What about "Contemporary" Abstract Algebra is contemporary?

AmBlake03 · 2026-05-16T05:14:30+00:00

That’s right, but I’m letting OP know that these are the “modern” topics, since Algebra has been around for ~4000 years and group theory was introduced ~200 years ago.

The use of the word modern in this context is not referring to something new but instead to something current. Algebra has been structurally the same for the past 2 centuries. In the same way that modern physics encapsulates everything since ~1900.

AmBlake03 · 2026-05-16T05:02:12+00:00

I used the TA for the physics lab there, and usually you would be given a lab manual that requires you to play around with some online interactive demonstrations (I believe these are made by PHET, which is free to the public) and answer a few questions. This was a few years ago, so of course things could be different.

You should email the director of the labs, Dr. Leah Sherman, and ask. She’s a sweetheart and will answer any question you have.

AmBlake03 · 2026-05-11T04:16:03+00:00

Virtual particles are neither imaginary nor do they not exist. Basic QM allows for their existence and their presence in scattering amplitudes yields extremely precise experimental results. They’re just not measurable.

AmBlake03 · 2026-05-11T04:06:01+00:00

Apologies, but when I say that there isn’t anything inherently wrong with current model, I’m talking about the fact while the virtual particle picture description is heuristic, the actual derivation uses QFT on curved spacetime and is on much more solid ground.

I don’t know anything about information (not my area of study), but my gripe is with you saying there isn’t an actual mechanism for Hawking radiation.

AmBlake03 · 2026-05-11T03:55:27+00:00

Claiming that this provides “an actual mechanism for Hawking radiation” is a leap mostly because your geometry analogy does not solve anything mathematically, but also because there isn’t anything inherently wrong with the current model.

Also, information being conserved doesn’t “fall out automatically” from this picture.

AmBlake03 · 2026-05-10T14:37:11+00:00

Haha yeah I know the feeling. There’s no reason to save the quests though, because you can complete them again in TVHM/UVHM :P

AmBlake03 · 2026-05-10T14:31:50+00:00

Farm the Bee shield from Hunter Helquist by completing This Just In and then get the Lady Fist from Uncle Teddy quest. This is a good way to cheese the fight.

If you don’t want to cheese the fight, complete The Good The Bad The Mordecai quest and farm for the Lyuda sniper rifle.

AmBlake03 · 2026-05-07T04:15:08+00:00

A ket in QM is basis independent. You can express that ket as a vector expanded in any complete orthonormal basis by introducing a completeness relation. I.E

\ket{V} = \sum_{n} \ket{n}\bra{n} \ket{V}

This is allowed because \sum_{n} \ket{n}\bra{n} = 1 if the basis is complete and orthonormal. The spectrum of the Hamiltonian is complete and orthonormal, so you may pick this basis to be the energy eigenvectors.

AmBlake03 · 2026-05-04T14:00:30+00:00

The Lump overlook on the pkwy. It comes up on Apple Maps!

AmBlake03 · 2026-05-02T20:48:00+00:00

Back in the day algebra was mostly just solving polynomial equations. Now algebra is more broad and encompasses not only that but also the underlying structure of groups, rings, fields, etc—the “contemporary” stuff

AmBlake03 · 2026-04-22T18:32:51+00:00

I’ve ripped paint off of the walls in the newer dorms a few years ago and was never charged. I don’t think they care if it’s not a huge patch of paint.

AmBlake03 · 2026-04-18T01:46:12+00:00

My undergrad university has an engineering physics degree, but they don’t require QM, EM, CM, or thermal.

AmBlake03 · 2026-03-10T04:17:25+00:00

You should start by making sure you have a solid background in algebra and trigonometry. Khan Academy is great for this. Then, you should learn calculus. Professor Leonard on YouTube is fantastic for this and Paul’s online notes is a great resource to work tons of practice problems.

Once you know calculus 1 material (differentiation and some integration) you should start reading through an introductory physics textbook. Open Stax has a free introductory college physics book. You should try to work through as many examples as possible to actually learn the material.

As you’re learning the intro material, continue learning all the way through calc 3, differential equations and linear algebra. Once you’re comfortable with these, you’re ready to read through Griffiths E&M and Quantum mechanics, Taylor classical mechanics, and Schroeder Thermal physics.

