I have decided to start logging, each week, an update on what elements of physics and maths, that I have studied and also the sources of that study material. I hope to be able to offer myself and others, a means of following subjects, sources and details of the study, that were used to move from GCSE to Ph.D.
So, For the week ending Friday 18th February 2011:
Open University MST121
Completed part 1, TMA01
Equations of lines
Circles and their equations
Completing the square
Intersections of circles and lines
Sine and Cosine recap
The Teaching Company Calculus lectures
The Chain Rule in differentiation and its applications
The Teaching Company Cosmology Lectures
Cosmic expansion and age
Distances, appearances and horizons
Dark matter and dark energy
Supplementary physics reading (Orzel)
Particle-Wave duality
The Heisenberg uncertainty
The Copenhagen interpretation
The quantum zeno effect
Quantum tunnelling
Quantum Entanglement
Wow, that is a fair bit of study and it has taken me approximately 16hrs of study time in 7 days. Not bad, considering I have a bit of a virus, that I just can't shift.
I have now obtained a book that I have been looking for, for a while now. I am desperate to read it, but it is over 2000 pages long and is technical in nature (first 13 chapters teach the maths that is needed to interprete the rest of the book)!
The title is:
The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe by Roger Penrose
Penrose is a giant amongst physicists and famously worked with Steven Hawking at Cambridge University in the 1960's, where they hatched their theories about space-time being curved back in on itself (pearshaped!) at the time of the 'hot big bang'.
Penrose took 8yrs to write his 'Complete Guide to the Universe' and, romantically I admit, one could imagine it as a highly technical version of 'The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy'; but obviously without Slartibartfast, Magrathea or any hyper intelligent pan-dimensional beings (white mice).
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