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Reddit mentions of Introduction to Elementary Particles
Sentiment score: 13
Reddit mentions: 21
We found 21 Reddit mentions of Introduction to Elementary Particles. Here are the top ones.
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If you want a textbook Introduction to Elementary Particles by Griffiths has quite a bit in it and has some nice examples worked out. Should be in a university library.
I would recommend Introduction to "Elementary Particle Physics" by David Griffiths
Its generally considered a higher-level undergrad book, but as a PhD student I still look at it from time to time, especially if I want to teach a specific subject. He will review the SR and Quantum for you, but at a level that you'd want to have seen it before. There's calc and a little bit of linear algebra, but at such a level that you could learn them for the first time through this text (assuming you've had SOME Calc before)
From there, the next level is sort of "Quarks and Leptons" by Halzen and Martin, which people are generally less excited about, but I enjoyed it.
After that, the top standard that even theorists seem to love is "High Energy Hadron Physics" by Martin Perl, where there are parts of that text that I still struggle with.
Don't read Feynman. While it's extremely dense and good, it's also very unconventional and hard to understand if you don't know where it's going already.
I'd suggest Griffiths or Zee's Nutshell. While both are technically textbooks, i think you can read them very well without necessarily understanding all calculations.
Of course, those are damn expensive so you should better look for them in a library.
Griffiths is the go-to for advanced undergraduate level texts, so you might consider his Introduction to Quantum Mechanics and Introduction to Particle Physics. I used Townsend's A Modern Approach to Quantum Mechanics to teach myself and I thought that was a pretty good book.
I'm not sure if you mean special or general relativity. For special, /u/Ragall's suggestion of Taylor is good but is aimed an more of an intermediate undergraduate; still worth checking out I think. I've heard Taylor (different Taylor) and Wheeler's Spacetime Physics is good but I don't know much more about it. For general relativity, I think Hartle's Gravity: An Introduction to Einstein's General Relativity and Carroll's Spacetime and Geometry: An Introduction to General Relativity are what you want to look for. Hartle is slightly lower level but both are close. Carroll is probably better if you want one book and want a bit more of the math.
Online resources are improving, and you might find luck in opencourseware type websites. I'm not too knowledgeable in these, and I think books, while expensive, are a great investment if you are planning to spend a long time in the field.
One note: teaching yourself is great, but a grad program will be concerned if it doesn't show up on a transcript. This being said, the big four in US institutions are Classical Mechanics, E&M, Thermodynamics/Stat Mech, and QM. You should have all four but you can sometimes get away with three. Expectations of other courses vary by school, which is why programs don't always expect things like GR, fluid mechanics, etc.
I hope that helps!
For Calculus:
Calculus Early Transcendentals by James Stewart
^ Link to Amazon
Khan Academy Calculus Youtube Playlist
For Physics:
Introductory Physics by Giancoli
^ Link to Amazon
Crash Course Physics Youtube Playlist
Here are additional reading materials when you're a bit farther along:
Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences by Mary Boas
Modern Physics by Randy Harris
Classical Mechanics by John Taylor
Introduction to Electrodynamics by Griffiths
Introduction to Quantum Mechanics by Griffiths
Introduction to Particle Physics by Griffiths
The Feynman Lectures
With most of these you will be able to find PDFs of the book and the solutions. Otherwise if you prefer hardcopies you can get them on Amazon. I used to be adigital guy but have switched to physical copies because they are easier to reference in my opinion. Let me know if this helps and if you need more.
Griffiths has a book on it
David Griffiths,
Introduction to Elementary Particles
https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Elementary-Particles-David-Griffiths/dp/3527406018
There's Griffiths and Halzen and Martin which are suitable for undergraduates. They'll teach you how to calculate scattering amplitudes and some phenomenology and stuff like that. Anything more complicated than that would probably require a QFT book, in which case I would recommend Peskin and Schroeder. Ironically, I feel like you would learn QED way better with P&S than any other typical standard model book.
Hm... I would have to say Griffiths' particle physics book and Halzen and Martin begin to cover the transition between undergrad-level knowledge and the general area I work in. Although for what I actually work on, I don't know if there are any textbooks. It's a pretty niche field.
Really understanding nuclear physics requires some really high level math.
In my opinion, this is the gold standard for nuclear physics. It's a higher level text, but I'd give it a try.
This is a great text for particle physics, which will help a lot with understanding nuclear physics.
Both of these are fairly advanced texts. They're designed for undergraduate physics majors, and they do have some pretty advanced math. Unfortunately, there isn't really a way around the math thing. Higher-level physics requires higher-level math.
If you're more interested in experiment, this book is a goldmine of information. It's less math-intensive.
If none of these float your boat, I would suggest starting out with some Wikipedia articles. They're usually a great place to start when you're looking to delve into a new subject. I'm sure you can find plenty of lecture videos online for introductory nuclear/particle physics classes. I don't know of any off the top of my head though.
