(Part 2) Best products from r/Physics

Easiest introduction (too simple, but a great overview):
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-plasma-physics-controlled-fusion/dp/0306413329/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404973723&sr=8-1&keywords=francis+chen+plasma

Better introduction (actually has real mathematics, this is like the Chen book but better for people who want to learn actual plasma physics because it doesn't baby you):
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Plasma-Physics-R-J-Goldston/dp/075030183X/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404973766&sr=8-1&keywords=goldston+plasma

Great introduction, and FREE:
http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/plasma/plasma.html

Good magnetohydronamics book:
http://www.amazon.com/Ideal-MHD-Jeffrey-P-Freidberg/dp/1107006252/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404974045&sr=8-1&keywords=ideal+magnetohydrodynamics

Great waves book:
http://www.amazon.com/Waves-Plasmas-Thomas-H-Stix/dp/0883188597/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404974079&sr=8-1&keywords=stix+waves

Computational shit because half of plasma physics is computing that shit:
http://www.amazon.com/Computational-Plasma-Physics-Applications-Astrophysics/dp/0813342112/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1404974113&sr=8-2&keywords=tajima+plasma

http://www.amazon.com/Plasma-Physics-Computer-Simulation-Series/dp/0750310251/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404974148&sr=8-1&keywords=birdsall+langdon

Then there are also great papers, and I posted some links to papers in a previous post, but if you're asking to start, you want to start with Chen (and if it's too simple for you, move onto Fitzpatrick or Goldston). I also forgot to mention that Bellan and Ichimaru also have great books for introductory plasma physics.

EDIT:

I'd also like to add that I love you because this subreddit almost never ever mentions plasma physics.

That's perfect then, don't let me stop you :). When you're ready for the real stuff, the standard books on quantum mechanics are (in roughly increasing order of sophistication)

• Griffiths (the standard first course, and maybe the best one)
  
• Cohen-Tannoudji (another good one, similar to Griffiths and a bit more thorough)
  
• Shankar (sometimes used as a first course, sometimes used as graduate text; unless you are really good at linear algebra, you'd get more out of starting with the first two books instead of Shankar)
  
  By the time you get to Shankar, you'll also need some classical mechanics. The best text, especially for self-learning, is [Taylor's Classical Mechanics.] (http://www.amazon.com/Classical-Mechanics-John-R-Taylor/dp/189138922X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372650839&sr=1-1&keywords=classical+mechanics)
  
  
  Those books will technically have all the math you need to solve the end-of-chapter problems, but a proper source will make your life easier and your understanding better. It's enough to use any one of
  
  
• Paul's Free Online Notes (the stuff after calculus, but without some of the specialized ways physicists use the material)
  
• Boas (the standard, focuses on problem-solving recipes)
  
• Nearing (very similar to Boas, but free and online!)
  
• Little Hassani (Boas done right, with all the recipes plus real explanations of the math behind them; after my math methods class taught from Boas, I immediately sold Boas and bought this with no regrets)
  
  When you have a good handle on that, and you really want to learn the language used by researchers like Dr. Greene, check out
  
  
• Sakurai (the standard graduate QM book; any of the other three QM texts will prepare you for this one, and this one will prepare you for your PhD qualifying exams)
  
• Big Hassani(this isn't just the tools used in theoretical physics, it's the content of mathematical physics. This is one of two math-for-physics books that I keep at my desk when I do my research, and the other is Little Hassani)
  
• Peskin and Schroeder (the standard book on quantum field theory, the relativistic quantum theory of particles and fields; either Sakurai or Shankar will prepare you for this)
  
  Aside from the above, the most relevant free online sources at this level are
  
  
• Khan Academy
  
• Leonard Susskind's Modern Physics lectures
  
• MIT's Open CourseWare

I mostly learned from a variety of sources, as there's not an ideal single text on this avenue of research, IMO.

