Well this led me to look into Lev Landau, who coined the phrase, and turned up a few gems.
As an engineer with greater dreams, I bought the English translation of his books off Amazon based on recommendations, then promptly gave up my pursuit of theoretical physics.
Curious if anyone else has tried to self study the Landau series. (If so, please say you were as unsuccessful as I was.)
Tangent that may be of interest: a film on Lev Landau being produced that was shot over several years inside a massive historical village set, heavy on the surrounding mystic and unfortunately stuck in some kind of post-production hell for years now (though reportedly still active): http://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/mystery-dau-insane-never-...
These are graduate level textbooks. There is little point in attempting them without a solid undergraduate background in physics, which is necessary both to understand and to appreciate Landau's presentation.
That depends on your university, I'm not in the US so all of my modules are focused on what would be called my "major" (which is Theoretical Physics, at least that's the name of the course).
"Mechanics" is a second year undergraduate textbook here. We only used it during the first semester, and didn't have a set textbook for the second. Goldstein and Arnol'd were favourites.
"The Classical Theory of Fields", "Quantum Mechanics" and "Statistical Physics" are all recommended reading in third year, but they're not the main textbooks for their modules.
That's quite impressive. Where are you from? I think even Cambridge, which is an outlier as far as the course level is concerned, only uses "Mechanics" as a recommended textbook in the third year.
In most post-Soviet universities I've seen, Landau's idea of the theoretical minimum is well and alive. Depending on the professor, Landau isn't rare as required reading in undergrad courses, and the notion that you should be familiar with anything in Landau in graduate exams is also common.
Apologies in advance for the long post, but it's been a lazy Friday and I've nothing better to do.
I'm in Ireland, in Trinity College Dublin. The way the course (Theoretical Physics) as a whole is taught is rather odd compared to other universities. For various historical reasons, the theorists are staff of the mathematics department rather than the physics department. For other historical reasons, the Theoretical Physics (TP) course is separate to the Physics course and its teaching is split evenly between the Mathematics and Physics department.
Due to the way the TP course is structured, we take a lot of rigorous and proof based maths in the first two years. Single- and Multi-variable Real Analysis, Calculus on Manifolds, Complex Analysis, Group Theory, and of course Linear Algebra are all covered rigorously. Fourier Analysis and ODEs are covered also, but less rigorously and more focused on applications. All of these modules are shared with the pure mathematics students.
The Physics students on the other hand, are required to take another subject during their first two years. Most choose chemistry. Because of the additional subject they only take non-rigorous equivalents of some the above. Multivariable/Vector Calculus instead of Analysis, no Calculus on Manifolds at all, I'm not sure about complex analysis, no group theory, mostly computation based linear algebra. Their Fourier Analysis and ODE course are much the same as ours.
So over the course of the first two years, the mathematical maturities of the TP students and physics students diverge significantly simply due to the topics that are studied.
This, and the fact that theorists are in the maths department, has resulted in a lot of modules that would traditionally be the realm of the Physics department alone, being duplicated. The physics department teaches the physics students a certain topic, while the maths department teaches the TP (and pure maths) students the same topic, usually more in depth as there is less need to delve into the mathematical machinery behind it when the students are often already familiar with it.
For example, next year the modules I'll be taking in the maths department are "Classical Field Theory", "Electrodynamics", "Quantum Mechanics" I & II, and "Statistical Physics" I & II. The Mechanics modules I mentioned earlier were also taken in the maths department.
In 4th year, the gap widens further, as there is no way at all for physics students to take GR or QFT (as far as I can recall). These are only taught by the maths department, which also offers to TP students, depending on the year, modules on Algebraic Geometry, Group Representations, Lie Groups & Algebras, Differential Geometry (a prerequisite to GR here) and others.
Those are immense differences. The TP course seems pretty solid, but the ordinary Physics program seems to have significant gaps, even granting that not every undergrad might need much differential geometry.
I was (slightly) incorrect, there appears to be some QFT in a course on High Energy Physics.
And I don't disagree with you. I think the split between the theorists in the maths department, and the experimentalists in the physics department (and, in turn the split between TP and Physics; not to mention outside pressures) has resulted in a course that's perhaps a bit too focused on experimental topics.
His books are famous to physics students (of all levels) for their terseness. Perhaps most useful when you understand already, or as a goal of comprehension.
In that case I'd recommend "Quantum Mechanics for Scientists and Engineers" by D. Miller.
