Are Lecture Notes Useful for studying?

[athrun200]

One day I borrowed a book published by Springer (For learning Mechanics). I find it very difficult to follow. Later, I discover that it is in fact Lecture Notes. I am only a yr 1 physics student, but I want to explore as many area in physics as I can.
My question is, are Lecture Notes such as Springer suitable for me?

https://www.amazon.com/Topology-Geometry-Gauge-fields-Foundations/dp/1441972536/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1322839400&sr=1-1&tag=vglnk-c905-20

 

[Clever-Name]

This textbook that you're referring to is an upper-year or even graduate level text on mechanics.

"classical gauge theory of physics with the topological and geometrical concepts that became the mathematical models of these notions",

" the book offers an excursion that begins with the definition of a topological space and finds its way eventually to the moduli space of anti-self-dual SU(2) connections on S4 with instanton number -1."

I haven't read this text myself but from that description alone it tells me this is definitely not a 1st year text.

This is DEFINITELY not suited to your current level.

Get Halliday & Resnick or even Sears & Zemansky to start with.

 

[deluks917]

I don't think you are going to be able to read that book at your level unfortunately. I think many "lecture notes" will be readable but those assume too much background.

 

[dextercioby]

Who reccomended this book to you ? The Lecture Notes series from Springer is not for class study, the books are tipically ment for graduate and PhD study.

 

[D H]

There is, however, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, that is quite applicable.

 

[athrun200]

Who reccomended this book to you ? The Lecture Notes series from Springer is not for class study, the books are tipically ment for graduate and PhD study.

I read a book call "Why Beauty is Truth", which talks about the history of physics and maths. I find that in the recent year, physics involve a lot of group theory and topology, therefore, I am interested in what is group theory and topology. But I don't know where can I start.

Are there any books suitable for me? (I mean to learn about group theory, books which are really easy to understand)

 

[athrun200]

This textbook that you're referring to is an upper-year or even graduate level text on mechanics.


I haven't read this text myself but from that description alone it tells me this is definitely not a 1st year text.

This is DEFINITELY not suited to your current level.

Get Halliday & Resnick or even Sears & Zemansky to start with.

I form a physics group with 3 other students, they are all physics lover. With our group work, we finish Special Relativity and now we are working on Lagrangian mechanics (studying very basic equations).

One day I introduce them the terms group theory and topology, they are all very excited. So can you recommend some books about group theory and topology that can cure our hunger?

 

[deluks917]

https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Classical-Mechanics-Graduate-Mathematics/dp/0387968903

This book is only somewhat about topology and group theory but it is very beautiful and I actually recommend you finish a bit more Clasical Mechanics before moving on (you say you are studying lagrangian mechanics now). If you guys are advanced I actually think your first book is fine. I think you just need to study a little more physics before reading it. I really think you should study more Quantum and classical mechanics to understand gauge theory.

 

[homeomorphic]

Group theory and topology are big subjects.

For group theory, you might try A Book of Abstract Algebra by Charles C. Pinter, Symmetry by Hermann Weyl, Galois Theory by Ian Stewart, or Groups and their Graphs by Magnus and Grossman.

Although I am a topologist, I don't really know what the good books are for beginners, since I came at it from a traditional math major's approach, starting with real analysis, and then learning point-set from Munkres Topology.

Maybe you could try Intuitive Topology by Prasolov.