The discussion centers around self-education in quantum mechanics and various theories of time. Participants share recommendations for foundational texts in quantum mechanics and express differing views on the nature and understanding of time, including its philosophical implications and its treatment in physics.
Participants express a range of opinions on the nature of time, with some emphasizing its philosophical aspects while others focus on its physical interpretations. There is no consensus on a single book that comprehensively covers all theories of time, and multiple competing views on the subject remain present.
Participants note that discussions about the nature of time may involve complex philosophical considerations, and some of the proposed texts may be too advanced for beginners. There are also references to specific theories and concepts that may require further clarification or exploration.
thank you , for your inputDoug Huffman said:LOL You must do a literature search first, to learn that there is no such one book of all theories of time. For QM fundamentals, I recommend Bram Gaasbeek's 2010 An Introduction to Quantum Mechanics. Its cost/benefit ratio is undefined for being free at
http://arxiv.org/abs/1007.4184
An Introductory Course on Quantum Mechanics
Bram Gaasbeek
(Submitted on 23 Jul 2010)
This is a very gentle introductory course on quantum mechanics aimed at the first years of the undergraduate level. The basic concepts are introduced, with many applications and illustrations. Contains 12 short chapters of equal length, ideal for a one term course. The license allows reuse of figures and text under the Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike conditions.
Comments: 204 pages, 65 figures
Len hakureu said:PS what i meant by "book covering all theories of time" was
a book that gives a basic idea in what time is , how time flows ,and the nature of time ( particle / predetermined flow / time thread )
i.e A theories and B theories of time
thank you sooo much for your input.moriheru said:I would recommend you you read Leonnard susskinds Theoretical minimum (QM) edition. He doesn't explain things in great detail but he introduces you to the basic stuff like harmonic oscillators and Heisenbergs uncertainty principle, he also has several lectures on the homepage of stanford university.
From then on I would recommend you read QM for dummies,yes I know doesn't sound challengeing or inpressive but it requires 1 year of QM at UNiversity,yet with susskind you shall survive and they really go into detail and they introduce you to the reall hardcore stuff like legendre polynomials hermite polynomials(ok, that is not really hardcore) and so on. They also show you how to use the stuff with examples. From then on you can read some lectures for instance by Paul dirac they are pritty easy. And if you are interested in Feynman diagramms and that stuff I would recommend Feynman diagramms in Manybody problem the appendices also give a brief intorduction to Dirac notation and son on (yet I would say you get the second edition) and the critics are really different, some say it's challenging and some don't. I hope that helps, if you have more questions maby, I shll try and help.
yep . i do know that . but i was expecting , some detailing on time wrt , relativity theory , dimensions , string theory , time as a particle , time as a pre-determined path that repeats itself no matter what , time as a thread that forms and branches based on possible choices ect ect ..jtbell said:Be forewarned: stuff about the "nature of time" is much more likely to be philosophy than physics.
thank you .atyy said:In Newtonian physics and special relativity, the equations are usually have a special simple form. The theories assert that we can choose time so that the laws of physics have this special simple form. So time is simply what makes the laws of physics true globally. This time is called coordinate time and is associated with the notion of a global inertial frame.
Special relativity has another notion of time called proper time. An atomic clock carried by each person reads the amount of proper time that has elapsed between two events. Proper time is personal, since it is different for each person.
These are probably too advanced, but you can keep them in mind.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521010691/?tag=pfamazon01-20
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521003970/?tag=pfamazon01-20
(Submitted on 31 Oct 2013)
Two people may claim both to be naturalists, but have divergent conceptions of basic elements of the natural world which lead them to mean different things when they talk about laws of nature, or states, or the role of mathematics in physics. These disagreements do not much affect the ordinary practice of science which is about small subsystems of the universe, described or explained against a background, idealized to be fixed. But these issues become crucial when we consider including the whole universe within our system, for then there is no fixed background to reference observables to. I argue here that the key issue responsible for divergent versions of naturalism and divergent approaches to cosmology is the conception of time. One version, which I call temporal naturalism, holds that time, in the sense of the succession of present moments, is real, and that laws of nature evolve in that time. This is contrasted with timeless naturalism, which holds that laws are immutable and the present moment and its passage are illusions. I argue that temporal naturalism is empirically more adequate than the alternatives, because it offers testable explanations for puzzles its rivals cannot address, and is likely a better basis for solving major puzzles that presently face cosmology and physics.
This essay also addresses the problem of qualia and experience within naturalism and argues that only temporal naturalism can make a place for qualia as intrinsic qualities of matter.
Subjects: History and Philosophy of Physics (physics.hist-ph)
Cite as: arXiv:1310.8539 [physics.hist-ph]
(or arXiv:1310.8539v1 [physics.hist-ph] for this version)
Submission history
From: Lee Smolin [view email]
[v1] Thu, 31 Oct 2013 15:08:28 GMT (38kb)
jtbell said:Be forewarned: stuff about the "nature of time" is much more likely to be philosophy than physics.
I am guessing that was sarcasm?!Len hakureu said:thank you sooo much for your input.
that ayn't a sarcasm , every single response is help full ,moriheru said:I am guessing that was sarcasm?!
BTW you should read up on Maxwell equations if you read Dirac(the lectrues 1-4 aren't that hard to understand and they are really cheap depending on the country in that you live).
thank you so much ,atyy said:To the OP: Some discussions on the more philosophical and speculative side, but originating from quantum physics are found in
https://www.amazon.com/dp/3540610499/?tag=pfamazon01-20 (see the chapter on "The Evolutionary Picture")
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0199546967/?tag=pfamazon01-20
The problems discussed there come from the notion of "collapse of the wave function", which is part of the quantum formalism and represents irreversible evolution in some sense. But we don't really understand what this "in some sense" means, since the wave function is usually not considered real, and it is just a tool to calculate probabilities of events.
Before reading the Haag's and Wallace's book, you should master quantum mechanics at the level in the introduction linked to by Doug in post #2, and also read another article by Braam Gaasbeek http://arxiv.org/abs/1007.3977
Len hakureu said:PS what i meant by "book covering all theories of time" was
a book that gives a basic idea in what time is , how time flows ,and the nature of time ( particle / predetermined flow / time thread )
i.e A theories and B theories of time
I belong to " THE EASTS " , neither am i from US , nor my mother tongue is English .moriheru said:It was a guess as most of the members are from the US and you speak english it was logical.