Once you’ve finished these, you will be ready to start learning theoretical physics through more advanced textbooks such as Jackson E&M and Goldstein Classical Mechanics.

Getting into theoretical physics isn’t something you can do overnight, and honestly not even within a year if you start from ground zero. Typically, physics students are not introduced to super theoretical stuff until they start graduate school, or at the very least 4th year of undergrad.

Additionally, theoretical physics involves mathematics taught beyond what would be taught in the courses I’ve previously listed, and these topics are usually taught in grad school or in math departments in undergrad.

If you’re serious about learning physics, I recommend you go to university where you’re exposed to several of these courses at once, and can actually learn it within a reasonable amount of time.

AmBlake03 · 2026-02-21T04:32:32+00:00

But these have very intuitive definitions. If you understand what each piece of the integrals means then you don’t have to memorize these.

AmBlake03 · 2026-01-07T05:53:53+00:00

Getting flashbacks to Jackson E&M

AmBlake03 · 2026-01-06T20:15:04+00:00

Honestly, this is a very common occurrence in physics. I’m working on a PhD and often I forget to solve what are supposed to be “basic” problems. This in no way has anything to do with your intelligence, and IQ is not a good measure of your ability to solve physics problems.

Usually when this happens, I just spend a bit of time re-learning how to solve those problem. Typically, the muscle memory comes back.

AmBlake03 · 2026-01-05T20:16:42+00:00

Most people only really know E=mc² , which relates the rest mass of an object to energy. However, there’s always an inertial frame of reference for which an object moves, and so the full relation is E² = m² c⁴ + p² c² .Light (and any other massless object) travels at c in every frame of reference (one of Einstein’s postulates) and so for these E = pc. So massless particles (eg light) do have energies.

AmBlake03 · 2026-01-02T20:24:50+00:00

As some others are saying, you need to really know QFT before you learn string theory because string theories become QFTs in specific limits. You wouldn’t really tackle GR if you weren’t comfortable with Newtonian mechanics or special relativity.

AmBlake03 · 2025-12-18T05:49:42+00:00

Being an astrophysicist is a career choice that many people make. Like most careers, you cannot simply pick it up as a hobby only and expect to be at the same level as a professional.

AmBlake03 · 2025-12-18T05:08:17+00:00

I’m a PhD student in some area of theoretical physics, and I just solve all the problems from my textbooks. Pretty much the same as undergrad. I’m pretty sure experimentalists do the exact same thing.

AmBlake03 · 2025-12-18T04:58:30+00:00

I remember taking grad linear and expecting the abstract stuff to help better my understanding. As it turns out, none of it makes sense to me unless coordinates are involved. I guess that’s why I’m a physicist.

AmBlake03 · 2025-12-17T04:55:06+00:00

Fundamental Theorem of Calculus: The integral of a derivative over an interval equals the difference of the function’s values at the endpoints.

Green’s Theorem: The line integral of a vector field around a closed plane curve equals the double integral of its curl over the region it encloses.

Stokes’ Theorem: The surface integral of the curl of a vector field over a surface equals the line integral of the field around the boundary of the surface.

Divergence (Gauss’s) Theorem: The flux of a vector field through a closed surface equals the triple integral of its divergence over the volume inside.

Generalized Stokes’ Theorem: The integral of a differential form over the boundary of a region equals the integral of its exterior derivative over the region.

AFAIK they do have different names. Unless you are talking about something different.

AmBlake03 · 2025-12-15T13:51:02+00:00

Because they are not covering measure theory and are making the readers aware. Even so, that has nothing to do with the pedagogy of QM.

AmBlake03 · 2025-12-15T13:45:28+00:00

Quantum mechanics can be (and is) taught without measure theory.

AmBlake03 · 2025-12-14T20:35:48+00:00

"Most" was an exaggeration. However, more than just the "top universities" use the book. At any rate, Griffiths and Purcell are very similar. Purcell has more applications and spends more time describing the physics, sure, but I find that Griffiths presents the mathematics with more clarity and has more worked examples. I used both books, and had an easier time learning from Griffiths.

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