http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Field-.../dp/0195091582

I yoinked it from the library and have been learning a bit from it
since. My understanding of group theory has improved a fair bit.

It seems suited for my level of understanding, but I'm wondering if
any of you have any differing opinions / book counter-suggestions.

Since my heart is set on understanding gravity, I figure teaching
myself a chunk of quantum field theory would be a useful step. I need
to understand where both theories fail in order to understand how to
make them work - I hate taking for granted what I'm told about QFT's
failings.

On Jun 16, 9:24 pm, Eric Gisse wrote:
http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Field-...duction/dp/019...

I yoinked it from the library and have been learning a bit from it
since. My understanding of group theory has improved a fair bit.

It seems suited for my level of understanding, but I'm wondering if
any of you have any differing opinions / book counter-suggestions.

Since my heart is set on understanding gravity, I figure teaching
myself a chunk of quantum field theory would be a useful step. I need
to understand where both theories fail in order to understand how to
make them work - I hate taking for granted what I'm told about QFT's
failings.

Quantum field theory (QFT) provides a theoretical framework, widely
used in particle physics and condensed matter physics, but matter
cannot condense to an invariant Lorentz state since "someone"
disagrees that temperature cannot "also" be Lorentz invariant.

But if that someone believes temperature is not related to the
"condensed" matter then anything is possible including pink elephants.

On Jun 17, 12:35 am, " wrote:
[snip crap]

Shut the **** up.

On Jun 17, 4:24 am, Eric Gisse wrote:
http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Field-...duction/dp/019...

I yoinked it from the library and have been learning a bit from it
since. My understanding of group theory has improved a fair bit.

It seems suited for my level of understanding, but I'm wondering if
any of you have any differing opinions / book counter-suggestions.

Since my heart is set on understanding gravity, I figure teaching
myself a chunk of quantum field theory would be a useful step. I need
to understand where both theories fail in order to understand how to
make them work - I hate taking for granted what I'm told about QFT's
failings.

----------
an imbecil parrot like you
will never learn something new
you was born a parrot

Y.Porat
----------------

On Jun 16, 9:24 pm, Eric Gisse wrote:


http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Field-...duction/dp/019...

I yoinked it from the library and have been learning a bit from it
since. My understanding of group theory has improved a fair bit.


It seems suited for my level of understanding, but I'm wondering if
any of you have any differing opinions / book counter-suggestions.


Since my heart is set on understanding gravity, I figure teaching
myself a chunk of quantum field theory would be a useful step. I need
to understand where both theories fail in order to understand how to
make them work - I hate taking for granted what I'm told about QFT's
failings.



Quantum field theory (QFT) provides a theoretical framework, widely
used in particle physics and condensed matter physics, but matter
cannot condense to an invariant Lorentz state since "someone"
disagrees that temperature cannot "also" be Lorentz invariant.

But if that someone believes temperature is not related to the
"condensed" matter then anything is possible including pink
elephants.

On Jun 16, 9:24 pm, Eric Gisse wrote:


http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Field-...duction/dp/019...

I yoinked it from the library and have been learning a bit from it
since. My understanding of group theory has improved a fair bit.


It seems suited for my level of understanding, but I'm wondering if
any of you have any differing opinions / book counter-suggestions.


Since my heart is set on understanding gravity, I figure teaching
myself a chunk of quantum field theory would be a useful step. I need
to understand where both theories fail in order to understand how to
make them work - I hate taking for granted what I'm told about QFT's
failings.



Quantum field theory (QFT) provides a theoretical framework, widely
used in particle physics and condensed matter physics, but matter
cannot condense to an invariant Lorentz state since "someone"
disagrees that temperature cannot "also" be Lorentz invariant.

But if that someone believes temperature is not related to the
"condensed" matter then anything is possible including pink
elephants.

Eric Gisse wrote:
Since my heart is set on understanding gravity, I figure teaching
myself a chunk of quantum field theory would be a useful step.

Good idea. Modern theoretical physics is an integrated whole, in that
the different theories like GR and QFT share a lot of common ideas and
techniques. But it is not fully integrated theoretically, as QFT and GR
are incommensurate. This is, of course, the major theoretical problem
facing physics today (most other problems, such as puzzles like dark
matter and dark energy, are directly related to it...).

Both GR and QFT are at base geometrical, but in different spaces and
with different properties. So, for example, the Lagrangians for both are
the scalar curvature of the appropriate space (integrated over the
corresponding volume form).

If you don't understand what I just said, worry not --
keep studying and at some point you'll have a big "AHA!"
moment when it all clicks together. But you must use
modern textbooks, and do the problems (one must "read with
pencil in hand" or pretty soon it just goes past you).


Tom Roberts

Tom Roberts wrote:
Eric Gisse wrote:
Since my heart is set on understanding gravity, I figure teaching
myself a chunk of quantum field theory would be a useful step.

Good idea. Modern theoretical physics is an integrated whole, in that
the different theories like GR and QFT share a lot of common ideas and
techniques. But it is not fully integrated theoretically, as QFT and GR
are incommensurate. This is, of course, the major theoretical problem
facing physics today (most other problems, such as puzzles like dark
matter and dark energy, are directly related to it...).