I found general small-angle scattering references for free here and here, the latter being a PDF document from the EMBL small-angle scattering group. For NSE experiments on these sorts of systems, it's pretty much expected you've already done characterization of your samples via small-angle x-ray and/or neutron scattering

I'd also recommend the NIST Summer School course materials as a good and inexpensive way to get started on the neutron spectroscopy side of things. Most of what I'd seen in terms of texts tended to be fairly pricey monographs when starting out, so I'd either borrow stuff from coworkers or my institutional library. There are advanced undergrad/starting grad student texts on x-ray & neutron scattering - e.g., 1 and 2 - but I didn't find out about them until a bit further into my studies.

As might be obvious, there's definitely inspiration and foundational work to be found in the polymer science literature. I went running to Doi and Edwards, for example, when I realized that I needed more background reading in this area, but I'm sure others have their particular favorites in this and related areas.

Insofar as the bio-side of things, well, I've been doing biophysically oriented research since I was an undergrad. I'd suggest a popular biophysics text as well (either Nelson's Biological Physics or Physical Biology of the Cell ) as a starting point/reference. These are aimed towards advanced undergraduates or new grad students as well, mostly due to the interdisciplinary nature of the topics. Speaking of PBoC, one of the authors maintains a publications page where you can check out the PDFs of his group's work.

I think I'll end there, as I think that should be enough pleasure reading for a little while, at least.

First off, read this book! Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! Richard Feynman made some really important discoveries in the particle physics world and I think it's cool (and hilarious) to look at the way he thinks about everything, not physics alone.

Secondly, make sure you understand math. Don't kill yourself over it, just remember "physics is to mathematics as sex is to masturbation."

Third, enjoy what you're doing. It's hard to get a lot out of a class or a book if you are just struggling to get through each assignment. Try to make it fun for yourself.
Also, making friends in the field and study groups help a lot. I firmly believe that the classroom is not the ideal place to learn physics. It is a science about discovery and understanding the world around you. Even though other people have done so before, it really helps to sit around with a few people at about the same level as you and help each other find solutions. There's a good reason these guys smoked pipes. It's simply the perfect thing to do while sitting around with others thinking.

Overall, be sure to enjoy yourself. Being a physics major is tough, no doubt, but it's also super interesting and a ton of fun!

The first thing that popped in my mind while reading your post was: 'woah dude, slow down a bit!'. No, honestly, take things slowly, that's the best advice someone could have given me a few years ago. Physics is a field of study where you need a lot of time to really understand the subjects. Often times, when revisiting my graduate and even my undergraduate quantum mechanics courses, I catch myself realizing that I just began understanding yet another part of the subject. Physics is a field, where you have many things that simply need time to wrap your head around. I am kind of troubled that a lot of students simply learn their stuff for the exam at the end of the semester and then think they can put that subject aside completely. That's not how understanding in physics works - you need to revisit your stuff from time to time in order to really wrap your head around the fundamental concepts. Being able to solve some problems in a textbook is good, but not sufficient IMHO.

That being said, I will try to answer your question. Quantum mechanics is extremely fascinating. It is also extremely weird at first, but you'll get used to it. Don't confuse getting used to it with really understanding and grasping the fundamentals of quantum mechanics. Those are two very different animals. Also, quantum mechanics needs a lot of math, simply have a look at the references of the quantum mechanics wikipedia page and open one of those references to convince yourself that this is the case.

Now, I don't know what your knowledge is in mathematics, hence all I can give you is some general advice. In most physics programs, you will have introductory courses in linear algebra, analysis and calculus. My first three semesters looked like this in terms of the math courses:

1. Sets and functions; mathematical induction; groups, fields and vector spaces; real and complex numbers, series and sequences, power series; matrices, linear systems of equations; determinants and eigenvalue problems
   
   
2. More on linear systems of equations, eigenvectors, eigenvalues and determinants; canonical forms; self-adjoint matrices and unitary matrices; some analysis (topological basics, continuity)
   
   
3. More on topology; hilbert spaces; differentiation and integration
   
   These were, very roughly, the subjects we covered. I think that should give you some basic idea where to start. Usually quantum mechanics isn't discussed until the second year of undergrad, such that the students have the necessary mathematic tools to grasp it.
   
