Maths needed for Road To Reality

[yup790]

I am reading the book Road to Reality by Roger Penrose.

However he goes over the maths so fast I don't understand it all, I am studying maths and Further maths and getting over 90% almost all the time so maths normally comes quite easily.

What maths topics do I have to know - the contents doesn't really help with knowing what to look up. I would much rather watch a lecture on the topics and understand them in detail.

Thank you.

 

[Intrastellar]

Where are you stuck at exactly ?

 

[homeomorphic]

I'd use it more as a supplement to studying things more seriously from other books. It's still useful that way. I still had a little trouble with it when I was starting graduate school, but now I can understand most of it pretty easily after a PhD. Still, for some of the physics stuff, I would have to get physics books out to really understand. It's basically PhD level to understand the whole book, I think, so you just have to take what you can from it.

He does have some book recommendations. For the chapter on complex analysis, Penrose recommends the same thing I would, Visual Complex Analysis, written by a student of his. I'm not sure there are very good video lectures that cover all the topics. You'd be better off with books, I think.

 

[Intrastellar]

I still had a little trouble with it when I was starting graduate school.

Are you talking about the physics parts or did you have a little trouble understanding the maths parts as well ?

For the chapter on complex analysis, Penrose recommends the same thing I would, Visual Complex Analysis, written by a student of his.

@yup790 : You are probably stuck at the complex numbers stuff (complex analysis), at least that is where it got difficult for me on my first reading. This makes Visual Complex Analysis a good recommendation.

 

[homeomorphic]

Are you talking about the physics parts or did you have a little trouble understanding the maths parts as well ?

Even the math, a little bit, when I started it after finishing my undergraduate degree. There's all that index notation and advanced some differential geometry stuff that I wasn't that familiar with when I started it.