What are you reading now? (STEM only)

[Mark44]

I'm currently reading a couple of books I've found about the Lisp programming language: ANSI Common Lisp, by Paul Graham, and LISP, 3rd Edition, by Patrick Henry Winston and Berthold Klaus Horn.

What motivated me to start learning Lisp was a blog post by Joel Spolsky titled "The Perils of JavaSchools" (https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/12/29/the-perils-of-javaschools-2/). In the post Spolsky says there's nothing wrong with Java as a language to write applications, but as a language taught in university computer science courses, it's too easy.

A quote from the article:

Instead what I’d like to claim is that Java is not, generally, a hard enough programming language that it can be used to discriminate between great programmers and mediocre programmers.

In the article, Spolsky praises functional programming languages such as Lisp and Scheme, so I thought it would be good for me to take a look.

 

[Dragon27]

I'm currently reading a couple of books I've found about the Lisp programming language: ANSI Common Lisp, by Paul Graham, and LISP, 3rd Edition, by Patrick Henry Winston and Berthold Klaus Horn.

Don't forget to check out the freely available On Lisp by Paul Graham (which is the next logical step after ANSI CL). It takes a deeper look at more advanced techniques of macro programming in Lisp, which is probably what Lisp is all about.

 

[Aufbauwerk 2045]

In addition to the Lisp books already mentioned, I recommend the following.

The original paper by McCarthy.

McCarthy was asked why he invented Lisp. He said it was for artificial intelligence. One reason is because code and data have the same syntax. But this has uses beyond AI.

Currently I use Lisp for metaprogramming, as opposed to coding directly in C++. It's a good language choice when you need a translator between one language and another. I also use Lisp in other ways, but they are secret projects. ;)

The Elements of Artificial Intelligence Using Common Lisp by Steven Tanimoto

Problem Solving and Artificial Intelligence by Lauriere. See chapter 2 for his discussion of Lisp and why it is useful in AI.

Common Lisp, The Langauge by Guy Steele

There are some good Youtube videos on Lisp, including interviews with John McCarthy and demonstrations of those old Lisp machines.

This page contains a link at the bottom to a paper by McCarthy on the History of Lisp.

If you want to try some Lisp programming, which I highly recommend, then consider CLISP which is easy to download and install. Or if you prefer a Windows GUI you may wish to try LispWorks. They have Personal and Hobbyist editions. I haven't used it but it looks interesting.

There is also Scheme and Clojure, which are variants of Lisp.

This is an interesting story about a Lisp programmer at NASA.

You already know about Paul Graham. Have you read his online articles?

Prof Novak has done lots of work on physics and AI. Here is one example. He has some code examples somewhere which allow entering a physics problem in word form and then getting the answer.

https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~novak/tkde91.html
I could go on and on and on some more. Here is Lisp for quantum programming.



If you are studying the origins of Lisp it helps to understand something about Lambda Calculus. Here is a good introductory video on this topic.

By the way, Common Lisp also supports object-oriented programming.

 

[Klystron]

Thanks for the Lisp links @Aufbauwerk 2045. The JPL Lisp programmer article is moving.

I worked at NASA Ames Research Center as a contract software engineer for 11 years beginning in 1984, so had overlap with the author's 12 years at JPL. I knew smalltalk but did not learn Lisp until ~1990, and that on Next machines donated by Apple to my university. I remember NASA's "agent" architecture wave. Interesting concepts but I managed to limp along programming with functions and objects. I implemented concepts learned from Lisp but expressed in C dialects plus bits of FORTRAN and assembler without benefit of the cool interpreters described in the articles.

 

[Demystifier]

Grosso and Pastori Parravicini, Solid State Physics
In my opinion, one of the best written textbooks on the subject, much better than more famous Kittel or Aschroft and Mermin.

 

[Mark44]

If you want to try some Lisp programming, which I highly recommend, then consider CLISP which is easy to download and install. Or if you prefer a Windows GUI you may wish to try LispWorks. They have Personal and Hobbyist editions. I haven't used it but it looks interesting.

I looked into LispWorks, but it seemed a bit expensive. I've been using GNU CLISP, and it's satisfactory for what I'm using it for.

This is an interesting story about a Lisp programmer at NASA.

Very interesting. I had no idea that Lisp was used so much in those exploration vehicles.

You already know about Paul Graham. Have you read his online articles?

I'll definitely look into them. Besides the Graham book, I also have the book by Winston and Horn.

