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magicfountain
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When is the first time a student of physics works with Einsteins field equation and does Friedmann cosmology?
magicfountain said:When is the first time a student of physics works with Einsteins field equation and does Friedmann cosmology?
TheEtherWind said:It's a shame that, at least intro, GR isn't typically required at the undergrad level...
bcrowell said:One of the great things about majoring in physics is that the number of units of required courses is relatively small (compared to, e.g., engineering or music), so you can get a real liberal arts education. I'd hate to see that changed by throwing in more requirements.
soothsayer said:Where did you major in physics? I have to take a fifth year! (granted, only part of it, but still.)
bcrowell said:Berkeley. I'm not saying it's an easy or low-unit major, but it does require far fewer units than engineering or music.
GRstudent said:they have practically very few real-life applications.
* GR is essential in making GPS work;
These skills are not so crucial for most engineers. I doubt that average Engineer needs geometry of neutron stars or black holes to do his job. GR is purely theoretical insight--no more than that.* GR is essential in understanding cosmology;
* GR is essential in understanding neutron stars and black holes.
GRstudent said:Special Relativity is used in GPS making.
GRstudent said:The speed of a satellite is ~4km/sec so it has some time dilation.
GRstudent said:These skills are not so crucial for most engineers. I doubt that average Engineer needs geometry of neutron stars or black holes to do his job.
GRstudent said:GR is purely theoretical insight--no more than that.
There are a lot of working scientists who deal with neutron stars and black holes, and cosmology.
Most engineers do not need any modern physics, classical mechanics is a good approximation in most applications.These skills are not so crucial for most engineers. I doubt that average Engineer needs geometry of neutron stars or black holes to do his job. GR is purely theoretical insight--no more than that.
GRstudent said:I highly doubt that there are more neutron star and black hole physicists in the world than there are Engineers.
GRstudent said:I don't think that many students would do arduous work for relatively low salary.
mfb said:While effects of GR are relevant for GPS, the system could work without knowledge of the theory, too: With classical mechanics, you could simply observe the frequency shift, and correct for it.
mfb said:Most engineers do not need any modern physics, classical mechanics is a good approximation in most applications.
mfb said:Usually, it is not required, but it is one of the two fundamental theories of modern physics. It is my personal opinion, but I think without GR, you are missing something.
there's really no barrier.
GRstudent said:Tensors and Differential Geometry is the main obstacle to me (and to many other students as well, I am sure). The problem is that nowhere is given a clear (in normal simple language) and explanation of GR ( in particular, Einstein Field Equations). I as a beginner, can only see the a lot of complicated formulas which are not accompanied by conventional thinking. For example, Walter Lewin's lectures; when he talked about Mechanics he made me "see through equations"; not just stare at them as I do now; but to really understand the logic.
Nabeshin said:This. Restricting the discussion to only physicists (i.e. not engineers), it seems ridiculous to have someone not learn ANY GR. With the pedagogy of Hartle, you can tackle the subject easily in 3rd year of undergraduate or earlier, with no more difficulty than an upper division classical mechanics course. So in terms of educational difficulty, there's really no barrier.
WannabeNewton said:Well you're also comparing, at the level of Lewin, a theory based on a very simple set of DEs to the EFEs which are non - linear and MUCH more complicated in terms of the entities involved. Things aren't going to be as "visual" per say. But GR does have a very clear and incredibly elegant explanation with its formulation using riemannian manifolds. Many textbooks explain it well; Hartle's text was mentioned above and my personal favorite, Carroll's text.
WannabeNewton said:Funny you should say that because I have seen many unis where a very good amount of general relativity is added on to the intermediate classical mechanics classes (the Taylor level ones).
Nabeshin said:Also the tensor issue is something a student shouldn't really have -- they should encounter these objects already in upper division E&M and classical mechanics courses, although perhaps not quite so many of them. It's perhaps frustrating algebraically, similar to keeping track of minus signs, but really shouldn't impede the understanding very much.