   A book I haven't worked with but know that some students really like is Mathematics for Physics by Paul Goldbart. This essentially gives you a full introduction to most of the subjects you'll need. Maybe that's a good point to start?
   
   Concerning introductory texts for quantum mechanics, I can recommend the Feynman lectures and the book by David Griffiths. I know a ton of students who have used the book by Griffiths for their introductory course. It isn't nearly as rigorous as the traditional works (e.g. Dirac), but it's great for an introduction to the concepts and mathematics of quantum mechanics. The Feynman lectures are just classic - it's absolutely worth reading all three volumes, even more than once!
   
   EDIT: added some literature, words.

This was the one that we used for Cosmology. It starts pretty gentle but moves into the metric tensor fairly quickly. If you don't have the maths I don't know that it'll help you to understand them but it'll definitely have all the terms and equations. As with Dirac's Principles of Quantum Mechanics, the funny haired man himself actually had a pretty approachable work from what I remember when I tried reading it.

​

This one has been sitting on my shelf waiting to be read. Given the authors reputation for popularizing astrophysics and the title I think it might be a good place to start before you hit the other ones.

Your best bet is to read an introductory text first and wrap your head around what quantum computing is.

I suggest this one: Intro Text

I like it because it isn't very long and still gives a good overview.

My former supervisor has a web tutorial: here

Lastly, Michael Nielson has a set of video lectures: here

The issue is, there is a decent sized gap between what these introductions and tutorials will give you and the current state of the art (like the articles you read on arxiv). A good way to bridge this gap is to find papers that are published in something like the Physical Review Letters here is their virtual journal on quantum information and see what they cite. When you don't understand something either refer to a text, or start following the citations.

Basically, if you can start practicing this kind of activity (the following of references) now, you'll already have a good grasp on a large part of what grad school is about.

Best of luck!

Hi, I'm about to start a PhD in computational plasma physics in September, concentrating on simulating turbulent transport in the divertor region and the scrape-off layer of tokamaks.

I won a bit of money from my undergrad institution, and I thought it would be fitting to use it to buy some reference textbooks for my PhD. However, although it's easy to find books, it's not so easy to find good reviews of them. I haven't done much plasma physics before but I will be having a lot of lectures on it in September, so I think more advanced books would be more useful, as I will be recommended plenty of resources for the more basic stuff.

Some of the books I've been looking at are:

• Ideal MHD - Freidberg
  
• Advanced Magnetohydrodynamics: With Applications to Laboratory and Astrophysical Plasmas - Goedbloed
  
• Computational Plasma Physics: With Applications To Fusion And Astrophysics - Tajima
  
• Plasma Physics via Computer Simulation - Birdsall & Langdon
  
• Plasma Confinement - Hazeltine & Meiss
  
• Waves in Plasmas - Stix
  
• Computational Methods in Plasma Physics - Jardin
  
• Visual And Computational Plasma Physics - Hsu
  
  but I'm open to any suggestions. I'm particularly interested in books about computational methods, and maybe also about scientific programming in C++.
  
  Thanks!

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.

oh! oh! I've been waiting to share this. Alice in Quantumland
I read it when I was in 8th grade and it got me hooked on nuclear science. Hardly any equations, just some cool concepts explained through a brilliantly written story.

Edit: ok, it's not a textbook. just something fun to read if you're newly interested in atomic science :)

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.

There are actually a lot of good popularizations of quantum mechanics written by physicists for the general public.

I remember Brian Greene's books having a pretty good conceptual description of relativity and quantum mechanics.

There's also Alice and Quantumland.

Stephen Hawking's books are probably the "classics of physics popularization". Just stay away from the bland looking orange book on page 2 ;) .

