note sure whether you support measures and vaccine or are against them. But to put it on topic, a psychology book everyone should read is
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0374533555/?tag=pfamazon01-20

 

[vanhees71]

Of course I'm decidedly pro vaccination and also pro anti-corona measures!

 

[Frabjous]

also pro anti-corona measures

Given that this is a physics forum, this sounds like you are against the sun.

 

[BillTre]

this sounds like you are against the sun.

But only superficially.

 

[Mr.Husky]

I am revising classical mechanics from kleppner and kolenkow. Studying ODE's from Ross differential equations. Going through hubbard and hubbard in my free time. Studying organic chemistry (just started) from LG WADE. Trying to give some time for OXTOBY introduction to modern chemistry.

 

[LCSphysicist]

Looking at a growing group of anti-corona measures and -vaccination propagandists in Germany, I'd suggest that P stands even for psychiatry, but that's indeed off-topic.

I think it is growing not only in Germany. I am not sure what is my favorite argument given from them, if it is "to take vaccine will make you to turn gay" or "the implantation of devil chip in our bodies". I think the last one is a little old, not so funny anymore, so my favorite now is to take vaccine make you gay

 

[Md Foysa]

Be warned about Purcell.

 

[andresB]

Somebody has read these two? they look interesting.
Modern classical mechanics
Covariant Physics: From Classical Mechanics to General Relativity and Beyond

 

[dextercioby]

Somebody has read these two? they look interesting.
Modern classical mechanics
Covariant Physics: From Classical Mechanics to General Relativity and Beyond

Well, they are from this year. By Amazon TOC they do not seem bad. But again, we need to let some months pass, to get unbiased/unpaid opinions. Anyways, in case they turn good, thanks for suggestions.

 

[MathematicalPhysicist]

Well, they are from this year. By Amazon TOC they do not seem bad. But again, we need to let some months pass, to get unbiased/unpaid opinions. Anyways, in case they turn good, thanks for suggestions.

The topic of stochastic forces, I guess it's covered in Langevin equation.
Most topics look like they can be found in other books.

 

[paralleltransport]

Peskin & schroeder's Introduction to Quantum Field Theory for the problems. Matthew Schwartz's Quantum Field Theory and the Standard Model & Srednicki. Supplementing that with Gauge Fields and Strings by Polyakov.

 

[MidgetDwarf]

Reviewing undergraduate courses in preparation for an MS program in Mathematics.

Anton: Elementary Linear Algebra
Abbot: Understanding Analysis
Apostol Calculus 1.

Should be done with Anton in a month. Then proceed to my worn out of copy of Axler: Linear Algebra Done Right.

Then Artin Algebra, and one of my many other Analysis books.

 

[MidgetDwarf]

I am revising classical mechanics from kleppner and kolenkow. Studying ODE's from Ross differential equations. Going through hubbard and hubbard in my free time. Studying organic chemistry (just started) from LG WADE. Trying to give some time for OXTOBY introduction to modern chemistry.

How do you like Ross Differential Equations? It is actually one of my favorite books. If you like Ross, and want to learn PDE, then there is a similar book. I forget the author but the cover is blue, and the professor worked at a university located in Honolulu? He was the guy that set fire to his office lol.

 

[WWGD]

Wonder if it's not too far OT to ask here when it's worth buying a book , given most of its content ( excepting cutting edge areas) is available for free somewhere on the web. I guess books do provide structure to the material that you can't find otherwise, but one may still be able to do well without it by providing your own structure.

 

[BWV]

This free-on-Kindleunlimited linear algebra text, focused on practical explanations with ties to Matlab and Python

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08W9MGDFW/?tag=pfamazon01-20

 

[Borg]

Trying to get a better handle on Graph Neural Networks. This seems to be a pretty good article for working up from the basics so far - https://distill.pub/2021/gnn-intro/#other-types-of-graphs-multigraphs-hypergraphs-hypernodes

 

[sysprog]

Trying to get a better handle on Graph Neural Networks. This seems to be a pretty good article for working up from the basics so far - https://distill.pub/2021/gnn-intro/#other-types-of-graphs-multigraphs-hypergraphs-hypernodes

That paper looks good to me $-$ for further exploration, I suggest:

$-$ available from https://www.alibris.com/search/books/isbn/9780521288811 (used and in good condition) for $7.27 + 5.00 \rm{~shipping}$.

