The Theoretical Minimum Susskind Pdf Download
Octaviano Miranda
This page is designed to support the book,"The Theoretical Minimum" by LeonardSusskind and George Hrabovsky. This bookwill be released by Basic Books in NorthAmerica, and Penguin Press in the UK on 29January 2013.
This site will contain material to supportthose interested in the book. This will includehints and detailed solutions to the practiceproblems and additional materials that didnot fit, or could not be used in the book.
"Readers ready to embrace their innerapplied mathematician will enjoy this brisk,bare-bones introduction to classical mechanicsdrawn from Stanford Universitys ContinuingStudies program. Although physicist Susskind(The Black Hole War) and science advocateHrabovsky touch briefly on electricity andmagnetism, the book is primarily about mechanicsand the motion of particles. The authorsopen with a look at closed and open systemsand the reversibility of physical laws, aconcept central to the field. Next are rigorouschapters on trigonometry and vectors, anda no-nonsense intro to differential and integralcalculus, and how these tools are used tocalculate the motion of objects through space.Not for the faint of heart, successive chaptersintroduce Newtons law of motion, the complexmathematics of systems of particles, phasespace, conservation of momentum, and thePrinciple of Least Action, which allows scientiststo package a systems velocity, mass, direction,and forces into a single function. The authorsintend this book as a toolkit for determinedreaders who want to teach themselves basicmechanics. Although their discussions areclear enough, even the hardiest reader willwant to bring a basic calculus text alongfor the journey. 62 line drawings."
Ive always enjoyed explaining physics. Forme its much more than teaching: Its a wayof thinking. Even when Im at my desk doingresearch, theres a dialog going on in myhead. Figuring out the best way to explainsomething is almost always the best way tounderstand it yourself.
About ten years ago someone asked me if Iwould teach a course for the public. As ithappens, the Stanford area has a lot of peoplewho once wanted to study physics, but lifegot in the way. They had had all kinds ofcareers but never forgot their one-time infatuationwith the laws of the universe. Now, aftera career or two, they wanted to get backinto it, at least at a casual level.
Unfortunately there was not much opportunityfor such folks to take courses. As a rule,Stanford and other universities dont allowoutsiders into classes, and, for most ofthese grown-ups, going back to school asa full-time student is not a realistic option.That bothered me. There ought to be a wayfor people to develop their interest by interactingwith active scientists, but there didntseem to be one.
Thats when I first found out about StanfordsContinuing Studies program. This programoffers courses for people in the local nonacademiccommunity. So I thought that it might justserve my purposes in finding someone to explainphysics to, as well as their purposes, andit might also be fun to teach a course onmodern physics. For one academic quarteranyhow.
It was fun. And it was very satisfying ina way that teaching undergraduate and graduatestudents was sometimes not. These studentswere there for only one reason: Not to getcredit, not to get a degree, and not to betested, but just to learn and indulge theircuriosity. Also, having been around theblock a few times, they were not at allafraid to ask questions, so the class hada lively vibrancy that academic classes oftenlack. I decided to do it again. And again.
What became clear after a couple of quartersis that the students were not completelysatisfied with the laypersons courses Iwas teaching. They wanted more than the Scientific American experience. A lot of them had a bit of background,a bit of physics, a rusty but not dead knowledgeof calculus, and some experience at solvingtechnical problems. They were ready to trytheir hand at learning the real thingwithequations. The result was a sequence of coursesintended to bring these students to the forefrontof modern physics and cosmology.
Fortunately, someone (not I) had the brightidea to video-record the classes. They areout on the Internet, and it seems that theyare tremendously popular: Stanford is notthe only place with people hungry to learnphysics. From all over the world I get thousandsof e-mail messages. One of the main inquiriesis whether I will ever convert the lecturesinto books? The Theoretical Minimum is the answer.
The term theoretical minimum was not my owninvention. It originated with the great Russianphysicist Lev Landau. The TM in Russia meanteverything a student needed to know to workunder Landau himself. Landau was a very demandingman: His theoretical minimum meant just abouteverything he knew, which of course no oneelse could possibly know.
