Physics for a Mathematician 01 - Preliminary Thoughts
Welcome to "Physics for a Mathematician," where I, a mathematician, stumble through physics, in the hopes that I can say something useful before the stumbling starts becoming painful.
Starting last semester, and partly inspired by the fact that my position is joint with the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics, I've been trying to learn some theoretical physics. The particularly disheartening aspect of this attempt is that I double majored as an undergraduate in math and physics, so it feels like I should know something. But of course, after years of focusing on math with only marginal glances towards towards physics, it's tough. Even worse, it's difficult to know whether it's really worth my time. As a postdoc, the goal is to publish publish publish, so there isn't the feeling of free time which I imagine comes only after nailing a tenure-track position. (Or maybe freedom doesn't come until tenure? That's too scary to fathom.) But nonetheless, I'm still in my first year as a postdoc, so I might as well push on until I realize it's a bad idea.
I should add that it's not a complete punt for me to want to learn physics. My primary focus on symplectic and contact geometry is adjacent to physics via a humongous many-tentacled monster's worth of connections. I hope that with a little bit of study, I can make peace with the Kraken, and allow physics ideas to infiltrate some aspects of my mathematics.
My goal is to make these posts accessible to a relatively wide audience of mathematicians, hopefully understandable (and enjoyable!) to an advanced undergraduate or first- or second-year graduate student. Like any good blogger, I will have my biases. I'm especially interested in figuring out what I need in order to understand quantum field theory and topological string theory, whatever that means.
I'm happy to hear any suggestions for papers you think I should read, especially if you'd like to enter on this journey with me.
Starting last semester, and partly inspired by the fact that my position is joint with the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics, I've been trying to learn some theoretical physics. The particularly disheartening aspect of this attempt is that I double majored as an undergraduate in math and physics, so it feels like I should know something. But of course, after years of focusing on math with only marginal glances towards towards physics, it's tough. Even worse, it's difficult to know whether it's really worth my time. As a postdoc, the goal is to publish publish publish, so there isn't the feeling of free time which I imagine comes only after nailing a tenure-track position. (Or maybe freedom doesn't come until tenure? That's too scary to fathom.) But nonetheless, I'm still in my first year as a postdoc, so I might as well push on until I realize it's a bad idea.
I should add that it's not a complete punt for me to want to learn physics. My primary focus on symplectic and contact geometry is adjacent to physics via a humongous many-tentacled monster's worth of connections. I hope that with a little bit of study, I can make peace with the Kraken, and allow physics ideas to infiltrate some aspects of my mathematics.
My goal is to make these posts accessible to a relatively wide audience of mathematicians, hopefully understandable (and enjoyable!) to an advanced undergraduate or first- or second-year graduate student. Like any good blogger, I will have my biases. I'm especially interested in figuring out what I need in order to understand quantum field theory and topological string theory, whatever that means.
I'm happy to hear any suggestions for papers you think I should read, especially if you'd like to enter on this journey with me.
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