When I (a trained computer scientist) had to pick up a bit of QM, I first watched through Susskind's videos (saved my ass) and then took a lecture based on the aforementioned book.
I have a PhD in physics. My adviser and I used say (as a joke, but with a kernel of truth) that there's no need to go beyond chapter one of a given Landau & Lifshitz book to perform research on the subject. In fact, if you were to look at my phd thesis you'd find a number of references to the relevant L&L book but none past the first five equations or so.
As a recent physics PhD in a European country, I went through Landau's books a number of times during my education. They were recommended (and sometimes required) during my undergrad years, and it was a bit of a struggle. During graduate study I frequently found them concise and enlightening on some point I had forgotten, and I still use them as a reference every now and then.
I think the same quality of efficiently getting straight to the point, without extraneous digressions or any hand holding, which makes them so highly valued by working physicists (at least in my experience) also makes them completely useless for self study without the necessary background knowledge. The Landau books aren't pedagogical, in any modern sense of the word. They're simply a concise, self-contained and rather well structured treatment of basic theoretical physics, almost unparalleled in their scope.
Don't let them turn you off physics, though. You were simply unlucky in that you picked perhaps the worst possible famous textbooks for your particular goal. If it helps, most physics undergrads hate them with a passion too.
I got L&L classical mechanics when I was 14, immediately after reading Susskind's theoretical minimum + lots of much more advanced calculus books. I liked it: It took me a very long time to understand it (Below the surface), but I often go back to it as either a reference book or to remind me of just how terse textbooks can be.
Regarding, "what worries me most", the main link on the page.
So, another vapid pattern-matching exercise with Trump and (you guessed it) the Nazis.
When it turns out in 4 or 8 years that Trump was just another president, left of JFK on taxes and immigration, generally incompetent but ultimately not particularly special, are any of these darkly-intoning oracles of tyranny going to apologize for the breathless declarations about how he was so obviously a Nazi? Will anyone admit how wrong they were?
Will anyone remember all the crying wolf on the next go-around?
Sigh. It makes me genuinely sad that someone as intelligent as Susskind could be taken in by the moral panic.
It amazes me that you can write something like this on the same day that Pres. Trump announced his withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement. The man is imperiling the very future of civilization.
You do realize that the consequences of global warming are real, right? Rising sea levels, ocean acidification, mass extinctions, etc. represent threats to the sustainability of civilization.
"With more politicians in climate science than scientists, the refining fire of debate has devolved into the burning of heretics. Alex Epstein’s The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels may make your blood boil, but his cool reason and cold, hard facts will lead us beyond hysterics to a much better future." - Peter Thiel
It still does in many countries - but it shouldn't, and doesn't have to. That is a problem we could bring diplomatic weight to bear on, but yay cheap shoes I guess :/
But the solution was never those Paris accords. There was no solution in that, just more dead ends for regular Americans. How is that helpful? Nothing gets fixed, but vulnerable populations become more vulnerable?
70% of Americans never did a single minute's research on the issue or what is was, how it operates, or anything else. Pollsters just throw out general ideas and everyone agrees that it's a "good." Also, the adults in my community can't even handle dropping their kids off in the school parking lot, much less understanding complex scientific issues that require management of multiple outcomes, all of which have serious trade-offs.
Let me point out that many people are not convinced that global warming is real, let alone related to human activity. You can easily educate yourself about this issue if you use the internet.
> Will anyone remember all the crying wolf on the next go-around?
Yes - a large part of the reason Trump won is that people who haven't drunk the kool-aid are sick of being told that they're deplorables who are imperiling the future of civilisation (see elsewhere on-thread).
With all the hysteria, name-calling etc. from the Democrats, I'm not sure that this lesson has been learned yet.
"While these words point at some real problems, they are also a trap. They lead you to organize your political pitch around virtue-signaling, exclusion and demonization. That, in turn, can be successful (though repulsive) politics when it’s used against a minority to mobilize a majority or plurality. But you’re in the opposite situation now. You were trapped by your own privilege theory. You demonized a plurality of American voters, and in return they gave you Trump."
Don't know why this got downvoted--drive by hate, mainly. The left clearly took a huge hit and don't like it--and they shouldn't--because the backlash has only just begun and if humanity really is a marketplace of ideas, then it's way past time that collectivism lost its shine and got relegated to the bad ideas of the past.