The Einstein Paradox was excellent. It explores modern physics concepts (including quantum mechanics) in a series of Sherlock Holmes mysteries. Highly recommended.

Albert Einstein himself wrote a book about Special and General Relativity for people who do not have a background in math. It's very well written, so if you want to learn about relativity I highly recommend it. If I remember correctly it contains close to no math. I believe it's this book: http://www.amazon.com/Relativity-The-Special-General-Theory/dp/1420946331 and you can find it for free online: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5001 .

It's the best explanation of the ideas behind these two theories I've ever seen and it's in my opinion useful even for people who know the theories well.

OP: I'm not really sure I like your explanation. What does it mean that there is "more space"? Why should it curve the trajectory?

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.

I've currently not a lot of time so i'm not able to give a thoughtfull answer but there are plenty of books which could teach you special relativity (Carroll takes it pretty much as a prerequisite).
Maybe one of the following helps (but don't be surprised it take a lot of hard work to get some knowledge about it...):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAurgxtOdxY and following

Spacetime Physics - Edwin F. Taylor, John Archibald Wheeler should be quite nice (i've heard)

http://www.amazon.com/A-First-Course-General-Relativity/dp/0521887054 maybe this is a good starting point.

Take one book after another till one suits you. I think the only important point is that they have equations inside.

i did my phd in a related field. it seems like you will have enough math and that some more computer programming could be a good thing. the main pitfall in this kind of stuff is that people want to do a bunch of math that is more complicated than it needs to be without tying it back to the biological system.

obviously you will need help from senior people with that, but it seems to me that the best thing you could do to prepare is read a bunch about motor proteins and the cytoskeleton. every cell-biology textbook should have a few chapters on this. i recommend this book if you want something with a bit of math.

if you want, PM me the name of the person you'll be working for. odds are good i know a bit about what they are doing.

I was feeling saucy. In all seriousness there are some really cool things to do with quantum computing, pursuing quantum computing to me seems to have the added benefit of advancing our knowledge and engineering capability of all sorts of solid state devices. If you are truly interested and have the necessary background pick up a textbook like this one and then start poking around the arXiv after you have a handle on things.

In terms of grad schools depending on your background and preparation:

Any of the top of the line schools, think MIT and Caltech. Besides them look at schools that have top notch AMO programs, here are some rankings. From there google the physics and engineering departments and look at what research is being done.

I've become greatly interested in geometric concepts in physics. I would like some opinions on these text for self study. If there are better options, please share.

For a differential geometry approach for Classical Mechanics:
Saletan?

For a General self study or reference book:
Frankel or Nakahara?

For applications in differential geometry:
Fecko or Burke?



Also, what are good texts for Geometric Electrodynamics that includes spin geometry?

Ah gotcha, yeah to be honest this approach probably won't be terribly illuminating. The problem is that the D-Wave really doesn't work in any kind of classically equivalent way. When you think about algorithms classically, the procedure is highly linear. First you do this, then that, and finally the other. The D-Wave One involves nothing of the sort.

Here's a quick rundown of what a quantum annealing machine actually does, with analogies to (hopefully) clarify a few things. In fact, an analogy is where I'll start. Suppose you had a problem you were working on, and in the course of trying to find the solution you notice that the equation you need to solve looks just like the equation describing how a spring moves with a mass hanging from it. Now you could continue your work, ignoring this coincidence, and solve out the equation on your own. Alternatively, you could go to the storage closet, grab a spring and a mass, and let the physics do the work for you. By observing the motion of the spring, you have found the solution to your original problem (because the equations were the same to begin with).

This is the same process used by the D-Wave One, but instead of a spring and a mass, the D-Wave system uses the physics of something called an Ising system (or model, or problem, etc.). In an Ising system, you have a series of particles^ with nonzero spin that can interact with each other. You arrange this system so that you can easily solve for the ground state (lowest energy) configuration. Now with the system in this ground state, you very, very slowly vary the parameters of the system so that the ground state changes from the one you could easily solve to one that you can't. Of course this new ground state, if you've done things correctly, will be the solution to the problem you were actually concerned with in the first place, just like the spring-mass example above.

