Reddit mentions: The best nuclear physics books

We found 153 Reddit comments discussing the best nuclear physics books. We ran sentiment analysis on each of these comments to determine how redditors feel about different products. We found 49 products and ranked them based on the amount of positive reactions they received. Here are the top 20.

1. Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy

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  • Tor Books
Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy
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2. QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter

QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter
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3. Quarks and Leptons: An Introductory Course in Modern Particle Physics

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  • Cambridge University Press
Quarks and Leptons: An Introductory Course in Modern Particle Physics
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4. Quantum Theory: A Very Short Introduction

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Quantum Theory: A Very Short Introduction
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5. Quantum Mechanics: A Modern Development

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Quantum Mechanics: A Modern Development
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6. Modern Particle Physics

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Modern Particle Physics
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9. The Quantum Enigma: Finding the Hidden Key 3rd Edition

The Quantum Enigma: Finding the Hidden Key 3rd Edition
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10. Introduction to Radiological Physics and Radiation Dosimetry

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  • Cambridge University Press
Introduction to Radiological Physics and Radiation Dosimetry
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11. Nuclear Physics: Principles and Applications

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Nuclear Physics: Principles and Applications
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12. Quarks : The Stuff of Matter

Quarks : The Stuff of Matter
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14. Supersymmetry: Unveiling The Ultimate Laws Of Nature

Supersymmetry: Unveiling The Ultimate Laws Of Nature
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15. Antimatter

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Antimatter
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16. High energy hadron physics

High energy hadron physics
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17. Theoretical Nuclear Physics (Dover Books on Physics)

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Theoretical Nuclear Physics (Dover Books on Physics)
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18. The Experimental Foundations of Particle Physics

The Experimental Foundations of Particle Physics
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19. Introduction to High Energy Physics

Introduction to High Energy Physics
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20. Quantum Field Theory

Quantum Field Theory
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🎓 Reddit experts on nuclear physics books

The comments and opinions expressed on this page are written exclusively by redditors. To provide you with the most relevant data, we sourced opinions from the most knowledgeable Reddit users based the total number of upvotes and downvotes received across comments on subreddits where nuclear physics books are discussed. For your reference and for the sake of transparency, here are the specialists whose opinions mattered the most in our ranking.
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Number of comments: 2
Relevant subreddits: 1

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Top Reddit comments about Nuclear Physics:

u/FunkyFortuneNone · 6 pointsr/quantum

Friend asked for a similar list a while ago and I put this together. Would love to see people thoughts/feedback.

Very High Level Introductions:

  • Mr. Tompkins in Paperback
    • A super fast read that spends less time looking at the "how" but focused instead on the ramifications and impacts. Covers both GR as well as QM but is very high level with both of them. Avoids getting into the details and explaining the why.

  • Einstein's Relativity and the Quantum Revolution (Great Courses lecture)
    • This is a great intro to the field of non-classical physics. This walks through GR and QM in a very approachable fashion. More "nuts and bolts" than Mr. Tompkins but longer/more detailed at the same time.


      Deeper Pop-sci Dives (probably in this order):

  • Quantum Theory: A Very Brief Introduction
    • Great introduction to QM. Doesn't really touch on QFT (which is a good thing at this point) and spends a great deal of time (compared to other texts) discussing the nature of QM interpretation and the challenges around that topic.
  • The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces
    • Now we're starting to get into the good stuff. QFT begins to come to the forefront. This book starts to dive into explaining some of the macro elements we see as explained by QM forces. A large part of the book is spent on symmetries and where a proton/nucleon's gluon binding mass comes from (a.k.a. ~95% of the mass we personally experience).
  • The Higgs Boson and Beyond (Great Courses lecture)
    • Great lecture done by Sean Carroll around the time the Higgs boson's discovery was announced. It's a good combination of what role the Higgs plays in particle physics, why it's important and what's next. Also spends a little bit of time discussing how colliders like the LHC work.
  • Mysteries of Modern Physics: Time (Great Courses lecture)
    • Not really heavy on QM at all, however I think it does best to do this lecture after having a bit of the physics under your belt first. The odd nature of time symmetry in the fundamental forces and what that means with regards to our understanding of time as we experience it is more impactful with the additional knowledge (but, like I said, not absolutely required).
  • Deep Down Things: The Breathtaking Beauty of Particle Physics
    • This is not a mathematical approach like "A Most Incomprehensible Thing" are but it's subject matter is more advanced and the resulting math (at least) an order of magnitude harder (so it's a good thing it's skipped). This is a "high level deep dive" (whatever that means) into QFT though and so discussion of pure abstract math is a huge focus. Lie groups, spontaneous symmetry breaking, internal symmetry spaces etc. are covered.
  • The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
    • This is your desert after working through everything above. Had to include something about string theory here. Not a technical book at all but best to be familiar with QM concepts before diving in.

      Blending the line between pop-sci and mathematical (these books are not meant to be read and put away but instead read, re-read and pondered):

  • A Most Incomprehensible Thing: Intro to GR
    • Sorry, this is GR specific and nothing to do with QM directly. However I think it's a great book acting as an introduction. Definitely don't go audible/kindle. Get the hard copy. Lots of equations. Tensor calculus, Lorentz transforms, Einstein field equations, etc. While it isn't a rigorous textbook it is, at it's core, a mathematics based description not analogies. Falls apart at the end, after all, it can't be rigorous and accessible at the same time, but still well worth the read.
  • The Theoretical Minimum: What You Need to Know to Start Doing Physics
    • Not QM at all. However it is a great introduction to using math as a tool for describing our reality and since it's using it to describe classical mechanics you get to employ all of your classical intuition that you've worked on your entire life. This means you can focus on the idea of using math as a descriptive tool and not as a tool to inform your intuition. Which then would lead us to...
  • Quantum Mechanics: The Theoretical Minimum
    • Great introduction that uses math in a descriptive way AND to inform our intuition.
  • The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe
    • Incredible book. I think the best way to describe this book is a massive guidebook. You probably won't be able to get through each of the topics based solely on the information presented in the book but the book gives you the tools and knowledge to ask the right questions (which, frankly, as anybody familiar with the topic knows, is actually the hardest part). You're going to be knocking your head against a brick wall plenty with this book. But that's ok, the feeling when the brick wall finally succumbs to your repeated headbutts makes it all worth while.
u/greatnessmeetsclass · 5 pointsr/MedicalPhysics

I agree with everything said in this thread, but to add some things:

I strongly recommend a good particle physics course. If you can think about the basic things in our field automatically in terms of Feynman diagrams and you know the rules of certain force interactions (everything but gravity being important, with EM and Weak force interactions slightly more important than strong in our field), I've found that helps me to understand the empirical/applied stuff a lot better.

I would seek to shadow as many medical physicists from as many different specialties as possible. It'll let you decide if you really want to be/what specifically you want to do in our field, as well as look good on any resume. I'd shoot for at least one shadowing session of clinical physicists in radiotherapy, nuclear medicine, and diagnostic imaging each, as well as a health physicist, and an undergrad internship at a company like Varian or Elekta (look to the AAPM for undergrad opportunities/funding). Some physicists appreciate teaching people while others don't, so don't give up if you're turned down on a cold call, but don't cold call the same person twice.

