Originally posted by JazzyJAC
I have my bachelors in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell and have taken three semesters of Physics. I have a good knowledge up to the subject of basic quantum physics.
you say basic quantum mechanics. i m not sure how basic is basic, but before you go on to more theoretical stuff, you should be feeling pretty comfortable with a book like Shankar or Sakurai.
and if you know quantum mechanics, your next step is quantum field theory, and general relativity.
for an easier book in quantum field theory, i suggest Greiner and Reinhardt. for a slightly more advanced book but still very well suited to self study, i suggest this new book by Zee. i read a few chapters in a bookstore, and it was kind of nifty.
Ryder is a serious book, and Weinberg is the bible.
for GR, i think a nice easier book is Hartle, but the nicest book available is probably Wald.
then after that, i guess you want to start on string theory, since you posted in this string theory forum. well i would suggest getting both Green Schwarz and Witten, and Polchinski. GSW is easier to read (in my opinion), but polchinski is more modern. Clifford Johnson has a great book on D-branes. you might also like to have a suppliment a book on conformal field theory. for that, i suggest Di Francesco.
after that, there aren t really many more textbooks, you should just do all your reading on the archiv.
by the way, i have made no mention of the math you have to know to learn all that physics. how much math do you know?
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