The Theoretical Minimum: What You Need to Know to Start Doing Physics

The "Theorical Minimum" was the name of the exam that applicants had to pass in order to enter the theoretical physics department of the Kharkov Physicotechnical Institute headed by Lev Davidovich Landau. L. D. Landau, along with A.I. Kitaigorodskii, is also known to have written a serie of four great popular science books presenting general physics to young people, "Physics for everyone" (which happens to be the name of Leonard Susskind's blog too...). I'm wondering if "The Theoretical Minimum: what you need to know to start doing physics" couldn't be the first book of a follow-up to "Physics for everyone". I've studied physics in university but I've stopped before starting working on a PhD. That was more than ten years ago and I needed to earn a living but I still loved science especially physics. One day I've discovered the Leonard Susskind's Theoretical Minimum courses on Youtube and Itunes and I was litterally astonished by them as they are exactly what I was looking for: not courses for advanced undergraduate students, not popular science presentations devoid of any technicity (theoretical physics without maths is an empty shell: theoretical physics is about creating mathematical models of the physical world) but courses for people like me who knew some maths and physics at one point of their life and that want to learn the concepts of theoretical physics. Each course is made of about ten lectures, each lectures lasting about two hours. Watching these is quite time consuming and time is sparse if you have a job and a family. Also the courses were sometimes a little sketchy or not quite well organized (especially the first run... the second run is a lot better). The material simply had to be reworked and layed out on paper. George Hrabovsky felt these were necessary too so he contacted Leonard Susskind and voila, we now have a book, the first of a whole serie, the one about classical mechanics. I knew about some of the material in the book. In the quantum mechanics (QM) courses I followed I learned about least-action principle, Lagrangians, Hamiltonians (fundamental in QM) and Poisson brackets (their siblings, commutators, are also fundamental in QM). The problem is that these notions and their purpose didn't make sense to me. I wasn't told or I didn't have time to realize their conceptual power and that they could be used in classical mechanics: use of Lagrangian formalism to understand the double pendulum, use of Poisson brackets to determine the behavior of a charged rotor in a magnetic field. Also I wasn't told about Noether's theorem (relationship between symmetries and conserved quantities), Liouville's theorem (well perhaps in statistical mechanics... I'm not sure) or the importance of gauge fields (vector potential field is one) but that may be because I wasn't taught to be a theoricist. Here Leonard Susskind's a guide who shows us the elegance of all these concepts and prepares us to a voyage to quantum physics and field theories.The book shows the coherence of these concepts, it structures the reader's mind (if he makes the proper efforts by doing the exercises: doing exercises are necessary to learn and understand). George Hrabovsky brought us a great contribution by making the text more accessible (in the videos the student is assumed to know about calculus and general physics) and whipping out ambiguities. The book isn't entirely self-contained though (for example total differentials or Taylor series are used without these notions being introduced... just search "Taylor series" and "total derivative" in Wikipedia) but George will provide some support to the reader in his web site. Theoretical Minimum - Classical Mechanics isn't another popular science book. It's a book that you'll have to work through a bit but it's a book that will structure your perception of our physical world. This book is the first of a serie that could become somehow the theoretical physics equivalent of Feynman's Lectures. You won't become a theorical physicist just by working through this book and the ones that will follow (have a look at a Quantum Field Theory textbook and you'll see). However if you are interested in physics (not only theoretical) the book will tell you about the concepts used in physics, how physicists manipulate them, how physicists do math and what makes physicists tick. I really hope that this book will be translated in many languages.