As a bonus, read Kahn, Attix, and Hall, if you have time. For Nuclear Med, I'd recommend Cherry, and for Diagnostic Imaging I'd recommend Bushburg. Definitely start with Kahn as it is the easiest to digest IMO. I'm sure others have book recommendations as well. Though, I wouldn't bother until you've at least taken your entry level classical mechanics and E&M courses, even then a lot wont click until you've taken Quantum 1.

Edit: oh also experience in programming will help. Matlab and/or python seem to be base in our field, though C++ cant hurt.

u/sunnbeta · 1 pointr/DebateReligion

>To answer I guess it would be an unusual intentional altering of normal physical processes by some agent outside those processes. Or something, kind of hard to come up with one that fits everything.

That sounds like a good definition. I still don’t know how we (a) separate a natural event from one caused by an outside agent, whatever that is, and (b) how we can tell if claims of miracles are true or just made up. Like it would be a miracle if David Copperfield really transported himself, but he merely gives the illusion of doing this.

>To answer I guess it would be an unusual intentional altering of normal physical processes by some agent outside those processes. Or something, kind of hard to come up with one that fits everything.

What is the overwhelming evidence? I mean what is your very best bit of evidence? Or top 3, top 5, top 10...

At the end I know you take me up on some other sources, which I will provide, and a key learning of them is that it’s really hard to actually figure out real truths, to be really sure of things, and it’s very easy to fool yourself along the way. Just think that for many people, for a long time, even with overwhelming evidence of it being the case, it would have appeared that the sun/moon/stars moved around the earth, being at the center. But that would have been wrong. This is how careful you need to be before accepting things as true, because it’s very easy to fool yourself.

>Muhammed was the most obvious false prophet in history. Allah is capricious, even to muslims, arbitrarily allowing believers into heaven or not.

So what? How do we know God (if he exists) is even the “good guy”?

>Whether or not I picked the right one, I would not pick one so obviously wrong

What are you basing your notion of “wrong” on? Some subjective personal feeling about how God must be?

>Not all miracles are equivalent, and not all miracle accounts are equivalent.

I agree, some can be made up on the spot, others talking about for centuries. But which ones can you actually demonstrate to be true?

The link you provide gives no evidence outside of a circular argument based on Biblical accounts. Anyone can write down a claim in a book, that is still just a claim, not evidence of the claim.

>There are no physically possible options

You’re claiming to know. And maybe you’re even right, maybe there are no “physically possible” options whatever that means. Maybe there is a non-physical option. But the simple truth is we don’t know what that is (we can only take faith in some version of it, which again, is a horrible way to figure out truth).

>The appropriate answer is that we do know - no natural options are possible, therefore the origin is supernatural.

there are also a whole hell of a lot of “supernatural” options. Could be the Christian God, could be Allah, could be as George Carlin put it, some supernatural force that brought the universe as we know it into existence but doesn’t care about us at all (I think probably the most likely, to assume otherwise is very hubristic): https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/235413-something-is-wrong-here-war-disease-death-destruction-hunger-filth

>You think that the unscientific musings some people use to explain the origin of the laws of physics are somehow so robust that it becomes a scientific certainty that the laws of physics could not have changed since then? Is that what you're saying?

Just show me the evidence that they’ve changed and we can put this to bed.

>So I guess you prefer circular reasoning, or perhaps an infinite regression? Those are the only three options according to baron von munchhausen, so let me know what you choose before attacking axiomatic reasoning.

I already said it’s UNKNOWN. Maybe it’s an unknown supernatural force that set things in motion but isn’t conscious, doesn’t care. Maybe it’s an infinite regress we can’t understand. You are the one using circular arguments to state it must be a certain way. You even seem certain that Mohammed is a false prophet. Please go take your evidence for that to the Middle East because it would solve a lot of problems.

I see you think the Quran is disproven through contradictions. Maybe that’s one reason to question it, but I think the bigger problem is simply that it has not been proven because evidence hasn’t been provided to confirm it’s truth. It has to be accepted on faith that it is the word of God as given to Mohammed. Same problem with the Bible, it has to be taken on faith that it’s portraying real events (like the resurrection of Jesus).

Now for the information I offered, I would start with a short video and a commencement speech; https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tWr39Q9vBgo

http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm

(He talks about pseudosciences and poor approaches to science, and please just realize that religious claims are like another order of magnitude more absurd when it comes to accepting them as true)

These both deal with the pitfalls we can succumb to and “fool ourselves”, and how difficult it is to really figure something out. If this interests you even slightly, I highly highly suggest this book: https://www.amazon.com/QED-Strange-Theory-Light-Matter/dp/0691125759

Because he is able to describe the known (DEMONSTRATED) behavior of light and quantum mechanics, without using any equations, and tells you how it really is. The purpose of reading this (even just the first couple chapters) is to provide an understanding of the level of depth us humans have been able to go to in understanding the world around us, and help you put Biblical claims into context. The fact that Biblical claims come nowhere remotely close to fitting the most bare bones requirements that would be applied to saying a scientific theory is true, I know most theists dismiss as “well that’s because this is outside the realm of science” - but you’ve never demonstrated that! Again it all comes down to faith, and it not the fault of science that we’ve learned how to really learn things, not just take faith in some story.

u/LRE · 8 pointsr/exjw

Random selection of some of my favorites to help you expand your horizons:

The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan is a great introduction to scientific skepticism.

Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris is a succinct refutation of Christianity as it's generally practiced in the US employing crystal-clear logic.

Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor by Anthony Everitt is the best biography of one of the most interesting men in history, in my personal opinion.

Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski is a jaw-dropping book on history, journalism, travel, contemporary events, philosophy.

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson is a great tome about... everything. Physics, history, biology, art... Plus he's funny as hell. (Check out his In a Sunburned Country for a side-splitting account of his trip to Australia).

The Annotated Mona Lisa by Carol Strickland is a thorough primer on art history. Get it before going to any major museum (Met, Louvre, Tate Modern, Prado, etc).

Not the Impossible Faith by Richard Carrier is a detailed refutation of the whole 'Christianity could not have survived the early years if it weren't for god's providence' argument.

Six Easy Pieces by Richard Feynman are six of the easier chapters from his '63 Lectures on Physics delivered at CalTech. If you like it and really want to be mind-fucked with science, his QED is a great book on quantum electrodynamics direct from the master.

Lucy's Legacy by Donald Johanson will give you a really great understanding of our family history (homo, australopithecus, ardipithecus, etc). Equally good are Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors by Nicholas Wade and Mapping Human History by Steve Olson, though I personally enjoyed Before the Dawn slightly more.

Memory and the Mediterranean by Fernand Braudel gives you context for all the Bible stories by detailing contemporaneous events from the Levant, Italy, Greece, Egypt, etc.

After the Prophet by Lesley Hazleton is an awesome read if you don't know much about Islam and its early history.

Happy reading!

edit: Also, check out the Reasonable Doubts podcast.

u/WillWeisser · 1 pointr/books

Personally, I think you would get great suggestions on /r/physics. But since you're here...

Since you seem like you're just dipping your toes in the water, you might want to start off with something basic like Hawking (A Brief History of Time, The Universe in a Nutshell).

I highly recommend Feynman's QED, it's short but there's really no other book like it. Anything else by Feynman is great too. I found this on Amazon and though I haven't read it, I can tell you that he was the greatest at explaining complex topics to a mass audience.

You'll probably want to read about relativity too, although my knowledge of books here is limited. Someone else can chime in, maybe. When I was a kid I read Einstein for Beginners and loved it, but that's a comic book so it might not be everyone's cup of tea.

