How to combine studying physics with a life?

[jordi]

I am in my forties, with a child and a firm to run (little to do with physics). I have a degree in physics, and a MSc in high energy physics (QFT, a bit of string theory, etc.). I did not continue with an academic career, though.

Now I feel I want to have, as a goal for the rest of my life, to understand physics "well" (QFT, GR, condensed matter ...).

I want to use a (very) limited amount of time to do that, since my life is "more important" than studying physics. But I want to devote some time (different from zero) to it. In the end, a bit of time here, a bit of time there, it makes a considerable amount of time, if done "long enough". My time budget is say 20, maximum 25, years.

The problem I find is that when I start thinking about physics, my conscience of time goes away. It is difficult for me to say: now I have 30 minutes or an hour. Work hard during this time, and then stop. If I start thinking, it is hard mentally to stop. But I cannot devote so much time to it.

Is there a psychological, practical technique to be able to control the time to such mind-absorbing tasks? In fact, it seems likely professional physicists have the same troubles as me, since I assume they cannot devote all their time to study.

As a background for my ultimate goal, what I would like is to "solve problems", and then write the solutions into latex, with hyperlinks to the theory used to solve that specific problem (and the theory would also be in latex, with their corresponding hyperlinks, down to first order logic and set theory, at least in the mathematical part of the text; physics is much harder to describe in axiomatic form). So, my main goal after 20-25 years would be to create a big pdf about physics, such that I could drill down in hyperlink form up to the very conceptual basics. I am not sure I will have time to complete this project, though.

 

[jedishrfu]

The limited time is a real issue here. You can't always expect that within a given time you can understand a concept and move on. Often you may have to mull over it a bit and then there the retention problem as a busy older person can't always memorize stuff as they did when they were a younger student trained in the art of taking tests and getting by.

Since you mention problem solving, you could start with A schaum Outline of physics questions:

https://www.amazon.com/Schaums-Solved-Problems-Physics-Outlines/dp/0071763465

work through them and rewrite them to your own standard or simply annotate as needed.

Alternatively, you could start with Khan Academy and work through the videos for physics and math as needed.

https://www.khanacademy.org/science/physics/ap-physics-1

However, these will only be at the first year Physics level. They would be good if you planned to become a part-time tutor for your kids or friends kids... It can really help to keep your interest focused.

Another approach would be to listen to Susskind's lectures on Physics which are geared toward folks with an interest and who may have studied physics in the past. Its a step above first year and are actually quite good. He also wrote a few books summarizing his lectures as the Theoretical Minimum. His lectures are available to download on iTunes and other platforms (I think?).



Lastly, there's the Openstax physics books starting with volume 1:

https://openstax.org/details/books/university-physics-volume-1

and to go along with it you might need to brush up on your math:

www.mathispower4u.com

or Khan Academy:

https://www.khanacademy.org/math/ap-calculus-bc

both of which covers all high school and first year college math and then some.

Even more lastly, there this book by Tsokos:

https://www.amazon.com/Physics-Diploma-Coursebook-Cambridge-Enhanced/dp/1316637778

Of course, you could contribute what you know here at PF and learn at the same time as many of our mentors and advisors have done. Explaining stuff can really deepen your understanding.

 

[jordi]

Thank you for your answer. Happily, I do not think I need to go through high school maths.

I am comfortable on Functional Analysis (say Zeidler vol 108, for example), for example, which means that for linear algebra / multivariate analysis / ... I am reasonably comfortable. I do not think a book such as Hassani's Mathematical Physics would be impossible for me, it is just a question of time and effort.

I studied Goldstein for Classical Mechanics, Jackson for Electrodynamics, Sakurai for QM ... I would like to return to them, but I think that I would be in a better position than if I had never studied them. I want to complement these books with "problems and solutions" books (at a higher level than Schaum series).

I can follow Peskin & Schroeder, or Schwarz, or Zee, for example, at least at the basic level. I have to work it out much more, for sure.

A target I have would be to understand a book such as:

https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/mussardos-statistical-field-theory.969775/#post-6159576

I know my mind is still strong. Maybe even better than in my twenties, or at least, calmer.

 

[jordi]

Of course, you could contribute what you know here at PF and learn at the same time as many of our mentors and advisors have done. Explaining stuff can really deepen your understanding.

How does this work? It could be something similar to writing a pdf, but in public. I agree that "explaining stuff" deepens one's understanding (basically, one is forced to be sincere with oneself, plus receiving criticisms).

 

[jedishrfu]

I watch the math forums and sometimes I can answer a student succinctly and sometimes I defer to the other mentors. It sharpens your skills and you often have to research a topic quickly as some other poster will often answer first.

It's not like writing a book although you could collect your answers together and create a recipe based book ala the (Python Cookbook...). It would be a useful resource for you in case a second student comes along with the same or similar question.

 

[kuruman]

Since you mention problem solving, you could start with A schaum Outline of physics questions ...

OP has

... a degree in physics, and a MSc in high energy physics (QFT, a bit of string theory, etc.)

I don't think this is the kind of problem-solving OP has in mind.

 

[jedishrfu]

OP has
I don't think this is the kind of problem-solving OP has in mind.

Even with a degree, you might want to review these because time erases your knowledge that or kids do, I can't remember. Oh yeah, and kids give you gray hair and ulcers too.

 

[jedishrfu]

There wa a Dover book by Moiseiwitsch:

How to Solve Applied Mathematics Problems

that covered a lot of areas of physics with problems and solutions:

https://www.amazon.com/Solve-Applied-Mathematics-Problems-Dover/dp/0486479277

They seemed to be at the Goldstein level but across all fields of physics study. Anyway, you can use the Amazon look inside feature to see examples and review the table of contents.

I found these problems to be somewhat difficult but I've been away from Physics for quite while.

 

[jordi]

Even with a degree, you might want to review these because time erases your knowledge that or kids do, I can't remember. Oh yeah, and kids give you gray hair and ulcers too.

Any problem is interesting. But yes, I target problems at a higher difficulty level. My only constraint is that I want solutions, not to see them before doing the exercise, but to have a double check. Being alone and with no mentor / tutor, I need solved problems. But now I see there are quite a few new books with solutions, which were not available twenty years ago.

 

[jordi]

In fact, my "dirty" secret is that I would like to fully understand Witten and Jaffe's description of the Yang-Mills Millenium Prize problem (with references therein).

 

[jedishrfu]

Did you mean Wiles and Jaffe's description?

ALso I found this archive paper that talks about it but I don't think its what you are looking for:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/0911.1013.pdf

 

[jordi]

Witten and Jaffe:

https://www.claymath.org/sites/default/files/yangmills.pdf

 

[jedishrfu]

Wow, that’s funny because there’s a book on the Millenium Problems edited by Andrew Wiles and Jaffe on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/082183679X/?tag=pfamazon01-20

Anyway, studying this problem is quite a noble goal. I remember when I started school I wanted to learn more about Einstein’s Unified Field theory.

I was excited to see there was a prof who had similar interests but by the time I had the rudimentary math under my belt he had left for greener pastures at another school and so I settled for learning General Relativity using preprint of Wheelers classic tome of which only the first few chapters made any sense.

I knew something about tensor Analysis but was baffled by differential forms notation and Wheelers geometric diagrams showing what they were. These were the days before the internet was only a dream of Vannevar Bush.