Recent content by Kitaev_Model

That's a tough one, but if necessary, simply change who you hang out with.

Yes, my new academic counsellor (I was too proud, too bull-headed, and too stupid to ask for any help from anybody as an undergraduate, which was a serious mistake) and I are trying to devise ways of me getting uninterrupted sleep. I think I might just have found a formula. I've noticed my...

OK. This kind of confirms my latent opinion. I was able to understand topological order and the FQHE in grad level Solid State physics last year without a topology or real analysis class, so I guess I should be fine.

Yeah, I've noticed that, and it's why I'm asking. Again, I'm not looking to become a mathematician, what I am looking to do is to be able to understand others work and if I desire, work in the field. I've gotten different answers from different people even after talking about my specific...

So, I am an incoming MS student interested in going into condensed matter theory. I have always been more comfortable running C++ or FORTRAN simulations or crunching contour integrals than doing math proofs. I only gained the interest in CMT relatively late in my undergraduate career when I...

Yeah, that's me. One day I can stay up all night learning about topology in condensed matter physics, not get any sleep, the next day I'll spend goofing off on the Internet or doing meaningless coding, and I just get so hyperfocused on that... That's part of what I'm trying to solve now...

Speaking as someone who really let the situation degenerate, it is far from too late, but you need to turn it around *now*. Plenty of people goof up when they are 18 and it has no bearing on your capability to be a successful physicist. It is what you do in response to your failure that counts...

Words cannot describe how depressing this kind of question is for people like me with horrible GPAs. You'll be *fine*. The top schools are a crapshoot for everybody, but you have as a good a chance as any. If you don't get into them, you'll get in somewhere good. Leave the depression to those...

OK, everybody, thanks for your advice. I am not thrilled about the idea of spending money on another textbook, but it might be for the best. I wonder if this will be the start of getting the whole series over the years... The professor is surprise, surprise, Russian. I've heard that the course...

Hello, PF, I'm going to be taking graduate CM next semester and the professor uses Landau's textbook instead of Goldstein, which I take is the usual text. What are the appreciable differences between the books and what kind of math will be needed? I have the basics-complex analysis, linear...

If Sakurai might as well be written in Vietnamese for you, as it probably would be if you haven't done a graduate level QM class, I wouldn't recommend it. Otherwise, have at it, but it will take *dedication* to master QFT. This is not an easy subject. However, that might not be what you are...

Hello, I am a 21 year old recent physics graduate somewhere in the USA. My ultimate goal is to go into research in condensed matter theory or computation. Last year I took two graduate level courses in solid state physics and I did some "research" (I learned a lot, but no results) in it. I...