If you really want to understand quantum mechanics and don't mind a little calculus (OK, a lot), try the textbook Introduction to Quantum Mechanics by Griffiths. Don't settle for hokey popular misconceptions of how QM works, this is the real thing and it will blow your mind.

Finally, the most recent popular physics book I read and really enjoyed was The Trouble with Physics by Smolin. It's ostensibly a book about how string theory is likely incorrect, but it also contains really great segments about the current state of particle physics and the standard model.

u/fiskiligr · 1 pointr/booklists

Alan Watts is great - but he's no philosopher. He even claims this himself.
He is more aligned with religion than anything else - maybe best described as a spiritualist. He wasn't exactly going about his work with the same rigor, for example, as St. Aquinas and Anselm.

Though Albert Camus claimed not to be a philosopher as well - but that is the funny thing about continental philosophy - half the time you can't distinguish them from plain authors. :-)

As for recommendations - this is really tough.

Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy would be a good one to read - but maybe not for general purposes.
For epistemology, you can't beat Gettier's Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?. It's more like a one page read, however.

Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is great for the section on the problems of induction.

For general purpose though (and I have to give credit to my SO, who has a PhD in philosophy and has taught it for ages), I think Simon Blackburn's Think might be one of the better surveys and general introductions to philosophy.

Hope this helps. :-)

u/gnomicarchitecture · 2 pointsr/philosophy

I think the best route is to trick her into being interested in books. I think I just might have a trick for that.

Send her the wikipedia article for "trolley problem", and then send her the wiki article on judith thomson's violinist argument in favor of abortion. Then send her a link to parfit's transporter thought experiment. It's ideal if you can find versions of these online which are easy to read and presented in a cool manner. (blog entries are ideal for this. Here's a blog entry on parfit's teletransporter: http://twophilosoraptors.blogspot.com/2010/07/teletransporter.html)

Then buy her What If...collected thought experiments in philosophy off amazon or ebay. A used one will be cheap, or take it out from the library and renew it online while she uses it. If she got intrigued by the above thought experiments, and is intrigued by strange paradoxes about truth, like the liar paradox, or leibniz's law, then she will absolutely love this book. It's full of one-page, easily consumable versions of thought experiments, and then the page next to that one contains elaboration on the experiment and current work on it. One of my favorites in there is Max Black's two spheres, which seem to violate leibniz's law. A fun alternative to this, with bite sized philosophy things is "plato and a platypus walk into a bar".

If she continues to show interest in these, you can feed her new information about them via blogs like peasoup and thoughts, arguments, and rants, by googling the name of blogs like these next to a particular paradox or thought experiment, e.g. "thoughts arguments and rants moores paradox". This will lead you to new work by contemporary philosophers on the subjects, which may feed her interest into what it is that philosophers actually do. Eventually this may prompt her to want to read a full book on philosophy, to have a more mature understanding of how these paradoxes and TE's work, then you could get her the very interesting Think by simon blackburn, which is a general intro to philosophy, or the shorter very short introduction books. You can work up to more advanced, interesting work from there (like David Lewis' On the plurality of worlds, which opens the trippy possibility that all possibilities are realities).

Hope she enjoys her reading!

u/Stembolt_Sealer · 1 pointr/OldSchoolCool

My experience with nuclear power comes from an nuclear physics course I took in undergrad.. so the stuff I was reading was not really suitable for a normal audience. We did everything from fission in stars to different types of fuels in nuclear reactions. Fukushima actually happened during my time in that course.

Then later I took nuclear energy for electrical engineers, focusing on the power generation itself. I didn't personally go into energy, and I have some friends who specifically work for power companies who could answer it better than me. But in general, you will have a hard time finding a power engineer that is against nuclear. They've done the math.

My textbook for the more understandable of the two courses was Nuclear Physics: Principles and Applications, which I strongly recommend despite it being an academic approach. A patient laymen would be able to understand the concepts of this book without much effort, however the math may require some outside assistance.

Comparing nuclear to other forms of (non-renewable) energy is really challenging without asking the person to do the math themselves. It's so astonishingly powerful that the first time you do the calculations you do them again because you're convinced no form of energy is that efficient. Well then you say to your professor, but the negatives are huge! I've heard all the news reports! Then you spend some class time going over figures, comparing forms of energy, per capita power, per capita death, and proportional lives lost and Nuclear stands with an INCREDIBLE record of near perfection while the media holds a magnifying glass over tiny scratches. Meanwhile all other forms of non-renewable energy hold a death-toll so high it's not even comparable to nuclear.

Renewable energy loses to nuclear simply because nuclear always works, produces magnitudes more energy, and can ramp up the reaction on the spot in response to an increase in the demand of power.

I hope my rambling has been of some help.. long story short I mostly studied the math and statistics behind it's safety. I haven't read any non-technical books but I'm sure someone here can help you out with a recommendation. Perhaps visit /r/NuclearPower for further reading.

Links you may find interesting:

Safety of Nuclear Power Reactors

MIT Course: Nuclear Plant Safety

General Wiki Info

u/bkanber · 2 pointsr/askscience

I'm just glad I could help. I would recommend for you the book QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter, which is a transcription of four lectures by Richard Feynman.

If you don't know who Richard Feynman is, he's one of the people who won a Nobel prize for the formulation of Quantum Electrodynamics (the interaction of photons with charged particles like electrons). But more importantly than that, Feynman was EXCELLENT at talking about science in a manner that laypeople can understand, without actually dumbing down the material. These lectures explain QED in straightforward English. I strongly recommend it, it's definitely worth the $12. Hopefully this book will be a jumping-off point to further learning for you (as it was for me). Enjoy!

u/Morophin3 · 1 pointr/answers

Here are some cool videos for you(not really informative about the makeup of cells but nonetheless might interest you enough to read the amazing books that I've listed below! The microcosmos really is a whole 'nother world!):

Kinesin Walking Narrated Version:

http://youtu.be/YAva4g3Pk6k


This is a better model. Notice how the 'legs' shake around violently until it snaps into place. Sometimes the random motion of the jiggling atoms(these aren't shown. Imagine the Kinesin molecules shown in a sea of water molecules, all jiggling about ferociously. The 'invisible' water molecules are bumping up against the Kinesin, and it's evolved to work with the random motions) makes it step backwards! But the ATP/ADP process makes it more likely to step forward than backwards(an evolved process). This is explained well in the book Life's Ratchet below.

Molecular Motor Kinesin Walks Like a Drunk Man:

http://youtu.be/JckOUrl3aes

Here are some amazing book to read. Seriously read all of these, preferably in the order listed to get the best understanding. They will blow your mind many times over. Many, if not all, may be at your local library.


QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0691125759


Quarks: The Stuff of Matter

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0465067816


Thermodynamics:A Very Short Introduction

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0199572194


Life's Ratchet:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0465022537/


The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1416594795


The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0307275175p

I would also recommend taking a biology and maybe a chemistry class at your local community college, if possible. My biology class started with the smallest stuff, atoms(technically not the smallest, but whatever), and worked its way up through the chain of sizes up to the biosphere. It was very informative and there were a few people in their 40s(a guess) that really enjoyed the class. So you can do it, too!

u/SamWaterhouse · 1 pointr/Physics

The Feynman Lectures are a perfect introduction to physics from high school level all the way up to degree level.

A good understanding of maths is essential to more advanced physics and there is an excellent textbook written by two extremely qualified headmaster's called The Language Of Physics: A Foundation for University Study which is what's recommended to first year University students and poses questions at the end of each chapter.

