"Piscesboy" <gte826r@mail.gatech.edu> wrote:
> Can anybody point me to reputable and thorough sources for
> research into M Theory?[/color]
A compilation of some useful links to textbooks and introductory literature
together with a brief explanation of the arXiv.org archive as well as the
spires database,
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/hep/
where you can find most of the information that you will
ever need, is given at
http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/string/archives/000327.html .
The best thing is probably to first have a look at Marolf's recent 'resource
letter':
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0311044
which is a commented list of literature.Note that apart from the standard textbooks like
Green, Schwarz & Witten, Superstring Theory, Cambridge University. Press
(1987)
and
Polchinski, String Theory, Cambridge University Press (1998)
most of the literature on string theory/M-theory is available online at the
so-called preprint server
http://arxiv.org/
in the section
High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th)
http://arxiv.org/archive/hep-th .
This server is supposed to be a place where people can make their work
available before that has gone through the full cycle of peer-reviewed print
publishing. In the fast developing fields of high energy physics online
publication is increasingly getting more attention then print journals and
in addition to all the reserach papers you can find at the above links lots
of reviews, lecture notes, and talks. You can use the search engine at
http://arxiv.org/find/hep-th
to search for the subjects/authors that you are interested in.
<moderator note: there will also be a new undergraduate textbook "A first
course in string theory" by Barton Zwiebach, and several such useful books
are listed - with links to amazon.com - at
http://sps.matfyz.cz >
If you have more detailed questions about literature, please feel free to
ask.Urs http://www-stud.uni-essen.de/~sb0264/