I was a biology major as an undergraduate and was required to take general physics with lab. Upon graduation I enrolled in a Masters program in physiology and was shocked at the math and physics details of some of the topics! It was necessary to relearn and integrate topics of chemistry, mathematics, and physics; a very humbling endeavor! I had to do this mostly on my own! With much persistence I successfully completed the Masters program. The Masters program cast me into an unexpected world of integrated topics where mathematics, chemistry, and physics were interacting with each other in ways that were not apparent, to me, as an undergraduate. At this point I decided to pursue the Doctorate in the area of Molecular Biology and landed in a Chemistry Department in which my thesis advisor was a Physical Chemist during research on the solution conformations of protein molecules! The demands of mathematics, physics, chemistry, and their interrelationships reached a peak! I was panic-stricken but persisted by accepting the theories and their applications by mostly cobbling together the literature and relying on careful experimentation and data analysis! During this time it was possible for me to look at much of the classic work that had been done involving different formulations and the interrelationships of the chemistry, mathematics, and physics as applied in the world of macromolecules! Again I was successful in completing the program and received the degree; but there was always something missing! The thing that was missing, for me, is found in the book The Theoretical Minimum: What You Need to Know to Start Doing Physics by Leonard Susskind. Unfortunately for me, this is years after struggling with the more general formulations of Physic mostly on my own. The reason that this book is appealing is that it introduces material that is found in treatises written at a more advanced level in the space of a few pages and includes tractable exercises. However, one should not assume that no effort is required! The book will require some familiarity with math and physics which the author introduces throughout the book. The reward at the end of the book is an appreciation of the more general formulations of classical physics which are invaluable to physical scientists in general. You end up being in a better position to interpret later, the atomic and/or molecular nature of current physical science research and the associated technology. Yes there are errors in the original publication; many of which would not be easily recognized. However, there is an errata which can be downloaded. I made the indicated corrections which fall in both the major and minor categories. After reading and doing some of the more challenging exercises in this relatively brief book, I thumbed through some of the books that use the methods found in Susskind's book. The time spent reading Susskind's book is worth the effort! The criticism can be made that the book doesn't include the modern Quantum Physics that followed Classical Physics! This point should not be dismissed. However, one should not forget that the formulation of Quantum Physics is couched in the Hamiltonian and Lagrangian formulations of Classical Physics. The Hamiltonian formulation of Classical Physics is key to the formulation of the modern Quantum Physics and should not be taken lightly. The book by Susskind gives one a head start in absorbing the more abstract concepts of Quantum Physics! If you are interested in the classical concepts of energy and their formulations in the Quantum World, this book is worth considering! Additional good news: A Quantum Mechanics Volume, by the author, is in the works and scheduled to be released in early 2014.

Best book on physics insights.

