Which Book to Read First: Smolin's Quantum Gravity or Wolfram's New Science?

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The discussion centers on the choice between "Three Roads to Quantum Gravity" by Lee Smolin and "A New Kind of Science" by Stephen Wolfram. The consensus leans towards recommending Smolin's book for those interested in quantum gravity, highlighting its enjoyable content and the importance of taking time to fully grasp the material. Personal preferences are noted, with some expressing a lack of interest in Wolfram's work. Overall, Smolin's book is favored for its clarity and engaging approach to complex scientific concepts.
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three roads to quantum gravity by lee smolin or a new kind of science by stephen wolfram?
 
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that would depend on what you want to learn from these books...
 
I'd say, go with Smolin. I don't much care for Wolfram, myself. But, then, that's just personal preference.
 
I, personally, went with Lee Smolin first. The book is highly enjoyable, but I advise taking your time while reading it, as it helps to understand it better.
 
The book is fascinating. If your education includes a typical math degree curriculum, with Lebesgue integration, functional analysis, etc, it teaches QFT with only a passing acquaintance of ordinary QM you would get at HS. However, I would read Lenny Susskind's book on QM first. Purchased a copy straight away, but it will not arrive until the end of December; however, Scribd has a PDF I am now studying. The first part introduces distribution theory (and other related concepts), which...
I've gone through the Standard turbulence textbooks such as Pope's Turbulent Flows and Wilcox' Turbulent modelling for CFD which mostly Covers RANS and the closure models. I want to jump more into DNS but most of the work i've been able to come across is too "practical" and not much explanation of the theory behind it. I wonder if there is a book that takes a theoretical approach to Turbulence starting from the full Navier Stokes Equations and developing from there, instead of jumping from...

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