General Meta Thread (self-introductions and study suggestions welcomed)

[unfocusedg...@gmail.com]

Hi, welcome to what I hope will become a constructive endeavor. 

I'm currently a grad student in probability theory who's looking to gain a good grounding in physics and engineering mathematics, but don't have much of a like minded community around me to work together with so I created this group for online study. To begin with I'm primarily looking to study electrodynamics (I suggest the text by Griffiths, 3rd ed.), but would like to learn a lot of different things down the line, eg. QM, fluid dynamics, control system theory, signal processing, etc.

If we studied Griffiths I'd hope to get through it fairly quickly since it's not very dense. If we did 1 chapter every 2 weeks, we'd get through it in half a year, which I think is a good pace.

Lately I also ordered Optimal Filteirng (Anderson) and Optimal Control and Estimation (Stengel) from Amazon and am looking to study those soon (starting with the first one), so if anyone wants to join in feel free to ask. They're not online as far as I know, but they're cheap Dover publications at least (can be found on Amazon for $10-15 I think).

[unfocusedg...@gmail.com]

Anyway, if anyone wants to join in something I've already mentioned, please say so I know if there's people interested or not.

[anonlynx]

We should start rounding up people for the EM section over the next few days. I can make a thread on different boards advertising our study group since /sci/ is a typically very slow board.

This sounds like this will be a really enjoyable activity.

Cheers.

[unfocusedg...@gmail.com]

Great, I'll post a shameless plug for this on another board I'm on then. Maybe can get another one or two interested people.

[shinokk]

I'll join in. I can't say I'll be regular though, I might slack or go ahead of the plan sometimes. You should make a post on physicsforums.com, you'll probably find a person or two interested in this.

[anonlynx]

I counted everyone and it looks like we have 7 people total, a pretty good amount of people i'd say. We should finish gathering people up over this weekend and then start doing stuff on Monday or Tuesday. I look forward to working with you guys.

Cheers.

[ktgster]

This is a great idea OP, just curious on what everyone's background/field is in.

My background is in chem E, so I have very little use for electrodynamics, but I think it's highly interesting.

[sean.ma...@gmail.com]

Hey, 1st year physics undergrad. Are we going EM?

I'm taking electricity and magnetism but bought some EM books. I've got Griffiths,Bleaney and Bleaney and if anyone wants me to get a specific book I can nip over to the uni library.

[sean.ma...@gmail.com]

Heres the book if anyone doesn't have it.

How are these things going to work? Skype or something?

What about timezones?

[unfocusedg...@gmail.com]

As I mentioned I'm a first year graduate probability (stochastic analysis) student, in particular studying stochastic filtering, eg. Kalman(-Bucy) filtering. Lately I'm thinking I'd like to become a specialist in control theory and try working in industry doing that sort of stuff so I want to brush up on applied mathematics that could potentially come in useful in that sort of career, which explains my motivations.

[unfocusedg...@gmail.com]

My idea for now is that for each sub-group (eg. EM) we start a thread each week, outline the material to be studied for that week and do serious discussion in in the thread. I'm living in Japan, but I should be able to come online on Skype sometimes too during US evening if people want to.

[unfocusedg...@gmail.com]

Has anyone posted a thread on physicsforums.com yet? Don't want to create a second one accidentally. If anyone wants to on my behalf go ahead. /lazy

[lionus]

hi - saw your post in KK, i'm an irregular lurker there. 

We used Grifths back in uni (EE here) but i'd like to go through it again with the maturity and patience of a post-uni student. I remember it was readable, interesting.

I do recall a worked solutions file existing out there too.

[unfocusedg...@gmail.com]

Hi, it's great to have another person aboard. I'll be posting the thread for the second week (starting Electrostatics) tomorrow.

What's EE like, if I may ask?

[Brad Gordon]

Starting E&M this semester, third year undergrad.  This should be instructive.  I might be more or less involved, not sure.  I have the solutions manual, if anyone wants it.

[Thomas Lane]

It seems everyone has abandoned this group. I will still be working through the textbook on my own. If people want to talk about it or go over problems or something, I will be around so post here.