Ausgezeichnete populär wissenschaftliche Physik Literatur, die zudem spannend geschrieben ist, gibt es zur Genüge; allerdings passen diese Bücher naturgemäß, wenn es um Details moderner physikalischer Theorie geht, bestenfalls werden Aphorismen bemüht, wie das berühmte Gummituch auf dem ein schwere Kugel ruht, um die Raum-Zeit Krümmung nach der Relativitätstheorie zu veranschaulichen. Das kann auf die Dauer unbefriedigend werden; diese Erfahrung teilen offenbar auch andere; jedenfalls gibt es da zum Beispiel das Continuing Studies Program der Stanford Universität, das interessierten Nichtakademikern die Gelegenheit bietet, spezielle Kurse zu hören, die aber durchaus akademischen Ansprüchen genügen. Diese Kurse wenden sich unter anderem an all jene, die bereits einmal ein Studium absolviert haben, dann diverse Jobs ausgeübt haben, um am Ende wieder den faustischen Drang zu verspüren, zu hören “...was die Welt im innersten zusammenhält...“. Leonard Susskind hält in diesem Rahmen seit 2011 Vorlesungen zur Theoretischen Physik und ist von diesen 'Studenten' regelrecht begeistert, denn ihr Interesse gilt nicht Kursnoten oder Prüfungszulassungen, sondern allein dem Verständnis des Themas. Auf Grund dieses Erfolgs und vieler Anfragen, die Susskind per email erreichten, hat er nun gemeinsam mit George Hrabovsky beschlossen, die Vorlesungen in Buchform zu veröffentlichen. Der Titel 'The Theoretical Minimum' hat seine eigene Geschichte, er bezieht sich auf das 10 bändige“Lehrbuch der theoretischen Physik“ von Lew D. Landau und E.M. Lifschitz; der Geschichte zufolge war Landau ein prätentiöser Physiker, der nur 'Kandidaten' in seinem Seminar zuließ, die ein gewisses 'Theoretisches Minimum' beherrschten, um festzulegen, was dieses umfassen sollte, wurde das erwähnte Lehrbuchwerk verfasst; allerdings sind diese Bände extrem anspruchsvoll, sie sind eine regelrechte Summa aller Methoden der Theoretischen Physik der 50iger Jahre. Demgegenüber ist Leonard Susskinds 'Theoretical Minimum' ein recht freundliches Werk, in dem in knapper Form das Wissen zusammengefasst wird, das notwendig ist, um modernen Physik – as is – verstehen zu können. Der vorliegende (erste) Band enthält 11 Vorlesung zur Klassischen Mechanik, es umfasst die übliche Newtonsche Mechanik, genauso wie die Lagrangesche Formulierung, der Behandlung von Erhaltungsgrößen und ihre Relation zu Symmetrien, sowie der Hamiltonischen Formulierung der analytischen Mechanik. Eingeflochten in den Text sind mathematisch 'Auffrischungen' zum Thema Vektoren, Differentiale einer und mehrerer Variablen, sowie Integrale. Das Bändchen ist wahres Vergnügen. Die Themen werden flüssige, mit der notwendigen Strenge und Korrektheit, aber ohne unnötiges formales Beiwerk, abgehandelt. Die Darstellung ist originär und atmet den Geist eines großen Physikers. Die Susskind Vorlesungen wurden auch als Videostream ([...]) aufgezeichnet, so dass man die Buch- Kapitel mit den Vorlesungen vergleichen kann, die sich gegenseitig tragen, da die Darstellung – entsprechend dem Medium – variieren und sich so gegenseitig ergänzen. Der bisherige Erfolg berechtigt zu der Hoffnung, dass auch die weitere Kurse (Quanten Mechanik, Relativitätstheorie etc.) und Buchform erscheinen werden.

An excellent readable account of all that a student of physics would expect from Leonard Susskind, an eminent physicist. The author explains and gives credit of the title of his book to the famous Russian physicist, Lev Landau. Theoretical Minimum "in Russia meant everything a student needed to know to work under Landau himself". The mathematical content gradually becomes demanding and assumes a level that is beyond the first year undergraduate level. Susskind, however, is most adept at explaining new mathematical concepts, and deals with partial derivatives and axiomatic treatment of mechanics which would greatly benefit a second year university student of single honours in physics. Susskind finally introduces Lagrangian and Hamilton's Principle of Least Action, and demonstrates how Newton's Laws of Motion could be derived from concepts of energy and action, and explains how the Law of Conservation of Energy could be derived from the Lagrangian of a system. In the final chapters of the book, Susskind introduces Poisson Brackets and prepares ground for his next book, Quantum Mechanics - The Theoretical Minimum.

Il libro è bellissimo, sia per l'approccio progressivamente più intrigante e challenging, che per i contenuti. I primi capitoli sembrano sin troppo banali. Poi però va avanti con semplicità su argomenti di fisica teorica fondamentali. Ti guida a capire che tutte le forze dalla gravitazione alle interazioni tra particelle, e qualsiasi forma di energia, anche termica o magnetica, alla fine sono descrivibili con una semplice forma in termini solo di energia cinetica e potenziale. Meccanica classica pura, ovunque. Resta fuori la meccanica quantistica, che credo sia parte di un altro libro. Io sono ingegnere meccanici e certe cose un po' le conosco, ma la fisica teorica è un'altra cosa e x me i contenuti del libro rappresentano una novità per la gran parte. Poi la fisica così spiegata con leggerezza e profondità allo stesso tempo è senz'altro intrigante

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