 

[Auto-Didact]

Random Walks, Critical Phenomena, and Triviality in Quantum Field Theory (1992) by Roberto Fernández, Jürg Fröhlich and Alan D. Sokal

 

[Demystifier]

- Shankar, Quantum Field Theory and Condensed Matter (2017)

Written much better than most other books on condensed matter QFT, which might be related to the fact that Shankar has also written textbooks on more elementary aspects of theoretical physics (Fundamentals of Physics, Fundamentals of Physics 2, Principles of Quantum Mechanics).

 

[Borg]

This is the textbook that will be used in my weekly ML study group. Lots to learn.

Bayesian Methods for Hackers: Probabilistic Programming and Bayesian Inference.

 

[Auto-Didact]

- Shankar, Quantum Field Theory and Condensed Matter (2017)

Written much better than most other books on condensed matter QFT, which might be related to the fact that Shankar has also written textbooks on more elementary aspects of theoretical physics (Fundamentals of Physics, Fundamentals of Physics 2, Principles of Quantum Mechanics).

Shankar is one of the few condensed matter theorists who actually started off in and then left QFT in order to do condensed matter, because condensed matter theory is from a pure and applied mathematics viewpoint a much more interesting object than QFT.

He also basically taught Witten advanced S-matrix theory from a very applied mathematics point of view, at least until Witten overtook him in skill within a week.

 

[atyy]

This is the textbook that will be used in my weekly ML study group. Lots to learn.

Bayesian Methods for Hackers: Probabilistic Programming and Bayesian Inference.

I browsed it and it seems pretty entertaining (the question about whether Steve is a librarian or a farmer).

 

[Jimster41]

“The Vital Question” Nick Lane.

 

[member 587159]

I'm currently reading Conway's book "Functions of one complex variable I". I like the "no-nonsense" style of the book. It gets to complex integration rather quickly (and the complex line integral is defined as a Riemann-Stieltjes integral), and that's where stuff gets interesting.

The next topic on my reading list is differential geometry. I'm thinking about reading Lee's Smooth Manifolds for that.

 

[Dr Transport]

When the boss says "Since your the only Theoretical Physicist we have on staff, we need you to look at something and figure out what is causing this huge effect". Well, that effect has to do with a plasma, so I guess I'll have to relearn all of my plasma physics, so what do I do, I pick up Principles of Plasma Electrodynamics (Springer Series in Electronics and Photonics) (Volume 9) by Andrej F. Alexandrov. It's hard, but if you spend a couple of weeks reading Introduction to Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion by Francis Chen, it all starts to make sense.

 

[Demystifier]

S. Carroll, Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1524743011/?tag=pfamazon01-20

This new book is one of the best popularizations of the field of quantum foundations, especially if you want to understand why exactly some serious physicists believe in many worlds.

 

[CJ2116]

S. Carroll, Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1524743011/?tag=pfamazon01-20

This new book is one of the best popularizations of the field of quantum foundations, especially if you want to understand why exactly some serious physicists believe in many worlds.

I don't know if it's just because I'm getting older and grumpier, but I'm really having a hard time reading popular physics books these days. I bought a copy of Briane Greene's The Hidden Reality last month and struggled through the first 100 pages because the amount of metaphors totally unrelated to the physics he was discussing ruined it for me. One sentence of actual physics followed by two pages of filler.

 

[weirdoguy]

but I'm really having a hard time reading popular physics books these days.

I have had this problem since I started the 3rd year of physics (in Poland master studies takes 5 years) when more advanced lectures came in. Besides, I am a HUGE purist when it comes to physics and writing about physics and I am very critical about everything I read. Reading most of the pop-sci things just hurts. I got last Hawking's book for christmas and I stopped reading it after first chapter But I have to force myself to finish it because I want to write an overview for my blog...

Anyways, to stay on topic, right now I'm reading The Character of Physical Law by Feynman and Mathematical Methods for Physics and Engineering by our Orodruin. Finishing 5th chapter, and it's nice by now. The only issue I have is that I learned differential geometry so early in my education that it's really disturbing to see two repeated indices on the same level

 

[DarMM]

I used to love pop science when I was younger. It's sort of sad now seeing all the cool books coming out or walking past the "Science" section in a book store but knowing I'll get nothing from them.

 

[Klystron]

In a year I enjoy reading four to five books on the history of mathematics. I may have posted earlier in this thread on an excellent book describing the history and solution of "Fermat's Last Theorem" that included details about the short life of mathematician Evariste Galois almost as if the reader were present at his demise.