Try learning calculus-based intro physics here. If you're feeling ambitious you probably can jump into the relativity course there, which will have a few things related to particle physics. To keep yourself motivated you might want to read the first three chapters of Griffiths particle physics.
My number 1 recommended reading is Griffith's introduction to particle physics. If you have done undergraduate level physics, you'll be familiar with his E&M and quantum mechanics textbooks, which are well known for being relatively painless introductions to these two subjects. The book is written at such a level so that you could start understanding particle physics with only basic physics knowledge (although knowing some qualitative facts about quantum mechanics may help).
Griffiths' particle physics book is a great intro imo and one of the few (possibly the only one?) that approaches the subject without requiring qft as a prerequisite.
I'm no physicist. My degree is in computer science, but I'm in a somewhat similar boat. I read all these pop-science books that got me pumped (same ones you've read), so I decided to actually dive into the math.
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Luckily I already had training in electromagnetics and calculus, differential equations, and linear algebra so I was not going in totally blind, though tbh i had forgotten most of it by the time I had this itch.
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I've been at it for about a year now and I'm still nowhere close to where I want to be, but I'll share the books I've read and recommend them:
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I'm available if you want to PM me directly. I love talking to others about this stuff.
You sound like a great audience for the series I recommend to everyone in your position: Lenny Susskind's Theoretical Minimum. He's got free lectures and accompanying books which are designed with the sole purpose of getting you from zero to sixty as fast as possible. I'm sure others will have valuable suggestions, but that's mine.
The series is designed for people who took some math classes in college, and maybe an intro physics class, but never had the chance to go further. However, it does assume that you are comfortable with calculus, and more doesn't hurt. What's your math background like?
As to the LHC and other bleeding-edge physics: unfortunately, this stuff takes a lot of investment to really get at, if you want to be at the level where you can do the actual derivations—well beyond where an undergrad quantum course would land you. If you're okay with a more heuristic picture, you could read popular-science books on particle physics and combine that with a more quantitative experience from other sources.
But if you are thinking of doing this over a very long period of time, I would suggest that you could pretty easily attain an advanced-undergraduate understanding of particle physics through self-study—enough to do some calculations, though the actual how and why may not be apparent. If you're willing to put in a little cash and more than a little time for this project, here's what I suggest:
Note that this is sort of the fastest way to get into particle physics. If you want to take this route, you should still be prepared to spread it out over a couple years—and it will leave a whole smattering of gaps in your knowledge. But hey, if you enjoy it, you could legitimately come to understand a lot about the universe through self-study!
In my opinion the best way to learn and understand the chaos of sub-atomic particle and their place is to start with the trying to understand the standard model. It is the model in which everything is supposed to fit. It's the big picture.
If you have time to spare, consider watching these video lectures
http://www.cosmolearning.com/courses/particle-physics-the-standard-model-416/video-lectures/
Or pick up this book meant for people not well versed in math http://www.amazon.com/The-Theory-Almost-Everything-Standard/dp/0452287863
Or if you're a masochist and feel you're upto the task of really understand this stuff take a look at http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Elementary-Particles-David-Griffiths/dp/3527406018/ref=pd_sim_b_1
That book tries to see the physics beyond the standard model, marching towards and inching closer towards the ultimate goal of physics.
Introduction to Elementary Particles by David Griffiths is a common standard introductory book that is self-contained (up to a reasonable degree) and fairly basic still covering most of the important topics for an intro.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/3527406018/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/182-8847591-2278642
By the way, if you want to read up on particle physics, give this book a try. It's very accessible; Griffiths is a great author of physics texts.
Well, I don't mind reading a few equations. My former institute would be ashamed of me if I couldn't even do that.
Let me clarify. By "non-mathematical", I don't want to read pages and pages of derivations, justifications, and proofs. I want to get a book with excellent qualitative descriptions of the particles, their functions, the stories behind their discoveries, experimental descriptions of the verification of each one, and how they interact with each other.
I've been looking at these few titles:
http://www.amazon.com/Standard-Model-Primer-Cliff-Burgess/dp/0521860369
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Standard-Model-Particle-Physics/dp/0521852498/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1342797161&sr=1-2&keywords=standard+model
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Elementary-Particles-David-Griffiths/dp/3527406018/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b
Do you any experience with these few?
Oh I thought we were talking about poetry. Try this one then.
Introduction to Elementary Particles by David Griffiths
https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Elementary-Particles-David-Griffiths/dp/3527406018/
I up-voted just for the title. I would also agree in that Griffith's book Introduction to Elementary Particle Physics is a good choice. I did an REU in Nuclear Physics, and this book was really helpful to me. Here is a link.
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Elementary-Particles-David-Griffiths/dp/3527406018/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1304069903&sr=1-1