So perhaps now I have explained at least a little bit of why I don't call the D-Wave One a "computer". It doesn't compute things. Rather, by a happy coincidence, it sets up an experiment (i.e. the Ising system) which results in a measurement that gives you the answer to the problem you were trying to solve. Unfortunately for you, the software engineer, this resembles precisely nothing of the usual programming-based approach to solving problems on a classical computer.

My advice is this: if you want to learn some quantum computing, check out An Introduction to Quantum Computing by Kaye, Laflamme, and Mosca, or the classic Quantum Computation and Quantum Information by Nielson and Chuang.

^ They don't actually have to be single particles (e.g. electrons), but rather they are only required to have spin interactions with each other, as this is the physical mechanism on which computations are based.

Edit: Okay, this was supposed to be a reply to achille below, but apparently I'm not so good with computers.

i have done a lot of research into this area. people in this thread are a bit shortsighted in my opinion. here are some references that do exactly what you ask and what they state can't be done:

• the einstein theory of relativity: a trip to the fourth dimension by lillian lieber - by a mathematics professor
  
  
• general relativity from a to b by robert geroch - a well known mathematical physicist
  
  
• a journey into gravity and spacetime by john wheeler - that's the advisor of richard feynman and kip thorne and co-author of gravitation by misner, wheeler, thorne
  
  
• discovering relativity for yourself by sam lilley - the author taught relativity to adult students for many decades
  
  
• flat and curved space-times by george f.r. ellis and ruth m. williams - note this book references the books by lilley and geroch in the preface or introduction (can't remember which)
  
  also, the popular science book black hole by marcia bartusiak is a great account of some of the history of general relativity with respect to the acceptance of black holes. none of the books above are popular science though. they describe real physics in real ways.
  
  there are more, but i think this is a good start. have fun!

The point was perhaps most lucidly elaborated on by Everett in the 1950's (I highly recommend this book for a thorough reading if you are interested in it, although you can find a version of his thesis here). The inconsistency of the Copenhagen interpretation is first discussed in the first 6 pages of the above thesis.

The logical contradiction elaborated on in the thesis is simple: if you apply the rules of Copenhagen to a system in a laboratory, what happens if you want to simultaneously apply the rules of Copenhagen to that laboratory as a whole that includes an observer of that system? This immediately produces a logical contradiction (or clearly shows the formalism is incomplete), since according to the internal observer he/she records a definite measurement outcome, while according to the external observer (outside the lab) the internal observer was in a superposition until the external observer made his/her measurement. In other words, either the measurement records of the internal/external observers are in contradiction, or the Copenhagen interpretation does not coherently specify what defines a measurement.

Everett, as you may know, is associated with the so-called "many-worlds" interpretation. Beware that the term "many worlds" (not a term endorsed by Everett) often invokes repulsion in physicists who are ignorant of the details, who intuit that it is ontologically extravagant. However it is in fact simply an extremely economical/conservative interpretation of quantum mechanics: the core principle is not "many worlds" but simply Schrodinger evolution of the wave function without any ad-hoc collapse postulate. So when you say:

> It is a little hand-wavy, but I find all the interpretations lacking in the sense of subjective empirical evidence to back up the claims

A logical response is: yes, we should therefore appeal to principles like Occam's razor in order to focus on the least contrived formalism. Many would argue that Everettian approaches are superior in this respect (although of course there are others who disagree).

> How much would a 3d, eventually VR, electromagnetics simulator/visualizer be used?

It sounds like you're thinking of implementing this yourself? I'm just gonna warn you:

1. That's a lot of work. And by "a lot of work" I mean literal years for a somewhat-modest feature set.
   
2. Interesting 3-D EM problems are computationally demanding, so you'll want access to way more horsepower than just a personal computer.
   
