Favourite physics books or topics? What are you studying currently?

jeff

I'm asking because I'm trying to get a feel for this forum.

marcus

This is a good way, I agree, to get an idea of the interests of those who respond. I am reading several papers on cosmology.

Such as 2002 survey article by Michael Turner
http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/astro-p...02/0202008.pdf
I think this is especially good. And articles in his bibliography.

I also return repeatedly to Ned Wright's tutorial, for example to:
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmo_03.htm
which has a picture of the critical-density-case lightcone.
I want to understand the shape, in the spacetime diagram,
of the lightcone---under various assumptions about expansion.

hmm, I have computer trouble and must take time out.
Anyway that is an indicative sample, or at least part of one.

I hope some others, if they respond, include the URLs of
favorite reading, if it is online. Always like to hear about interesting stuff online.

jeff

Okay, since nobody is responding...

Of the most advanced physics texts I've made a comprehensive and careful study of, my favourites are wald's "general relativity" and "quantum field theory in curved spacetime and black hole thermodynamics", Hawking and Ellis's "the large scale structure of space-time", weinberg's "the quantum theory of fields I, II, III", polchinski's "string theory I, II", and peacock's "cosmological physics".

I also enjoyed Cao's "conceptual developments of 20th century field theories", schweber's "QED and the men who made it", and pais's "subtle is the lord, the science and the life of albert einstein".

Physics books on the nontechnical level I enjoyed are smolin's "three roads to quantum gravity", and kip thorne's "black holes and time warps, einstein's outrageous legacy".

Mentat

While I really like the idea of this thread, it should probably be in the General Discussion Forum.

maximus

i'm currently reading Order and Chaos: the laws of energy and entropy (thermodynamics)but if you're looking for some good ones to get a sense of stuff try a Brief History of Time.

ArmedJimmy

I'm not really into reading really heavy physics books, I like to relax while I'm reading, and TBH I'm quite a beginner when it comes to all this physics stuff, other that the stuff I got a few years ago at school.

Anyways I'm reading About Time:Einstiens Unfinished Revolution by Paul Davies.
I actually just finsihed reading How to build a time machine by the same author and now all my friends are borrowing it [s(]

The concepts in About Time aren't startlingly new to me, but it hasn't half helped concrete some things I was unsure about.