If you're looking for something a little less intimidating, then the A Very Short Introduction series have a perfect range of short (and cheap!) books on Physics: [Quantum Theory]
(https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0192802526/ref=pd_sim_14_4?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=9A3MSV2XSQRYF880MYP6), Relativity, Particle Physics, Cosmology, Nuclear Physics, Black Holes, Thermodynamics, Astrophysics, Light and Magnetism. These are great little books that don't blow your head off!

Physics is an extremely interesting subject to read around and I wish you the best with it :)

u/airshowfan · 2 pointsr/AskEngineers

a. Stanford. But a lot of people who work with me did not go to big-name schools. UC Irvine, Iowa State, Oregon state, etc. Where I work, there's lots of UW. Where I used to work before that; lots of RPI and USC.

b. I got great grades in high school, but slipped a little bit in college. (This made my life difficult later. A good GPA makes it easier to be hired, and is practically necessary if you want a Masters, something that many many many engineers have today). Classes: I'm sure I'm not the first one to tell you this, but take all the math and physics you can. And try to learn some of this stuff outside of school (it can be more fun that way), pick up some books, try to get through the Feynman Lectures on Physics (or just Six Easy Pieces and QED to start off), some Martin Gardner, books like Euler's Gem, learn HTML, try your hand at programming, build LEGO robots... all that kind of stuff will make it easier to learn the stuff you need to learn to become an engineer.

u/PeoriaJohnson · 43 pointsr/askscience

This is a fantastic question. I'm really glad you asked it.

First, we need to correct your formula for energy. It's not, as we are so often told, "E=mc^2 ". That equation only works for things that are stationary. Things that can move obey the following, "E = gamma * mc^2 ". This raises the obvious question, what is gamma?

The term "gamma" is shorthand for (1-(v/c)^2 )^(-1/2) , where v is the velocity of whatever is moving, and c is the speed of light. So "gamma" is a funny term that starts at a value of 1 for things that are stationary, but gets bigger and bigger for things moving faster and faster. The closer something moves to the speed of light, the closer gamma gets to infinity!

So, now that we know about gamma, what energy do we expect photons with zero mass to have?

Well, "E = gamma * mc^2 ". m = 0, just like you said. But gamma = infinity. (!) What a clever trick the universe plays! It says that mass-less objects must have zero energy, except if they move at the speed of light! So, photons are, in some sense, a loophole in relativity. Their existence and their energy and momentum can be seen as a technicality that's only permitted if they move at light-speed.

Note: I lifted this interpretation from David J. Griffiths' excellent text "Introduction to Elementary Particles."

u/thetourist74 · 1 pointr/askphilosophy

Well, if you want a concentrated course of study you might consider looking for secondary sources that focus on particular areas of research in philosophy rather than trying to read very few (5-10) authors in real depth. I see Kant has been suggested, for example, and while I would never doubt his importance as a philosopher, if you set out with the intention of reading the bulk of his works as you say you might you would have to tackle a great deal of dry, technical material which I think would prove to be a lot more work than you could expect. Same could be said for Aristotle, Plato, Hegel, Descartes, nearly anyone you really might care to list. I don't know if you've read much philosophy, but you might instead look at something like an introduction to philosophy, an intro to ethics, or an intro to the philosophy of mind. These are only some examples, there are books like this for pretty much any area of study that attracts your interest. I'm sure others could provide suggestions as well.

u/kinematografi · 1 pointr/AskReddit

This is a good start

and so is this!

This is, possibly surprisingly, good too.

If you're looking to jump right into a text and think you have a grip on the language, try Foucault's Madness and Civilization It's great and pretty easy to read.

Another good introduction (or at least, MY introduction to philosophy is Slavoj Zizek. He's pretty easy to read and understand, but makes ties to Lacan, Nietzsche, Heidegger, etc in a cohesive manner that makes you want to learn more. Of his work, I'd check out The Sublime Object of Ideology, The Parallax View or watch his movie! (Which is extraordinarily entertaining for how dense it is. He's also kind of amazing in a philosophical rock star kind of way.)

Hope that gets you started!

u/technically_art · 1 pointr/askscience

> do you mean that they are man-made tools to help picture and calculate and predict?

Yes.

> once we figured out that light is the oscillation of the EM field, that proved to us that fields are actually a real physical... thing.

That's definitely not the case (the second part.) In fact the experiments of Michelson and Morley are usually cited as definitive proof that it's not a real, physical thing.

> If you don't feel confident answering, are there any books you would refer me to?

Check out Feynman's books "6 Not-So-Easy Pieces" and "QED". QED is the one more relevant to this discussion. I would also recommend Roger Penrose's The Road to Reality if you have a lot of spare time and are willing to keep up with it properly.

Are you taking an intro to physics course as an undergraduate? If so, and if you are interested enough to take more coursework on physics, try taking an EMags (Electromagnetic Fields) class in the EE or physics department. 20th century physics (relativity) and a couple of QM (Quantum Mechanics) classes would be helpful as well. After you take a couple of EM and QM courses, you'll really appreciate how god damn hard it is to have any sort of "intuition" about physics, and how important it is to just treat the math like math.

u/Zaiph · 2 pointsr/Physics

No problem, let me know if you need any more resources.

Here are two particle physics books I liked that you could probably read with a high school background.


  1. The Particle Zoo: The Search for the Fundamental Nature of Reality by Gavin Hesketh
    https://www.amazon.com/Particle-Zoo-Search-Fundamental-Reality-ebook/dp/B01ARXVSS2

    I thought this book gave a good basic overview of particle physics:

  2. Supersymmetry: Unveiling The Ultimate Laws Of Nature by Gordon Kane

    https://www.amazon.com/Supersymmetry-Unveiling-Ultimate-Laws-Nature/dp/0738204897

    I'm far too unqualified to actually comment on SUSY or the accuracy of this book, but I had fun reading it. Note that this is from Pre LHC era.

    Also if you're up for a challenge and have the necessary resources around you, there's a desktop muon detector project that you can ask your high school AP Physics C teacher to do with your class.

    http://www.cosmicwatch.lns.mit.edu/about

    I don't know what your electronics background is, but if you do find it interesting, be safe and don't get hurt building it.


    Edit: I second EulerJr's opinion about not getting involved in research as a freshman. I recommend enjoying learning Physics and college as much as you can your freshman year, and once you've got the handle on academics, your social life, and being a quasi-adult in general, start research in your sophomore year.
u/professorboat · 7 pointsr/askphilosophy

I think Oxford's Very Short Introduction series is a pretty good place to start as far as books go. You can pick a part of philosophy you are interested in and find the introduction to that, or just read the general Philosophy intro. My personal favourite is the VSI to Philosophy of Science by Samir Okasha.

Another good introductory book is Think by Simon Blackburn.

I have found these good introductions, they are written by experts, and directed to the general reader, but without dumbing it down.

As far as the classics of philosophy go, someone else suggested Plato's dialogues and I would add Descartes' Meditations to that. It is short and a pretty good example of how modern philosophy operates. In it Descartes tries to find out what we can know for sure. It is reasonably easy to read too.