3. I also don't know that VR adds much value to EM field visualization, although I admit this may be a failure of imagination on my part.
   
   Anyway, I don't mean to discourage you. If you want to check out some neat EM simulations, Warp is open-source and has been used to produce a lot of published research results, and googling around leads to me a few other open-source packages (Puma-EM, for example). VSim is commercial, but I know that a) if you're a student and you contact them you can probably get an evaluation license for like four cores and b) the software comes with a ton of example simulations that you can run and play with.
   
   If you're more interested in implementing the algorithms yourself, this book is a decent introduction.

Geometry, Topology, and Physics isn't a complete overview of math (as suggested by the title, it focuses on, well, geometry and topology), but if you're interested in learning about those specific subfields and their application to physics, I'd definitely recommend it.

I've never used Zetilli so maybe it's the best option and I don't know, but Dirac's book is reasonably inexpensive new and quite cheap used on Amazon. I've got a 3rd edition I found in a thrift shop ages ago and it's actually a very pleasant read too, imo.

Have you read the dancing wu li masters ? Its an oldie, but a fun and easy read.

Unfortunately, a good understanding of quantum mechanics requires a basic understanding of classical physics.

I would recommend "The Dancing Wu Li Masters" by Gary Zukov. https://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Wu-Li-Masters-Overview/dp/0060959681/ref=sr_1_1 "6 Easy Pieces" by Richard P. Feineman https://www.amazon.com/Six-Easy-Pieces-Essentials-Explained/dp/0465025277/ref=sr_1_1? My personal favorite is "Understanding Physics" by Isaac Asimov https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Physics-Volumes-Magnetism-Electricity/dp/B000RG7YPG/ref=sr_1_2? HTH

One of my favorite books is Surely Your Joking Mr. Feynman there is another version with an audio cd that is a great listen.

I'm not too sure about it personally, but several friends have taught from Nakahara, and have a lot of good things to say about it. It's graduate level.

I agree with many other replies that you would need a B.S. in something more closely related to physics (math, chemistry, engineering, etc) if that's really what you want to do.

Note that it would be very difficult to find any program that would consider accepting you with a business degree. If you really think you want to give it a try, it's never too late to go back to school, but know that if you take physics seriously (as one of the other posters stated) it'll be at least 10 years of school. Source: I just defended my Ph.D. and have been in college for 12 years...I am not unique.

If you really want to give grad applications a try, note that you'll need the general GRE ($205), then the physics subject GRE ($150). Take a gander at this book for some physics subject test preparation. Note that to apply, there will also be application fees (generally ~$25-75), transcript fees (generally free-$25), and you'll have to find people that can write very strong letters of recommendation for you.

TL;DR: If you really want to pursue graduate physics, get a B.S. in physics first (and plan to dedicate at least the next decade exclusively to your studies).

I'm really fond of Nielsen and Chuang's book on the subject. The book covers quantum computation (including Shor's algorithm and Grover's algorithm), as well as quantum information theory. It also goes over most of the background material you need in computer science (with a discussion of basic complexity theory), math, and physics; your background should be fine for understanding the book.

Alice in Quantumland. There might be a free pdf somewhere online. I briefly checked out this book in high school and it seems like a potentially cute/graspable way to describe physics.

There are plenty of books out there to help you prepare for the general GRE as well as the different subject tests. Here is a good example of one for physics. Most of the "tricks" involve recognizing certain classes of problems and utilizing dimensional analysis and proportionality arguments to identify the correct answer. The exam is multiple choice, which lends itself to a variety of techniques that don't involve a lot of deep physics.

Another piece of advice, if you are planning on applying to grad schools over the next year, then you'd better get moving. The Physics GRE is offered twice a year, in November and in April. You need to have your grad school applications submitted by early March at the latest, which means you need to take the test in November, April will be too late (a couple friends of mine got screwed by this, they didn't sign up to take the test until April, which was too late and the schools they applied to wouldn't consider their application without the GRE score). So make sure you do your research on what you need and when to apply for the various programs you're considering. It would be a shame if you didn't get in to the program you wanted because of administrative issues.