Both GR and QFT are at base geometrical, but in different spaces and
with different properties. So, for example, the Lagrangians for both are
the scalar curvature of the appropriate space (integrated over the
corresponding volume form).

If you don't understand what I just said, worry not --
keep studying and at some point you'll have a big "AHA!"

Points at which the zombie will have a big "AHA":

http://groups.google.ca/group/sci.ph...32844f0766cea?
Tom Roberts: "While the constancy of the speed of light was important
in the historical development of SR, I agree it has no logical place
as a postulate of SR. Einstein's second postulate can be replaced by
any of a number of suitable postulates, of which I like this one best:
There is a finite upper bound on the speed of propagation of
information."

Gisse: Big "AHA" and even "AHA" "AHA" "AHA"!

http://groups.google.ca/group/sci.ph...4dc146100e32c?
Tom Roberts: If it is ultimately discovered that the photon has a
nonzero mass (i.e. light in vacuum does not travel at the invariant
speed of the Lorentz transform), SR would be unaffected but both
Maxwell's equations and QED would be refuted (or rather, their domains
of applicability would be reduced).

Gisse: Big "AHA" and then "OHO" "OHOHO" "OHOHOHO"!

Tom Roberts wrote in sci.physics.relativity:
Pentcho Valev wrote:
CAN THE SPEED OF LIGHT EXCEED 300000 km/s IN A GRAVITATIONAL FIELD?
Sure, depending on the physical conditions of the measurement. It can
also be less than "300000 km/s" (by which I assume you really mean the
standard value for c). And this can happen even for an accelerated
observer in a region without any significant gravitation (e.g. in
Minkowski spacetime).
Tom Roberts

Gisse: Big "AHA" but then: "NO!"...."NO?"....."MASTER
ROBERTS?"....."MASTER ROBERTS THEREFORE YES!"...."YES YES YES!"

Pentcho Valev

Eric Gisse wrote:
http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Field-.../dp/0195091582

I yoinked it from the library and have been learning a bit from it
since. My understanding of group theory has improved a fair bit.

I tried to read this, and one day I may go back and try again. My
recollection is that it zooms from trivially simple to impenetrably
complex in the space of 2 pages. That, and Kaku has an overly high
opinion of himself- but that could be because this book came out around
the same time he was protesting the Cassini flyby.

--
Andrew Resnick, Ph.D.
Department of Physiology and Biophysics
Case Western Reserve University

On 2007-06-17, Eric Gisse wrote:
http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Field-.../dp/0195091582

I yoinked it from the library and have been learning a bit from it
since. My understanding of group theory has improved a fair bit.

It seems suited for my level of understanding, but I'm wondering if
any of you have any differing opinions / book counter-suggestions.

I have several suggestions.

(1) ``Geometry, Particles and Fields,'' Felsager, B.

This textbook would be ideal for you. It covers a wide variety
of topics from a modern perspective at a level you should find
comfortable. Topics include, field theory, gauge invariance,
differential geometry, differential forms and exterior calculus,
feynman path integrals, the wick rotation, the \phi^4 model, and
so on. There are also a lot of physical examples to illustrate the
topics. Group theory is not covered explicitly as a topic, but it
is developed as it is used. It also doesn't say much about second
quantization, but you can't have everything.

(2) ``Quantum Mechanics,'' Schiff, L.

The chapter entitled ``Symmetry in Quantum Mechanics,'' is all
about applying symmetry groups to quantum mechanics, (meaning
unitary groups). This is real useful for extracting the physics
from matrix elements of tensor operators (e.g., the wigner-eckart
theorem). The last couple of chapters are in an introduction to
the dirac and klein-gordon equations and a brief introduction
to second quantization. It might be out of print, but it ought
to be in any physics library. It's sort of a classic.

(3) ``Local Quantum Physics,'' Haag, R.

This is more advanced than the other two; it doesn't contain
any exercises, but it is not particularly difficult, either.
You might want to look at it before buying it.

I think you'll find the first item will keep you busy. But, there is at
least one (real) field theory textbook I am aware of that you can download
if you would like to plow ahead:

http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9912205v3

I haven't looked at it, but the author does that sort of thing for a job,
so it ought to be ok.

Since my heart is set on understanding gravity, I figure teaching
myself a chunk of quantum field theory would be a useful step. I need
to understand where both theories fail in order to understand how to
make them work

I realize this suggestion is going to appear less than exciting, but
getting a classical mechanics book and studying canonical transformations
and poisson brackets will make a lot of things in quantum field theory
appear more obvious than seeing the for the first time in the context of
quantum field theory.

- I hate taking for granted what I'm told about QFT's
failings.

At the moment, quantum field theory has no failings. At least not any real
ones, if by ``failings'' one means failing to predict the phenomena it
purports to describe. (Seriously - it predicts phenomena that no longer
occur anywhere in the universe other than the accelerator labs needed to
test the theory.) Basically, the only real ``failure'' of quantum field
theory is that experimentalists have failed to find any new phenomena that
would keep the theorists busy creating quantum field theories as
explanations,. One might consider this general lull in the experimental
action to indicate just how much quantum field theory has not failed.
Working better than anyone could have expected is usually a plus.

This is not to say that quantum field theory is perfect or even too good
to consider alternatives to replace it, but as imperfect and possibly wrong
theories go, it beats everything before it, or even on the horizon, hands
down.