Of course, books can be quite expensive (if you torrent you can usually find downloads of many VSIs, and Meditations is out of copyright), and you shouldn't feel you have to have read any of these if you can find cheap copies.

u/Prayden · 7 pointsr/chemistry

Anything by Feynmann are great reads. For upper division instrumental analysis, spectroscopy, and quantum I wholly recommend QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter by Richard P. Feynman et al. It describes all the concepts in the book in layman's terms in a brilliant narrative of chemistry. I recommend it to anyone that wants to learn about the strangeness of physics and chemistry. It is easy to digest.

The Feynman Lectures on Physics, although pricey helped me survive physics (I have the paperbacks). It seems you can read the entirety online at that site.

If you choose to do a lot of organic chemistry laboratory work then Advanced Practical Organic Chemistry is a really great resource. It covers just about everything you need to know to be very competent and safe in the lab. I found a used copy of the second edition that has served me well. I don't know what has been updated in the third edition.

I agree with /u/lmo2th Pauling has written albeit old but definitive books on chemistry. Although it can be very difficult to read and knowledge of differential equations is required, Introduction to Quantum Mechanics with Applications to Chemistry by Linus Pauling et al. was the most succinct book on the nitty gritty math of QM I found.

I recently graduated with a B.S. in Chemistry, it was difficult, but I loved every minute I spent in the lab doing research and can't imagine doing anything else. Edit: QED and Feynmann Lectures are great reads for lower division classes. Save the second two for if you decide on chemistry.

u/efilon · 1 pointr/books

For what it's worth, I thought the first 3 (or maybe 4) chapters were pretty decent for an introduction to QM. It was mainly after perturbation theory where it got less good. Lucky for me, the professor who taught the second semester QM used the book mostly for the problems and supplementary reading.

I also have nothing against leaving things as problems in general, but feel that Griffiths takes it too far, the Stark effect problem being the main example that has stuck with me. Ultimately, some things are just too important to gloss over by leaving as a problem to the reader. A good instructor would certainly cover something like the Stark effect, but then it would be nice to have some text on it, too.

As for other books, Shankar is good, as is Bransden and Joachain's book. My all time favorite is this one by Ballentine. It is supposed to be a graduate level text, but I think it is very good in general, especially for undergrads who have already taken an introductory QM course. I used it extensively as a supplementary text in graduate QM and would have used it as an undergrad had I known of it then.

u/LFZUAB · 1 pointr/Physics

https://www.amazon.com/QED-Strange-Theory-Light-Matter/dp/0691125759

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1420946331/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

The latter is at gutenberg.org as well. Good idea with some of the simpler and less creative gymnastics.

As far as philosophy's concerned, these two in particular are a bit classic. The less time is spent on dealing with and accepting experiments, the further into lala land of maths you go. None of these newer theories actually offer an answer and are creative proposals that all fall short of a physical description and process. QED by Feynman is entertaining and funny, and you won't find better explanations that doesn't discuss some mathematical idea, which means we've left the realm of philosophy and physics in a classical sense. Because saying the "maths works", so let's justify it with something that sound plausible is really starting to get old.

​

So this is perhaps "basic" and what you were asking for. But it may offer a grounding before exploring all the terms and ideas that can be referenced when calculating and wanting to make a prediction. Or a phenomenological argument that has little to do with experiments and well off into the fringes of physics regions. Phenomenology is not philosophy in this sense, it's an subjective argument based on own work and experience and is largely subjective and hinges on whatever idea it revolves around.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenology_(physics)

In HEP, predictions come after preliminary data, where application of theories and calculations are the "phenomena" and the experimental results with high statistical significance is the "horse". So to compete here you need a rumour mill and access to let's say 2-4 sigma results. Experiments are cool, hoping for something truly revealing, theory dealing with results and what it means gets boring with these speculations. Good luck finding an article that argues a problem.

u/anyone4apint · 16 pointsr/explainlikeimfive

It is exactly the same as normal good old fashioned matter in every respect.... except one. In normal matter, the stuff that makes up an atom has an electric charge. In anti-matter, the charge is the exact opposite of what it is in normal matter.

When matter and anti-matter come into contact with one another, the opposite charges react and they obliterate one another.

Anti-matter is not a theoretical concept and should not be confused with dark energy. Anti-matter is real and it can even be produced at places like CERN. However, by its very nature, when an anti-particle is created it only lasts a fraction of a second because as soon as it interacts with regular matter (ie, pretty much everything in the universe!) it gets obliterated.

There are some great theories about anti-matter and how it started off in the big bang. It is suggested that during the big bang both matter and anti-matter were created in equal quantities, they all interacted together and obliterated everything....which would mean that there should be NOTHING left. But there is. We are here. So the question becomes, how did SOME matter survive. Why did the big bang create a tiny bit more matter than anti-matter. That raises all kinds of questions in the world of physics. It is even theorised that there could be entire regions of space and galaxies out there which are made up of only anti-matter and that we would never know about it as they look and act just like any normal galaxy, its not until they bump into some regular matter that they both go bang! It is a fascinating area.

I HIGHLY recommend picking up this book to learn more. It is written at a level that anyone can understand and it takes you through, step by step, the history of it and what it is and everything we know about it, and at the end of the book you will scratch your head and wonder just how you managed to comprehend all of it! http://www.amazon.co.uk/Antimatter-Frank-Close/dp/0199578877

u/Snowtred · 8 pointsr/Physics

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.

u/Fuzzy_Thoughts · 2 pointsr/mormon

It's truly a whole new world to explore. I read the book Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy by Simon Blackburn last year as a starting point. Great stuff. I'd recommend it if you'd like to dip your toes into philosophy a bit more. It's pretty cheap on used book sites as well.

u/k-selectride · 3 pointsr/Physics

I don't know of any decent online particle physics resources. But there are two good books at the undergraduate level I can think of Griffiths and Halzen and Martin

For superconductivity you want to learn many body quantum mechanics, ie non-relativistic quantum field theory. The most common recommendation is Fetter and Walecka, but I might consider Thouless to be superior on account of it being 1/3rd the length and probably only covers core topics. If you feel like dropping a lot of money, Mahan is very good, but also somewhat exhaustive. Might be worth having as a reference depending on how serious you get. I would get F&W and Thouless simply on account of how cheap they are.

u/redsledletters · 3 pointsr/TrueAtheism

Confrontational atheism: Testament: Memoir of the Thoughts and Sentiments of Jean Meslier

>"Know, then, my friends, that everything that is recited and practiced in the world for the cult and adoration of gods is nothing but errors, abuses, illusions, and impostures. All the laws and orders that are issued in the name and authority of God or the gods are really only human inventions…."

>"And what I say here in general about the vanity and falsity of the religions of the world, I don’t say only about the foreign and pagan religions, which you already regard as false, but I say it as well about your Christian religion because, as a matter of fact, it is no less vain or less false than any other.



Softer (much less confrontational) atheism: 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God

>This unique approach to skepticism presents fifty commonly heard reasons people often give for believing in a God and then raises legitimate questions regarding these reasons, showing in each case that there is much room for doubt. Whether you're a believer, a complete skeptic, or somewhere in between, you'll find this review of traditional and more recent arguments for the existence of God refreshing, approachable, and enlightening.



