Am I going in the wrong direction

[shounakbhatta]

Hello All,


I am a self learner. Since my childhood days I was fascinated with physics, relativity, quantum physics. I started reading some popular science books and then found that without a background of mathematics it is all unrevealed romanticism. Let me tell you frankly, I am a commerce graduate and my profession is online business. I started learning on my own calculus, linear algebra, a bit of topology, complex number and formal logic.

As time passed away, Internet and other resources came. I started watching a lot of videos of MIT, Dr.Susskind and other things which are minimal mathematics and not into core mathematical procedure for explaining thoughts. I also learned GRAVITY by Hartle and still venturing into Maxwell's equation and Tensor analysis.

BUT STILL WHILE READING STRING THEORY AND QUANTUM FIELD THEORIES, ALL THOSE SIGNS LOOK GREEK TO ME.

Am I going in a wrong way? What else is required for a better understanding? I understand that there are 3 cornerstones of physics which needs to be mastered before going to the advanced level:

(1) Classical Mechanics
(2) Relativity (Sp./Gen.)
(3) Quantum physics
(4) QFT
(5) String theory

But if I take, say General relativity, it is so much detailed, that going deep and deeper, there is no time to look into other subjects.

I get lost.

Can anyone guide me?

Thanks.

 

[Doug Huffman]

Welcome to the dilettante's dilemma. Read Lee Smolin, Nassim Taleb, Karl Popper. Your list of three cornerstones has five elements. Namaste.