 

[scompi]

Reading through Introduction to Quantum Mechanics by DJ Griffiths and learning how little I retained from my undergrad...

 

[BWV]

more literature than stem, but a fascinating book and a great break from the gee-whiz bullshit that constitutes most science writing, this book is a dark, semifictionalized account of selceted scientific and mathematical discoveries and both the benefits and the costs extracted from the discoverers and the world at large - beginning with the leap from the first synthetic pigment, Prussian Blue to its link with the discovery and history of cyanide, then circles back to Fritz Haber, at once the architect of chemical warfare, the man to whom a majority of the people living today owe their existence and well being, and the inventor of the gas that the Nazis used to exterminated his family after he died.

 

[frost_zero]

Until the end of time by Brian Greene, although it doesn't have any equations, the explanations of thermodynamics are crystal clear

 

[diogenesNY]

One thing that I am reading right now is _Stronger Than a Hundred Men: A History of the Vertical Water Wheel_
by Terry S. Reynolds, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983

Very interesting. Only a little way in, and so far reading a very deeply researched and cited exploration of the origination and precursors of the vertical waterwheel (which seems to have emerged in the first or second century BC). Documentary descriptions are scarce and epigraphical evidence dates only from much later, but there are meaningful pieces to put together, albeit requiring some logical speculation.

A revolutionary way to extract work from the natural world.

--diogenesNY

 

[Demystifier]

B. Zwiebach, Mastering Quantum Mechanics (2022)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/026204613X/?tag=pfamazon01-20

New excellent QM textbook, very pedagogic, suitable for beginners, yet very complete (about 1100 pages long) and containing many modern topics which other textbooks rarely discuss.

 

[haushofer]

Can you give some examples of such topics?

 

[Frabjous]

B. Zwiebach, Mastering Quantum Mechanics (2022)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/026204613X/?tag=pfamazon01-20

New excellent QM textbook, very pedagogic, suitable for beginners, yet very complete (about 1100 pages long) and containing many modern topics which other textbooks rarely discuss.

The TOC is here
https://mitp-content-server.mit.edu/books/content/sectbyfn?collid=books_pres_0&id=12259&fn=toc.pdf

 

[dextercioby]

Only 3 chapters worth a read: 18, 22, 23.

 

[Demystifier]

Only 3 chapters worth a read: 18, 22, 23.

Provided that you already know everything else.

 

[Demystifier]

Can you give some examples of such topics?

See post #484 by @dextercioby.

 

[haushofer]

I guess I'll buy it; his string theory book was remarkable.

I once took a course on Double Field Theory from him; he's also an excellent teacher, and was really interested in our research topics.

 

[vanhees71]

Quote from the book:

2.4 Photoelectric Effect
In this and in the following section, we will discuss some foundational experiments relating to
photons. e first is the photoelectric effect. The second is Compton scattering. Together, these two
experiments convinced physicists that photons are quanta of light.

Really? :-(((

Historically that may be right, but neither the PE nor Compton scattering prove the necessity for quantization of the em. field. This is really well-known now. Why do textbook writers, particularly of QM intro textbooks, always just copy the mistakes from the tradition?

Besides, where are the postulates clearly stated?

 

[andresB]

Quote from the book:Really? :-(((

Historically that may be right, but neither the PE nor Compton scattering prove the necessity for quantization of the em. field. This is really well-known now. Why do textbook writers, particularly of QM intro textbooks, always just copy the mistakes from the tradition?

Besides, where are the postulates clearly stated?

I know about the photoelectric effect using classical waves in the Schrödinger equations. but I'm unaware of a wavy explanation of the Compton scattering

 

[vanhees71]

It's a classical em. wave scattering on an electron (described quantum mechanically with the Dirac equation), i.e., in semiclassical approximation. That's how Klein and Nishina explained the Compton effect quantum mechanically for the first time.

https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01366453 (it's, however in German ;-)).