Somewhat agree with the essence of your statement, but the talk was more about Brannon than Trump. And the movement that has lifted them. Both can be said to be less worrying now with Bannon's power reduced, but I can see how it would be a big concern to anyone non WASP a couple weeks ago. When you're being objectified there's not a huge difference between crying wolf and just being careful.
> A number of years ago I became aware of the large number of physics enthusiasts out there who have no venue to learn modern physics and cosmology. Fat advanced textbooks are not suitable to people who have no teacher to ask questions of, and the popular literature does not go deeply enough to satisfy these curious people. So I started a series of courses on modern physics at Stanford University where I am a professor of physics. The courses are specifically aimed at people who know, or once knew, a bit of algebra and calculus, but are more or less beginners.
Ramamurti Shankar has recently written a couple of books that are also excellent and very friendly (every derivation explained etc., lots of background). Anything by R. Shankar is great, really (i.e. his quantum book and the 'basic training in math' book).
I used Shankar's quantum mechanics book for my first course of quntum in undergraduate. And his "Basic Training In Math" as a supplementary book in another course. And I recall being very frustrated with the total lack of explanation for many things. Often he would simply state the way things were without attempting to guide the reader's intuition. So I couldn't disagree more about the books being good for beginners. It's been a while since I've looked at either book, so I can't cite anything specific. But I know for sure that by the end of my undergrad I passionately disliked Shankar.
I have a hard copy of both the Classical and Quantum books. I highly recommend them as an introduction to concepts assuming you have a bit of background knowledge in maths and a willingness to learn (though the notation in the Quantum book is arguably not the best notation to use -- I've not seen wide usage of |u> and |d> as base spin eigenstates).
In particular I found the Boolean logic -> Quantum state vectors progression quite interesting, and the emphasis on the history and how you can build formalisms was particularly interesting. Also, it gives you problems (like a "real" textbook) but they are written in such a way that the text is more like a story but you learn the required maths to solve the problems.
I loved reading these books while I was in high school, bored with the math-less "physics" we were being taught.
Total garbage. The ideologues just...need...to...stop. Your "settled science" and all the rest of it? Guess what? It's all up for debate because debate is healthy. Why can't these academics ever get out of their own ego rut and realize that they are what is wrong? Just because someone is smart does not make them smart at everything. I saw this with Chomsky--he really has destroyed his cachet by taking on issues he had no business even bringing up. Bitching about Trump endlessly just makes them look like sore losers.
The concern trolling, the backhanded smug attitudes, maybe police your own houses first--I'm looking at you higher education. You've become something so unrecognizable and just so incredibly rotten.
44 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 88.4 ms ] threadAs an engineer with greater dreams, I bought the English translation of his books off Amazon based on recommendations, then promptly gave up my pursuit of theoretical physics.
Curious if anyone else has tried to self study the Landau series. (If so, please say you were as unsuccessful as I was.)
"Mechanics" is a second year undergraduate textbook here. We only used it during the first semester, and didn't have a set textbook for the second. Goldstein and Arnol'd were favourites.
"The Classical Theory of Fields", "Quantum Mechanics" and "Statistical Physics" are all recommended reading in third year, but they're not the main textbooks for their modules.
I'm in Ireland, in Trinity College Dublin. The way the course (Theoretical Physics) as a whole is taught is rather odd compared to other universities. For various historical reasons, the theorists are staff of the mathematics department rather than the physics department. For other historical reasons, the Theoretical Physics (TP) course is separate to the Physics course and its teaching is split evenly between the Mathematics and Physics department.
Due to the way the TP course is structured, we take a lot of rigorous and proof based maths in the first two years. Single- and Multi-variable Real Analysis, Calculus on Manifolds, Complex Analysis, Group Theory, and of course Linear Algebra are all covered rigorously. Fourier Analysis and ODEs are covered also, but less rigorously and more focused on applications. All of these modules are shared with the pure mathematics students.
The Physics students on the other hand, are required to take another subject during their first two years. Most choose chemistry. Because of the additional subject they only take non-rigorous equivalents of some the above. Multivariable/Vector Calculus instead of Analysis, no Calculus on Manifolds at all, I'm not sure about complex analysis, no group theory, mostly computation based linear algebra. Their Fourier Analysis and ODE course are much the same as ours.
So over the course of the first two years, the mathematical maturities of the TP students and physics students diverge significantly simply due to the topics that are studied.
