Not for the Layperson?

[quasigeostrophy]

So, I get it, but is putting the actual integral form of Faraday's Law of Induction,



as a graphic in the TV commercial supposed to convince just anyone to buy an EverLife flashlight?

ObSheesh: Sheesh.

Comments

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

Not if Hawking is to be believed (apparently his editor told him that every equation in Brief History would halve his book sales)

[quasigeostrophy.livejournal.com]

I could believe that.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

He settled for a single halving in return for having "E = mc²" in there :)

[rfrench.livejournal.com]

I went to the Boston Museum of Science yesterday. You know, one of those places with thousands of screaming children and little displays on how light bends in a prism. There was a large stack of hard-cover books in the store called "Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell". I thought "oh good, an introductory book I might actually understand". I couldn't even recognize the math symbols in the introduction! Let alone the rest of the book. I thought maybe they were a little off on their audience.

[quasigeostrophy.livejournal.com]

Hm. I'd actually been thinking about getting that book. Among other aspects, I want a better understanding of Feynman Diagrams. I've already added Feynman's own QED to my Amazon Wish List; perhaps that was the right thing to do.

[rfrench.livejournal.com]

I highly recommend QED. That book I actually understood, although it's been quite a few years since I read it.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

If you want a layman-oriented book on cutting edge science, I can't recommend Michio Kaku's "Hyperspace" and Marcus Chown's "The Universe Next Door" too highly

[rfrench.livejournal.com]

Great, thanks. I've put them on my wish list.

How about some quantum theory books for someone with an MIT engineering degree but not a physics degree? It's that intermediate level book that I have trouble finding. Or maybe it's not possible to write such a book.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

Hm - if there is one, I haven't read it, I'm afraid. Once you get past the basic "common engineering degree" quantum mechanics courses the books tend to get heavier. Griffiths's Introduction to Quantum Mechanics might be good, but I'm basing that purely on the stellar quality of his Electrodynamics text.

[rfrench.livejournal.com]

OK, I've marked that one, too. Looking through the on-line excerpt it looks doable. I really need to brush up on my math skills. I never liked PDEs to begin with.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

Me neither :) One of the reasons I left physics for computer science (well, not that I've gotten any formal degrees in the latter) is that the maths is very much more to my taste.