Favorites non-fiction (or at least mostly non-fiction as time will tell) and not directly related to atheism: Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimension and The Illustrated A Brief History of Time and the Universe in a Nutshell



Favorites fiction (also not directly atheist related): Treasure Island, and Hogfather: A Novel of Discworld



Atheism book I've tried to read and found to be over my head that's supposed to be the end-all-be-all: The Miracle of Theism: Arguments For and Against the Existence of God

***

Currently reading and while enjoyable it's a bit tough to get, I've found myself re-reading pages regularly: QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter

u/[deleted] · 2 pointsr/Physics

QED, Six Easy Pieces, and Six Not So Easy Pieces are great reads for the interested layperson. Also, Einsteins original Relativity is great, and doesn't have super-complicated math.

u/mhwalker · 1 pointr/ParticlePhysics

Here are some books I would suggest looking at:

Cahn and Goldhaber -- A very low math book that documents the discoveries many of the most important advancements in particle physics of the last fifty or so years.

Halzen and Martin -- One of the best introductions to particle physics out there. It's very readable and timeless. It does have some math though.

I would also suggest looking for information on the following things, but I don't have time to dig up suitable references for you:

The construction of Fermilab basically transformed the area west of Chicago from farmland to a technical corridor. There must be some historical sources on this change.

Partice physicists have produced a huge amount of innovation as a side effect of wanting to do effective research. The most common example is the internet. They also pioneered distributed computing (ie the Grid) which was the predecessor of the "Cloud." For the construction the LHC, junctions that allow current to be continuously passed from regular-conduction to super-conducting circuits were invented. And don't forget that one of the earliest particle accelerators, the cyclotron in Chicago, showed that it was possible to split the atom.

u/djimbob · 4 pointsr/askscience

What are you trying to be? Have one book just slightly deeper than Greene's book, or actually learn theoretical physics to say become a theoretical physicist or at least understand it?

If the former, it will be difficult as there's a lot of things that might be tacitly assumed that you know about more basic physics. However, a very good intro to Quantum Mechanics is Shankar. I'd also look into Foster and Nightingale's relativity book for a brief introduction to special (read Appendix A first) and general relativity. Maybe after both try A. Zee intro to QFT if you want to learn more about QFT. If you want to learn about phenomenological particle physics, say look at Perkins. Also it may help to have a book on mathematical physics, such as Boas or Arfken. (Arfken is the more advanced book, but has less examples). Also it may help to get a basic modern physics book that has very little math, though I can't think of any good ones.

If the latter than you will have to learn a lot. Here's advice from Nobel Laureate theoretical physicist Gerardus t'Hooft.

u/Underthepun · 1 pointr/Catholicism

I think what you are looking for is Quantum Enigma by Wolfgang Smith. I haven't read it yet but it looks interesting. While I don't think there's been a ton of work on reconciling Thomsim/Neo-Scholasticism with QM, I think that is because many don't see a clear conflict. As one of your commenters points out, Feser kind of hand waves QM's challenges to causation away with a "well just because we don't know the cause doesn't mean there isn't one." I think that may be an acceptable response but it certainly isn't a satisfying one.

On the subject of QM, I posted this interview yesterday with Stephen Barr, a leading physicist who proposes that if anything QM reinforces classical theism rather than undermines it. You can Google some of his work but I don't know if he's a Thomist or delves too deep into philosophy (which would make him like all other physicists...I kid I kid).

u/inko1nsiderate · 1 pointr/Physics

If you look at pretty much any book written for particle physics and Lie Groups they cover examples first (usually spin and angular momentum), but I don't think you'll find exactly what you are looking for. Lie Groups for Pedestrians starts by generating representations of the SU(2) Lie Algebra using creation and annihilation operators, so it might be along the lines of what you are looking for.

Edit: Also, I believe Ryder's book on QFT explicitly uses co-sets and more formal aspects of group theory to talk about gauge-fixing. That might be a good place to look for how those more formal ideas are applied. Of course, Weinberg's book on QFT (vol 2.) also talks about some aspects of representation theory with examples that might be a good way to connect to the math you are cranking out (for example how the adjoint representation relates to gauge bosons).

u/C_M_Burns · 2 pointsr/philosophy

I know I'm tardy to the party, but I found that it's best to start with general surveys of philosophy, so you're exposed to a wide range of thought, then narrowing down your interests.

Personally, I found the following to be the most helpful:

From Socrates to Sartre: The Philosophic Quest

Think

What Does It All Mean?

The Problems of Philosophy

u/Earthtone_Coalition · 1 pointr/AskReddit

1984. I can't remember how old I was, but I must have been a young teenager. I'd say of any book I've read, it's the one that comes to mind most often.

Also Think by Simon Blackburn. A basic introduction to western philosophy, it really sparked my interest at a young age and formed the basis for a love of philosophy, metaphysics, and just taking the time to deeply examine concepts and ideas.

u/siberian-snake · 2 pointsr/ParticlePhysics

I really enjoyed Thomson's Modern Particle Physics, but it's aimed at advanced undergrads who have taken quantum mechanics. It's a great book for understanding modern phenomenology, as it was published in 2013.

u/InfanticideAquifer · 1 pointr/explainlikeimfive

In non-relativistic quantum mechanics, yes, "most" of the paths involve the particle breaking lightspeed. I've never seen the path-integral formulation worked out for relativistic quantum mechanics... If I had to guess, I'd say that the unphysical speed > c paths don't contribute to the result even if they are included... but that's just a guess. This is a really good question. If you post in /r/AskScience or /r/AskPhysics someone will probably come along with a really complete answer.

A really good place to go from here would be Feynman's book QED, where he explain the path integral formalism without expecting any prerequisites. I'd call it a "semi-populariztion" type of book.

u/CapBateman · 2 pointsr/askphilosophy

If you want a more general introduction into philosophy there's a Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy by Simon Blackburn and the older What Does It All Mean?: A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy by Thomas Nagel. A more academic introduction (the last two books are more aimed at a general audience) is Fundamentals of Philosophy edited by John Shand. If you're willing to sit through it there also Russel's classic A History of Western Philosophy, which is a sort of introduction to philosophy through the history of the field (the audiobook is on youtube btw), and there also his Problems of Philosophy

I'm not that familiar with eastern philosophy, but a classic introduction to Existentialism is Walter Kaufmann's Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Sartre and it should go nicely with Existentialism is a Humanism.

Hope this helps :)

u/mccoyn · 2 pointsr/science

These reality branches can add together, or even cancel out. This effects the probability of certain events occurring, which can be tested by repeating experiments.

I would try to explain it further, but I am sure I'll mess it up. I recommend QED, which is surprisingly easy to read.

u/1point618 · 3 pointsr/Physics

The best simple explanation of QM that I've read was Oxford University Press' A Very Short Introduction to Quantum Theory. Written by a student of Dirac's, it traces the intellectual history of QM while presenting all sides in the debates over interpretation as well as presenting the author's own biases up front. The appendixes contain the math, so the main text is readable even for someone with only minimal math background (such as myself).

u/GuitarGreg · 2 pointsr/electricians

Get this book, I think you would enjoy it and it would probably answer most (if not all) of your questions.

At a certain point you have to just accept that electricity behaves the way it does, just because it does. A lot of the way we talk about electricity is convention, or it makes general assumptions about the way electricity behaves that in most cases are well-founded, so you can get away with them. If you really start to dig, stuff can get weird.

