Good universities for mathematical physics

[PabloAMC]

Hi,
I would like to know what universities are good at Mathematical Physics for pursuing masters/phds, both in America and Europe.
Thanks in advance

 

[pasmith]

Cambridge

 

[PabloAMC]

Cambridge

Well, thanks. Anyway I was asking for not-so-obvious places?. Or do you mean that Cambridge is specially good in mathematical physics compared with the level of their other fields?

 

[Larry Gopnik]

Honestly, if you want ideas then you're going to have to narrow your ideas down. You ask for America and Europe - there are hundreds and hundreds of good universities. WHat is it you exactly want to go into when it comes to Mathematical Physics?

 

[PabloAMC]

Honestly, if you want ideas then you're going to have to narrow your ideas down. You ask for America and Europe - there are hundreds and hundreds of good universities. WHat is it you exactly want to go into when it comes to Mathematical Physics?

I would really like to go into a research career, either in an university or research institution. I mean, in general I would like doing research at this field and I would be happy if being able to do a living of it. But I think it could help achiving this if I chose a good university to start

 

[Larry Gopnik]

No. I mean what topic? What topic grabbed/grabs you as an undergraduate? When you're going through ArXiv or wherever you read the latest papers from, what sparks your imagination and interest? Most of the upper to middle band universities with a Physics department do Mathematical Physics of sorts. Think of someway to narrow down your search.

This is how I've cut down my decisions, I'm not sure if it'll be usful to you but I'll give it a shot -

1) I'm British, I speak English fluently so can pretty much go anywhere in the world so that doesn't help the cutting down of where I want to go
2) I speak Yiddish fluently, therefore I can understand Germanic languages very well and can pick them up with ease - therefore I will be comfortable living in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Holland etc so I look at unviversities in those areas. I also speak Danish relativily well so I'd be okay with going to a Nordic country.I am bad with Romance and Cyrillic languages so therefore those countries are out - they may have good universities - but not being able to deal in the language means I will find it difficult to live there, even if my working environment is in English.
3) I know what sort of Physics I want to go into, so I have manually gone through a list of about 150 universities, (I made a spreadsheet from trawling through the internet) and have seen if they offer this sort of research of which I want to do, if not - cross them off the list
4) What sort of connections do these universities have to other Unis and institutions? Are they a member of certain international research groups?
5) How is the department? Is it more laid-back, is it more relaxed (in terms of Hierachy - not research) or is it more full on?
6) Look at the indiviual researchers in the department you want to go, are there any possible supervisors there?
7) Pay, scholarships, money - a big one. What do they offer PhD students financial wise?

 

[PabloAMC]

From Physics I have most enjoyed classic and quantum mechanics, and general relativity, and from the few courses of mathematics I got, my favourite was tensorial algebra, I really liked it.

This is how I've cut down my decisions, I'm not sure if it'll be usful to you but I'll give it a shot -

1) I'm British, I speak English fluently so can pretty much go anywhere in the world so that doesn't help the cutting down of where I want to go
2) I speak Yiddish fluently, therefore I can understand Germanic languages very well and can pick them up with ease - therefore I will be comfortable living in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Holland etc so I look at unviversities in those areas. I also speak Danish relativily well so I'd be okay with going to a Nordic country.I am bad with Romance and Cyrillic languages so therefore those countries are out - they may have good universities - but not being able to deal in the language means I will find it difficult to live there, even if my working environment is in English.
3) I know what sort of Physics I want to go into, so I have manually gone through a list of about 150 universities, (I made a spreadsheet from trawling through the internet) and have seen if they offer this sort of research of which I want to do, if not - cross them off the list
4) What sort of connections do these universities have to other Unis and institutions? Are they a member of certain international research groups?
5) How is the department? Is it more laid-back, is it more relaxed (in terms of Hierachy - not research) or is it more full on?
6) Look at the indiviual researchers in the department you want to go, are there any possible supervisors there?
7) Pay, scholarships, money - a big one. What do they offer PhD students financial wise?

This seems very interesting, really. I will follow the recomendations. It is a great advice
Thanks a lot