This, and the fact that theorists are in the maths department, has resulted in a lot of modules that would traditionally be the realm of the Physics department alone, being duplicated. The physics department teaches the physics students a certain topic, while the maths department teaches the TP (and pure maths) students the same topic, usually more in depth as there is less need to delve into the mathematical machinery behind it when the students are often already familiar with it.
For example, next year the modules I'll be taking in the maths department are "Classical Field Theory", "Electrodynamics", "Quantum Mechanics" I & II, and "Statistical Physics" I & II. The Mechanics modules I mentioned earlier were also taken in the maths department.
In 4th year, the gap widens further, as there is no way at all for physics students to take GR or QFT (as far as I can recall). These are only taught by the maths department, which also offers to TP students, depending on the year, modules on Algebraic Geometry, Group Representations, Lie Groups & Algebras, Differential Geometry (a prerequisite to GR here) and others.
And I don't disagree with you. I think the split between the theorists in the maths department, and the experimentalists in the physics department (and, in turn the split between TP and Physics; not to mention outside pressures) has resulted in a course that's perhaps a bit too focused on experimental topics.
I think the same quality of efficiently getting straight to the point, without extraneous digressions or any hand holding, which makes them so highly valued by working physicists (at least in my experience) also makes them completely useless for self study without the necessary background knowledge. The Landau books aren't pedagogical, in any modern sense of the word. They're simply a concise, self-contained and rather well structured treatment of basic theoretical physics, almost unparalleled in their scope.
Don't let them turn you off physics, though. You were simply unlucky in that you picked perhaps the worst possible famous textbooks for your particular goal. If it helps, most physics undergrads hate them with a passion too.
So, another vapid pattern-matching exercise with Trump and (you guessed it) the Nazis.
When it turns out in 4 or 8 years that Trump was just another president, left of JFK on taxes and immigration, generally incompetent but ultimately not particularly special, are any of these darkly-intoning oracles of tyranny going to apologize for the breathless declarations about how he was so obviously a Nazi? Will anyone admit how wrong they were?
Will anyone remember all the crying wolf on the next go-around?
Sigh. It makes me genuinely sad that someone as intelligent as Susskind could be taken in by the moral panic.
http://www.moralcaseforfossilfuels.com/
"With more politicians in climate science than scientists, the refining fire of debate has devolved into the burning of heretics. Alex Epstein’s The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels may make your blood boil, but his cool reason and cold, hard facts will lead us beyond hysterics to a much better future." - Peter Thiel
This is the problem, not the president himself.
http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/paris_agre...
Any solution to this? I'm drawing blanks.
Yes - a large part of the reason Trump won is that people who haven't drunk the kool-aid are sick of being told that they're deplorables who are imperiling the future of civilisation (see elsewhere on-thread).
With all the hysteria, name-calling etc. from the Democrats, I'm not sure that this lesson has been learned yet.
ESR wrote about this in depth here:
http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=7268
"While these words point at some real problems, they are also a trap. They lead you to organize your political pitch around virtue-signaling, exclusion and demonization. That, in turn, can be successful (though repulsive) politics when it’s used against a minority to mobilize a majority or plurality. But you’re in the opposite situation now. You were trapped by your own privilege theory. You demonized a plurality of American voters, and in return they gave you Trump."
> A number of years ago I became aware of the large number of physics enthusiasts out there who have no venue to learn modern physics and cosmology. Fat advanced textbooks are not suitable to people who have no teacher to ask questions of, and the popular literature does not go deeply enough to satisfy these curious people. So I started a series of courses on modern physics at Stanford University where I am a professor of physics. The courses are specifically aimed at people who know, or once knew, a bit of algebra and calculus, but are more or less beginners.
http://theoreticalminimum.com/courses
Ramamurti Shankar has recently written a couple of books that are also excellent and very friendly (every derivation explained etc., lots of background). Anything by R. Shankar is great, really (i.e. his quantum book and the 'basic training in math' book).
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0300192207/
In particular I found the Boolean logic -> Quantum state vectors progression quite interesting, and the emphasis on the history and how you can build formalisms was particularly interesting. Also, it gives you problems (like a "real" textbook) but they are written in such a way that the text is more like a story but you learn the required maths to solve the problems.
I loved reading these books while I was in high school, bored with the math-less "physics" we were being taught.
The concern trolling, the backhanded smug attitudes, maybe police your own houses first--I'm looking at you higher education. You've become something so unrecognizable and just so incredibly rotten.