If you want a glimpse of how strange reality can get, read this. It is not directly about electrons but it talks about light so there are some similarities. Plus Feynman is a great author.

u/WhataBeautifulPodunk · 2 pointsr/Physics

Quantum

Easy: Zettili, Comprehensive reference: Cohen-Tannoudji

or if you want more foundational books

Easy: Schumacher and Westmoreland, Comprehensive: Ballentine

u/Fizil · 7 pointsr/askscience

I would highly recommend anyone interested in the details at a level the layman can understand pick up Richard Feynman's QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter

http://www.amazon.com/QED-Strange-Princeton-Science-Library/dp/0691125759

It is IMO the best physics book aimed at the layman I've ever encountered. It gives a very lucid and detailed explanation of why light behaves the way it does in our everyday world, given the quantum mechanical rules it operates under.

u/SingleMonad · 2 pointsr/Physics

All the best stuff I learned from excited grad students who had just learned it themselves. If you can't find one of them, it is in Jackson. But oddly enough, there was this one appendix in Blatt and Weiskopf that really explained it well. IIRC, you could probably digest it after a semester of Griffiths' E&M.

u/jaytanz · 1 pointr/Physics

Well if you are willing to delve into a textbook I would recommend Griffiths, it starts by introducing the history of particle physics, which is pretty cool, and the initial chapters aren't tooooo math heavy. You will probably need to have taken a course in quantum mechanics though.

For something less technical than a textbook, I can't give you a solid recommendation, but I've heard good things about The Infinity Puzzle.

u/jez2718 · 2 pointsr/philosophy

I think S. Blackburn's Think is an excellent introduction to some of the major areas in philosophy. You might also what to look at some of the philosophical books in the "Very Short Introduction" series, for example the Philosophy, Metaphysics, Ethics, Philosophy of Science and Free Will ones, which as you can guess are good places to start.

A book I quite enjoyed as an introduction to the great philosophers was The Philosophy Book, which not only gave clear descriptions of each of the philosophers' views, but also often gave a clear flowchart summary of their arguments.

u/magnetic-nebula · 2 pointsr/Physics

My graduate particle physics class used Modern Particle Physics by Thomson (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1107034264/ref=pe_385040_30332190_TE_3p_dp_1) which I liked better than the Griffiths book (which I used during the graduate particle physics class I took in undergrad). Good focus on experimental results and how they tied into the development of the field, if I recall correctly.

u/simism66 · 5 pointsr/askphilosophy

No. Just use r/askphilosophy if you have any questions.

Or, if you're really interested, get an introduction to philosophy book. As introductions, I think the The Philosophy Gym by Stephen Law and Think by Simon Blackburn are quite good. For a bit of a more in-depth introduction, The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy is very good.

u/sinnnnner · 8 pointsr/philosophy

I like to recommend Simon Blackburn's Think as a primer. I would try reading Descartes' Meditations, Aristotle's 'Posterior Analytics', and perhaps G. E. Moore's Philosophical Papers (particularly his essay 'A Defense of Common Sense') alongside Blackburn's book. The recommendations in the sidebar have a few good suggestions (Williams, Blackburn, etc.) for introductory works on ethics.

u/naery · 3 pointsr/C25K

I usually think about the last chapter of this that I read. I try to poke holes in whatever logic I've just been studying. It's pretty awesome. But I only do that in between listening to music.

u/curien · 2 pointsr/atheism

That the universe is governed by rules does not imply that it is determinate. If you think nature is determinate, I suggest you study some quantum mechanics. This book and these lectures on which it is based are great starting points.

u/Lawen · 1 pointr/philosophy

Sophie's World is a good recommendation. If you don't want fiction, I'd suggest (and have in other, similar threads) Simon Blackburn's Think as a good, high-level overview of Philosophy. I'd also pick up a text specifically about logic and/or critical thinking that covers basic argument structure and the common fallacies (perhaps The Philosopher's Toolkit ). After reading those, you should have a grasp on both how philosophers do their thing as well as an overview of the various topics in philosophy. From there, you can start reading more about the areas that particularly interest you.

u/ItsAConspiracy · 2 pointsr/quantum

Not weird at all. When you find out how weird quantum physics is, it's hard not to be interested. I first read about it at around the same age and it's fascinated me ever since.

If you haven't yet, read Feynman's QED, which is a great introduction from a famous physicist. The only math is a little arithmetic.

u/dnew · 2 pointsr/atheism

> Could you help me understand this without the requirement of consciousness as a factor in the experiment?

Sure. It's not "interfering." You get the same pattern of bands as you would if it were a wave, but that doesn't make it a wave.

You know how probability works? The probability of A or B happening is the sum of the probabilities (roughly) and the probability of both happening is the product of the probabilities? QED works the same way, except the probabilities are two-dimensional. Thus, it looks like wave interference, because waves follow the same math.

http://www.amazon.com/QED-Strange-Princeton-Science-Library/dp/0691125759/

It's nothing to do with consciousness. Indeed, since science has not determined precisely and measurably what consciousness is or how it works, why would you think there's anything to do with consciousness in the experiment? That's what Schrodinger's Cat is all about. Is the cat conscious enough to collapse the waveform? Is it your consciousness at the computer what is making the CPU work in your machine? Don't be silly, of course it isn't. Don't you think the computer would run the same way regardless of whether you were "observing" it?

The quantum eraser is about this: Not only can a particle "interfere" with particles that didn't exist at the same time as it did, but it can interfere or not depending on events that happen after you've already measured the particle. What has that to do with "consciousness"?

Instead of asking me to prove or explain why consciousness doesn't have anything to do with QED, why don't you try to explain how we build devices that can photograph individual atoms and their bonds without being able to even clearly define what consciousness is. It should then become obvious that consciousness doesn't come into the theory of quantum mechanics any more than angels are required to run a nuclear reactor.

By the way, even if QED did require some sort of "consciousness", what in the world does that have to do with requiring a deity? That makes even less sense than saying a failure of a prediction of evolution logically implies the existence of a deity.

If you want a fun fictional treatment:

http://www.amazon.com/Quarantine-Greg-Egan/dp/0061054232

u/aphysics · 2 pointsr/askscience

Yes, it's an approximation. This is evidenced by effects like the Lamb shift that cannot be explained with classical electrodynamics (e.g. Coulomb's law). One way of putting quantum electrodynamics (QED) is that two charged particles "communicate" with each other by exchanging photons, "telling" each other whether to come closer or farther apart, and by how much. If you're curious, I suggest reading Feynman's layman explanation.

u/rupert1920 · 3 pointsr/askscience

Quantum electrodynamics explains it using probability amplitudes. Rather than treating light as a particle that bounces off at a point where angle of incidence equals angle of reflection, it approaches it using a quantum mechanical approach incorporating the idea that light is also a wave.

Each point on the mirror acts as an absorption and emission surface, and each point can absorb light from the source and emit light towards the detector (angles don't have to be equal). Taking into wave-like nature of light though, there will be constructive and deconstructive interference between adjacent points. It turns out that there is greatest constructive interference for lights of all wavelength at the point where angle of incidence equals angle of reflection.

Since interference is wavelength dependent, you can selectively choose which colours would be preferred over others at certain angles by modifying the mirror surface - this is how diffraction grating works.

You can read more about it in Feynman's QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter.

u/Wicaunsh · 3 pointsr/Physics

I found Thomson's book called modern particle physics a great read

https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Particle-Physics-Mark-Thomson/dp/1107034264

u/BugeyeContinuum · 10 pointsr/askscience

Griffiths > Eisberg > Sakurai > Zee > Peskin

Peres and Ballentine offer a more quantum information oriented approach, read em after Griffiths.

Shankar before Sakurai, after Griffiths.