I use the term differently. For me, the theoreticalminimum means just what you need to knowin order to proceed to the next level. Itmeans not fat encyclopedic textbooks thatexplain everything, but thin books that explaineverything important. The books closely followthe Internet courses that you will find onthe Web.
Welcome, then, to The Theoretical MinimumClassical Mechanics, and good luck!
Leonard Susskind
Stanford, California, July 2012
I started to teach myself math and physicswhen I was eleven. That was forty years ago.A lot of things have happened since thenIam one of those individuals who got sidetrackedby life. Still, I have learned a lot of mathand physics. Despite the fact that peoplepay me to do research for them, I never pursueda degree.
For me, this book began with an e-mail. Afterwatching the lectures that form the basisfor the book, I wrote an e-mail to LeonardSusskind asking if he wanted to turn thelectures into a book. One thing led to another,and here we are.
We could not fit everything we wanted intothis book, or it wouldnt be The Theoretical MinimumClassical Mechanics, it would be A-Big-Fat-Mechanics-Book.That is what the Internet is for: Takingup large quantities of bandwidth to displaystuff that doesnt fit elsewhere! You canfind extra material at the website www.madscitech.org/tm. This material will include answers to theproblems, demonstrations, and additionalmaterial that we couldnt put in the book.
I hope you enjoy reading this book as muchas we enjoyed writing it.
George Hrabovsky
Madison, Wisconsin, July 2012
Sunday, 10 March 2013: George Hrabovsky willdiscuss The Theoretical Minimum in specificand amateur science in general at the MadisonScience Pub, 2pm at Brocach Irish Pub onMain Street off the Capitol Square in Madison,WI.
In this unconventional and stimulating primer, world-class physicist Leonard Susskind and citizen-scientist George Hrabovsky combine forces to provide a brilliant first course in modern physics. Unlike most popular physics books - which give readers a taste of what physicists know but not what they actually do - Susskind and Hrabovsky teach the skills you need to do physics yourself. Combining crystal-clear explanations of the laws of the universe with basic exercises, the authors cover the minimum - the theoretical minimum of the title - that readers need to master in order to study more advanced topics. In a lucid, engaging style, they introduce all the key concepts, from classical mechanics to general relativity to quantum theory. Instead of shying away from the equations and maths that are essential to any understanding of physics, The Theoretical Minimum provides a toolkit that you won't find in any other popular science book.
Lev Landau, a great theoretical physicist, wrote a series of books which he called the 'Theoretical Minimum' which contained everything he considered elementary for an aspiring theoretical physics researcher. Leonard Susskind, is apparently interested in continuing this tradition. In fact, there's an interesting discussion of Lev Landau's text on the physics stack-exchange.
Note: Landau's texts were necessary for an exam which aspiring researchers had to pass in order to do research in theoretical physics. However, only 43 people passed the exam between 1933 (when Landau first administered it) and 1961(Landau suffered a car accident).
The compilation of model problems is a laborious job, but I think it must be done. As an attempt I give below a list of one hundred problems forming a mathematical minimum for a physics student. Model problems (unlike syllabuses) are not uniquely defined, and many will probably not agree with me. Nonetheless I assume that it is necessary to begin to determine mathematical standards by means of written examinations and model problems. It is to be hoped that in the future students will receive model problems for each course at the beginning of each semester, and oral examinations for which the students cram by heart will become a thing of the past.
At the same time that Lev Landau (and Yevgeny Lifshitz) were publishing the volumes of the course of theoretical physics, the Russian mathematician Vladimir Smirnov published the six volumes of his Course in Higher Mathematics. I think that, for those years, these volumes can be considered a good starting knowledge for a mathematician, and that even today are readable and interesting (if you can find the volumes, here an old French edition).
This edition is in four parts and six volumes. The first part is essentially about differential and integral calculus in one and two variables. The second part is more varied; it contains chapters on ordinary differential equations, multiple integrals, vector analysis and differential geometry, Fourier series and an introduction to partial differential equations. The third part (two volumes) is divided into two volumes: the first about linear algebra and group representations, the second about complex analysis and some special functions. The fourth part has a first volume about integral equations and the calculus of variations, and a second volume on partial differential equations.
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