The good thing about quantum information is that it's mostly linear algebra, once you're past the quantization itself. The good thing though is that you don't have to understand that in order to understand QI.

There are books written about quantum computing specifically for non-physicists. Mind you, they are written for engineers and computer scientists instead and they're supposed to know more maths and physics than you as well. Still, you could pick up one of those, e.g. the one by Mosca, or even better the one by David Mermin.

There are also two very new popular-science books on the topic, one by Jonathan Dowling, Schrödinger's Killer App, and one by Scott Aaronson, Quantum computing since Democritus.

I would actually suggest NOT trying to learn about these subjects, at least not on their own. Put in the time to really learn tensors, then co- and contravariance will makes loads more sense!

I found the first 3 or 4 chapters of Schutz's "First Course on General Relativity" to be a great place for teaching these things to myself. You could also take a math methods course that covers tensors.

EDIT: This is the book I'm talking about:
http://www.amazon.com/A-First-Course-General-Relativity/dp/0521887054/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1345315215&sr=8-1&keywords=schutz+general+relativity

Carroll

Carroll, course notes (free, I think it may be a preprint of the book)

Schutz

Wald

MTW (Some call it the GR bible)

They're all great books, Schutz I think is the most novice friendly but I believe they all cover tensor calculus and differential geometry in some detail.

Incidentally for those for whom this has peaked an interest in this amazing man read his book 'Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman' (link goes to Amazon), among others.

The most recently released previous GREs are pretty similar in terms of question subject matter and form to what you'll see this year, so don't take all of those right at the beginning of your studies or you'll be left working through antiquated exams close to your test date.

Other than that piece of advice, I would second the recommendation of "Conquering the Physics GRE". It has both a good amount of very tailored subject matter review and lots of practice problems that are very similar to those found on the most recent GREs.

I think Physical Biology of the Cell is quite good.

Alice in Quantum Land! It's a nice intro and very basic understanding of the quantum world.

If you look online you can find pdfs of

"Physical Biology of the Cell"

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Physical-Biology-Cell-Rob-Phillips/dp/0815344503

This is a book that basically looks at biology through a physicist's lens, rather than a biochemist's.

You could also try "Biological Physics" by Nelson.


These books spend a good chunk of time dealing with topics such as Statistical Mechanics, Self-assembling structures, Polymer Physics, etc...

For an undergrad I would recommend

http://www.amazon.com/A-First-Course-General-Relativity/dp/0521887054

before moving on the MTW.

The standard (and very good) reference for this is still Nielsen and Chuang:

http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Computation-Information-Cambridge-Sciences/dp/0521635039

Quite accessible if you know the basics of quantum mechanics. I think there is also a series of video lectures out there by one of the authors, but I've not been able to find it.

Preskill's notes are also top notch.

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!

Never met a physicist who doesn't idolize him.

I've heard very good things about [General Relativity from A to B]
(https://www.amazon.com/General-Relativity-B-Robert-Geroch/dp/0226288641/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1499632748&sr=8-1&keywords=general+relativity+from+A+to+B) by Robert Geroch, but haven't read it myself.

In addition to the other recommendations that have been made: Halzen and Martin goes through electroweak symmetry breaking and the Higgs mechanism in chapter 14, and the Weinberg-Salam model (this is the real deal) in chapter 15. Depending on how much QFT you're familiar with, you can probably skip lots of the content preceding those chapters.

This is the kind of book that's going to be difficult to work through, but in my experience, it's worth the effort.

If I recall correctly, Feynman expanded on an idea that Dirac wrote in the appendices of his quantum mechanics text book. I imagine it was this text: http://www.amazon.ca/The-Principles-Quantum-Mechanics-Dirac/dp/0198520115

And I cannot comment on the propagator definition.