Therefor, I am intrigued halfway through Keith Devlin's book "The Man of Numbers -- Fibonacci's Arithmetic Revolution" at the conclusion of chapter four the author says, "...this is what we know of Leonardo Pisano's life.". Despite new (2004) translations and transcriptions of Leonardo's books and new scholarly references to missing publications, Devlin refuses to speculate or dramatize beyond what has been historically verified. There are broad hints that Leonardo and his father 'knew Arabic' perhaps a veiled reference to Ashkenazi family ties but the author goes no further than their documented educational and mercantile ties in medieval North Africa.

I recommend this short history to all fans of filus Bonnaci and his numbers.

 

[Auto-Didact]

The Essence of Turbulence as a Physical Phenomenon, A Tsinober 2019.

Just started, so far its a wonderful book. I have read some of Tsinober's papers in the past when studying the Navier-Stokes equation. He writes with a clarity and down-to-earthness which many instrumentalist-types physicists could probably learn a thing or two from.

 

[Borg]

This is the textbook that will be used in my weekly ML study group. Lots to learn.

Bayesian Methods for Hackers: Probabilistic Programming and Bayesian Inference.

The study group is also going through this book:
A Student's Guide to Bayesian Statistics by Ben Lambert.

This morning, I ran across an online tool that he created to examine various distributions that will come in very handy. There are even tabs that include use cases and code examples in multiple languanges!
It's called The distribution zoo.

 

[vanhees71]

Just for curiosity, what is "probabilistic programming"?

 

[Borg]

Just for curiosity, what is "probabilistic programming"?

I hadn't thought about it but here's the wiki article.
Probabilistic programming

Probabilistic programming (PP) is a programming paradigm in which probabilistic models are specified and inference for these models is performed automatically. It represents an attempt to unify probabilistic modeling and traditional general purpose programming in order to make the former easier and more widely applicable. It can be used to create systems that help make decisions in the face of uncertainty.

 

[gleem]

Just finished Carlo Rovelli's"Reality is not what it seems: The Journey to quantum gravity"

A good non technical introduction to loop quantum gravity wrt its issues and objectives. How LQG devalues the concept of time as we commonly experience , eliminates singularities and the rising importance of information theory . Interesting excursion into the concepts of matter and space through the ages.

 

[fluidistic]

https://www.cambridge.org/core/book...tter-physics/F0A27AC5DEA8A40EA6EA5D727ED8B14EModern Condensed Matter Physics
By Steven M. Girvin and Kun Yang

Girvin and Yang's book was mentioned by @fluidistic in the STEM Bibles thread.

Could you please give a very brief review of your experience with that textbook please?

 

[WWGD]

Reviewing Stats, from a more practical/applied perspective with Montgomery's applied stats for engineers. I like his "Mind Expanding " exercises and the fact that he includes them after the more conventional ones. Always something new you can learn or some tweaking or improving of your existing knowledge and understanding.

 

[gleem]

Just finished Jim Baggott's The Quantum Story" (2016). Well worth the read for anyone not familiar with the historical developments of quantum theory from Pauli to the Standard Model and beyond. It follows the developments as physicists dived down the quantum rabbit hole. It explores the good ideas and the not so good ideas.

Especially interesting are the anecdotes, personal comments, interactions and competition of these physicists , e.g. L. Susskind's happenstance meeting with Gell-Mann in an elevator telling him of his "string theory" only to have Gell-Mann laugh at the idea.

It is interesting to note that about 93% of the book is devoted to the period from 1900 to 1970 while only 7% was needed for the next 50 Years. A familiarization of group theoretic approaches would be helpful to appreciated the the way that QFT developed.

Oppenheimer in a letter to his brother in 1934 lamented at the lack of recent progress in theoretical physics . Rabi in 1947 thought the last 18 years was the most sterile of the century.

 

[Mondayman]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0198539487/?tag=pfamazon01-20

The best biography of R. P. Feynman, I've seen so far.

Good book. Have you read Climbing the Mountain by the same author, about Julian Schwinger?

I just ordered it, cost me an arm and a leg. Dont know why it's so expensive.

 

[vanhees71]

Oppenheimer in a letter to his brother in 1934 lamented at the lack of recent progress in theoretical physics . Rabi in 1947 thought the last 18 years was the most sterile of the century.

Well, this was compensated right at this time in the 2nd half of the century starting with the measurement of the Lamb shift, which triggered the entire development of the 2nd period of QFT. The first period was already very early in the "Dreimännerarbeit", where Jordan already quantized the em. field in addition to the electrons, but at that time the idea was not appreciated, because some eminent physicist thought that was "too much", and indeed it's well known that you get very far without quantizing the em. field; at the time the only thing not explained was the necessity of spontaneous emission to kinetically derive the Planck radiation law a la Einstein 1917). The 1st and 2nd period of the QFT development is most comprehensively described in Schweber, QED and the Men who made it (though this book is full of unfortunate typos in the formulae :-().

