Page 1 of 1

Math for Physics Graduate Students

Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2008 7:51 pm
by naseermk
I found an interesting link by a Postdoctoral fellow in HEP titled 'A Mathematics Primer for Physics Graduate Students.'

The notes can be accessed at:

http://www.pha.jhu.edu/~blechman/papers/mpri.pdf

Pls post a comment if you find any problems / how helpful it is.

Re: Math for Physics Graduate Students

Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2008 1:02 pm
by twistor
I have skimmed it and it seems reasonably readable, however I won't know for sure until I actually try to read it. Hopefully, being that it is written by a post-doc and not a professor, it will be less abstruse than most of the documents out there that cover the same subject areas. It's hard to find decent introductory material to advanced topics.

Re: Math for Physics Graduate Students

Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2008 2:02 pm
by quizivex
Thanks for the link. I only skimmed it too... but just based on the content I see it may be very useful to read later. I never saw tensors in undergrad. And apparently they're not just any old matrix as I first thought so I may end up printing out this document. The undergrad texts and profs have done a terrible job of preparing us IMO.

Re: Math for Physics Graduate Students

Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2008 2:23 pm
by Velocitaneous
Agreed. Even if you're a math + physics major, you may not be COMPLETELY prepared unless you are willing to learn a bit above the required (Lie algebras and differential geometry aren't necessarily covered, I think?)

Re: Math for Physics Graduate Students

Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2008 2:43 pm
by YF17A
This is a really excellent review. I'm starting a math/phys seminar at my school to try to get the physics students exposed to this kind of stuff, and this is exactly the kind of thing I had in mind. Thanks for finding this!