Undergrad Energy-Momentum Tensor: How Much Do University Students Learn?

[kent davidge]

There are plentty of textbooks and online papers that talk about the energy momentum tensor, but they all look to me as if they're only covering the very introductory aspects of it. To put another way, it seems that there's much more to be learn.

I would like to know if university physics students are taught a lot more about the energy momentum tensor than one can find in the textbooks? I mean, I would want to know whether they have detailed disscusions about it in a physics course in the uni.

I am myself an undergrad physics student, but we have not even had special relativity classes as of yet.

From my own experience, for example in introductory linear algebra (aka matrices) we are required to know more than what's covered in textbooks, because our exams are very hard, and we won't pass them otherwise. Therefore we end up with a much more deeper knowledge compared to someone who taught himself this only by reading textbooks.

Does the same thing happens regarding the EM tensor?

 

[martinbn]

Just to understand what you mean by more than what's in the textbooks, can you give examples from your linear algebra course of things you learned in lectures that cannot be found in the textbooks?

 

[kent davidge]

You are given some very difficult problems involving matrices or vector spaces to solve. You need to memorize things such as properties of determinants and operations with matrices.

Textbooks don't treat these very much.

 

[vanhees71]

These exercises are an integral part of the material to be learnt. It's as important for a physicist to learn both the concepts and then do tons of problems to be able to solve concrete problems.

It depends a bit on the professor who teaches electromagnetism. Many teach it in the conventional non-relativistic way and mention the covariant formalism only at the very end. That's why usually one learns about the energy density, the Poynting vector, and Maxwell stresses without ever being told that all together are just components of the energy-momentum tensor of the em. field. Also usually in em. textbooks is more material than can be covered in a one-semester lecture.