The reason, why there's not so much after 1970 may be that the last breakthrough in the foundations was Bell's work in the mid 60ies, which has of course then lead to a complete new field, which I'd call "quantum informatics", which is of coarse closely related to quantum optics, but that are applications of QT, which has been more or less settled in its foundations already around 1925-1927.

Also the Standard Model was completely formulated around this time. I'd say the last fundamental building block was 't Hooft and Veltman's proof of the renormalizability of Higgsed and un-Higgsed gauge theories (1971) as well as Asymptotic Freedom (Gross, Wilczek, Politzer) of non-Abelian gauge theories and the establishment of QCD as the description of the strong interaction.

 

[Demystifier]

Oppenheimer in a letter to his brother in 1934 lamented at the lack of recent progress in theoretical physics . Rabi in 1947 thought the last 18 years was the most sterile of the century.

 

[Auto-Didact]

I'd agree with them. Basically, after the Dirac equation - with a few sprinkles spread in between since then - contemporary theoretical physicists seem to have actually mostly lost their way. This is reflected by them focussing far too much on highly specialized details and so end up completely and hopelessly missing the big picture general view of physics; for all that QT has achieved, it is clearly still a severe disappointment from a foundational perspective.

It is no wonder at all that theoretical physics is in such a rut today; since the 60s practically no one has been trained in how to go from a specialist to a generalist view, so practically no one explicitly teaches that method anymore either. Mastery of some skill isn't possible if the school of thought which teaches that skill is systematically wiped out from academia, especially while the skill hasn't gotten properly documented beyond merely being describes as a form of tacit knowledge.

Instead most physicists seem to think that they can somehow just master these old methods without any specific training whatsoever. Then when the time comes, instead of them being able to rise to the occasion and meet the main challenges of their time, they instead reliably end up unnecessarily bogging themselves down in irrelevant technical details at pretty much every step of the way, while constantly falling over themselves; this is clearly seen by them being unable to distinguish even the most basic matters of what is practice from matters of what is principle.

 

[Rolacycle]

I’m reading “ Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance”

May not be exactly within boundaries of (stem) category ... classic tho

 

[gleem]

Read "The Quantum Story" and report back. A lot in the book reveals the back and forth of the advancement of physics, the scoffing, ignoring, until a new direction was accepted. I think Hossenfelder's book "Lost in Math: How beauty leads Physics Astray" is a statement reflecting the silent observation of many physicists who are afraid to say wait a minute maybe we should back up and rethink this problem. In the past, current thinking had been so strong (biased) so as to sweep new concepts aside unnecessarily delaying physic's advancement.

The book recounted the contribution of solid state physics to QFT when at that time Gell -Mann had referred to it as "Squalid State Physics" a disdainful comment at best for this branch of physics.

Is particle physics better than condensed matter physics? Does such an attitude reflect a problem?

 

[martinbn]

I think you are getting off topic.

 

[pinball1970]

Well, this was compensated right at this time in the 2nd half of the century starting with the measurement of the Lamb shift, which triggered the entire development of the 2nd period of QFT. The first period was already very early in the "Dreimännerarbeit", where Jordan already quantized the em. field in addition to the electrons, but at that time the idea was not appreciated, because some eminent physicist thought that was "too much", and indeed it's well known that you get very far without quantizing the em. field; at the time the only thing not explained was the necessity of spontaneous emission to kinetically derive the Planck radiation law a la Einstein 1917). The 1st and 2nd period of the QFT development is most comprehensively described in Schweber, QED and the Men who made it (though this book is full of unfortunate typos in the formulae :-().

The reason, why there's not so much after 1970 may be that the last breakthrough in the foundations was Bell's work in the mid 60ies, which has of course then lead to a complete new field, which I'd call "quantum informatics", which is of coarse closely related to quantum optics, but that are applications of QT, which has been more or less settled in its foundations already around 1925-1927.

Also the Standard Model was completely formulated around this time. I'd say the last fundamental building block was 't Hooft and Veltman's proof of the renormalizability of Higgsed and un-Higgsed gauge theories (1971) as well as Asymptotic Freedom (Gross, Wilczek, Politzer) of non-Abelian gauge theories and the establishment of QCD as the description of the strong interaction.

Something Deeply Hidden – Sean Carroll (again) I got half way through then misplaced the book in Dumfries.I picked it up again some weeks later at my dog ear and I started to tread water so I am starting again.