In that order. Your best bet though, is to find the appropriate section in the nearest university library, spend a day or two looking at books and choose whatever looks most interesting/accessible. Be warned, it seems that everyone and their cat has a book published on quantum mechanics with funky diagrams on the cover these days. A lot of them are legitimate, but make little to no effort to ensure your understanding or pose creative problems.

u/nobodyspecial · 1 pointr/askscience

Suggest you read QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter by Feynman.

In it, he explains that you're making a couple of mistakes in your question. First, there is no white photon. There are a collection of photons which taken together, our eyes perceive as white. Some are blue, some are red, some are pink.

Secondly, the photon that enters the glass is not the same photon that exits the glass. The photons that enter the glass are absorbed by the electrons in the glass and re-emitted in various directions. The blue photons in your case, are the ones that made it to your eye. The rest of the colors got scattered hither and yon or heated up the glass.

In QED, Feynman describes a really interesting property of glass. Turns out that untreated glass reflects between 4% and 16% of the photons that strike it. The probability that a photon will be reflected depends on the thickness of the glass. Contrary to what intuition would suggest, the probability increases and decreases as you increase the glass thickness. Start with glass that reflects 4% of the photons and make it thicker until it reaches a max of 16% and then when you add more glass, the reflectivity decreases until you reach 4% again. The cycle continues indefinitely and has been measured in glass samples up to 300 feet thick. He explains what's going on in the book. It's a great read!

u/GoodShitLollypop · 1 pointr/explainlikeimfive

'QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter' by Richard Feynman https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BR40XJ6/

Just 180 pages, most of it pretty well understandable by the layperson (like me). Explains all this.

u/oro_boris · 1 pointr/Physics

Quantum Field Theory for the Gifted Amateur

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00MN96BHW/

Edit: Griffith’s book on particle physics is also an excellent introduction to QFT.

u/diazona · 3 pointsr/AskScienceDiscussion

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.

u/AwkwardTurtle · 3 pointsr/askscience

If you're interested in physics, I'd check out Richard Feynman's QED.

It's a short book adapted from a series of lectures he gave on quantum electrodynamics. It's written and explained in such a way that someone with no physics or math background can get a huge amount out of the book.

u/Mr-X1 · 2 pointsr/worldnews

> "... they cannot be both at the same time ..." This is so wrong (see: quantum mechanics).

I really hate it when people talk about this stuff without having any actual knowledge regarding what they are talking about. Just go and read an actual book on quantum physics. Aside from that quantum physics averages out on larger scales anyway to give us the kind of physics we know. Furthermore, physics is about measuring and modeling empirical reality etc etc and does not have much to do with logic per se (which is an a priori discipline). But I guess to you things like sets of numbers being either finite or infinite or the question of whether I actually ate breakfast or not at 6 am today are things that can easily be subject to quantum superposition...

Btw and just to make this clear, epistemological issues becoming apparent due to the accuracy of measurement do not imply that there is no actual fact of the matter. See e.g. the relational interpretation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger's_cat#Relational_interpretation) of quantum mechanics, or the work of philosopher Wolfgang Smith (https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Enigma-Finding-Hidden-Key/dp/1597310077).


>We can speculate though: "... they cannot be both from the same point of view ...".

It was you that just omitted my " it nonetheless seems clear that..." How damn intellectually dishonest can you get? Well, given your Quantum woo reference I guess I should not be surprised.

>This is so wrong

It is funny how people who can not back up their stuff with facts tend to use stronger language to make up for it.

u/trupwl · 2 pointsr/Physics

I quite like

Quantum Field Theory for the Gifted Amateur

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00MN96BHW/

u/positronium · 3 pointsr/AskPhysics

Most of your questions can be answered by reading a text such as Quarks and Leptons. Chapters 13 and 14 go through the structure of the Standard Model Lagrangian. You can also use a program like MadGraph to compute scattering amplitudes and Feynman diagrams.

u/harlows_monkeys · 1 pointr/Physics

You might consider reading QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter, by Richard Feynman. It's a short, inexpensive, book based on 4 lectures he gave for the general public on the subject of light. With all due respect to those who have answered you so far, I think Feynman's explanation is clearer.

The 4 lectures themselves are available in streaming video.

u/lilgreenland · 0 pointsr/Physics

I'll recommend QED by Richard P. Feynman. It's not a textbook, and it has no math. Yet it quickly leads to a solid understanding of QM.

​

https://www.amazon.com/QED-Strange-Theory-Light-Matter/dp/0691125759/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

u/shouldbebabysitting · 1 pointr/scifi

>Man, I've already told you. That answer to that question isn't compressible by me to you.

No, it is. It really is.


> It's Shadows of the Mind. Not the easiest read, but not the hardest either.

I'll pick it up. However from googling I think you have misinterpreted Penrose's quantum gravity.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/physicists-eye-quantum-gravity-interface/

It's a hypotheses as to why the wave function decoheres. That's a completely different issue than the effects.

I highly recommend Feynman's QED. If you have any desire to understand Quantum Mechanics, you will understand after reading it. It requires no math.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/ol/0691125759/ref=olp_tab_all

u/lewisje · 3 pointsr/learnmath

The usual notation for a function of more than one variable is <name>(<arg1>,<arg2>,...)

That is, B is a function of two variables, and the expression on the right is (B evaluated at Z and N) minus (B evaluated at Z and N-1).

Usually, function notation is introduced by Algebra II (or midway through the Integrated Mathematics sequence at some high schools), and the book you're reading expression appears on page 6) is for students with about the level of mathematical and physical understanding of a physics major, which includes but is not limited to multi-variable calculus, linear algebra, and ordinary differential equations.

You're way out of your depth here.

u/moschles · 1 pointr/Physics

> Can't light's behavior be solely modeled as a wave?

Only at macroscopic scales can light be "solely" described as a wave. Quantum Electrodynamics has already shown that light can be solely described in terms of particles only. (IMHO,) Q.E.D. is a completed theory.

u/LocalAmazonBot · 1 pointr/askscience

Here are some links for the product in the above comment for different countries:

Link: QED is the one more relevant to this discussion.

u/Cogito_ErgoSum · 2 pointsr/Physics

I'd switch out Griffith's 'Elementary Particles' book with Thompson's Particle Physics instead

u/dicey · 7 pointsr/Physics

Author of two widely used undergratuate physics texts: one for Electricity and Magnetism and one for Quantum Mechanics. He also authored the somewhat-less-widely used (perhaps mainly because it's a specialist subject in most undergrad programs) Introduction to Elementary Particles.

u/piroplex · 0 pointsr/science

Richard Feynman's "Strange Theory of Light and Matter" explains why. It's all about probabilities.

u/TomatoAintAFruit · 2 pointsr/Physics

Maybe Ballentine is what you are looking for:

http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Mechanics-A-Modern-Development/dp/9810241054

Edit: actually, one of my favourite resources is Landau & Lifshitz, Vol. 3. Very dense with information.

u/hudsmith · 1 pointr/quantum

John Polkinghorn

Quantum Theory: A Very Short Introduction

https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Theory-Very-Short-Introduction/dp/0192802526

u/prajnadhyana · 1 pointr/atheism

QED: The strange theory of light and matter by Richard P. Feynman

http://www.amazon.com/QED-Strange-Princeton-Science-Library/dp/0691125759

u/RainbowNowOpen · 1 pointr/ebooks

I can only find the Amazon Kindle version. :(

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0691125759

u/nothing_clever · 1 pointr/atheism

Damn, actually I thought he was suggesting this be our holy book.