@LegionOnomaMoi , that's because you are so thorough in your treatment--actually, much better form for a blog than for a discussion board,
at least in my opinion, for whatever that's worth....
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The best sources to understand cosmology and physics
- Thread starter LegionOnomaMoi
- Start date
at least in my opinion, for whatever that's worth....
Yerda
Veteran Member
Thanks.
By way of an update:
First, the physicists I hate to love (but am grateful for!) Susskind:
Cosmology
General Relativity
Demystifying the Higgs Boson
String Theory and M-Theory
Cosmology and Black Holes
etc.
I still recommend General Relativity Without Calculus.
Physics Resources
Astrobiology and Space Exploration
Astrophysics: Frontiers and Controversies
...and I'll look into finding more and better free sources.
First, the physicists I hate to love (but am grateful for!) Susskind:
Cosmology
General Relativity
Demystifying the Higgs Boson
String Theory and M-Theory
Cosmology and Black Holes
etc.
I still recommend General Relativity Without Calculus.
Physics Resources
Astrobiology and Space Exploration
Astrophysics: Frontiers and Controversies
...and I'll look into finding more and better free sources.
Even though some posts can be difficult to read,
we never tire of your raw animal magnetism.
Are you coming on to me? I'm flattered, but I don't eat raw magnetism (strictly electroweak).
And even I tire of my every post.
I'm a fanatic about honoring my marriage vows.
But this doesn't mean I can't window shop.
dust1n
Zindīq
Have you read J Richard Gott, Time Travel in Einstein's Universe: The Physical Possibilities of Travel Through Time ?
It's been a while since I have read it, but I'm wondering what you make of his of Doomsday Argument...
"Gott first thought of his "Copernicus method" of lifetime estimation in 1969 when stopping at the Berlin Wall and wondering how long it would stand. Gott postulated that the Copernican principle is applicable in cases where nothing is known; unless there was something special about his visit (which he didn't think there was) this gave a 75% chance that he was seeing the wall after the first quarter of its life. Based on its age in 1969 (8 years), Gott left the wall with 75% confidence that it wouldn't be there in 1993 (1961 + (8/0.25)).
In fact, the wall was brought down in 1989, and 1993 was the year in which Gott applied his "Copernicus method" to the lifetime of the human race. His paper in Nature was the first to apply the Copernican principle to the survival of humanity; His original prediction gave 95% confidence that the human race would last for between 5100 and 7.8 million years. (Brandon Carter's alternative form of the Doomsday argument was delivered earlier that year, but Gott's derivation was independent.)
He made a major effort subsequently to defend his form of the Doomsday argument from a variety of philosophical attacks, and this debate (like the feasibility of closed time loops) is still ongoing. To popularize the Copernicus method, Gott gave The New Yorker magazine a 95% confidence interval for the closing time of forty-four Broadway and Off Broadway productions based only on their opening dates. He was more or less 95% correct.[4]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Richard_Gott
I realize it's not really a cosmology thing, it just happened to be introduced to me in his cosmology book.
Nope. But I just bought it. It should be here in ~2 days (Amazon Prime account), so I can tell you what I think (for whatever it's worth) then!
And thanks for the recommendation!
dust1n
Zindīq
Ah, well you'll fly through I'm sure. It's a little all over the place if I remember correctly, but I remember his doomsday argument sticking out.
I got impatient, so I decided to see if he'd published any papers on it (which I would have known had I clicked on your wiki link). He did, in Nature in 1993, and in the following year in response to critiques. I also recently wrote a blog post Review of “Anthropic Bias Observation Selection Effects in Science and Philosophy” which reviews the (freely available) book Anthropic Bias Observation: Selection Effects in Science and Philosophy. The author of that book not only goes into the Doomsday Argument (which is usually attributed to Leslie, who formulated the most popular version), but devotes quite a bit to Gott's argument:
Doomsayer Gott
The incorrectness of Gott’s argument
Personally, I find that the fallacy of the assumption of randomness (which for Gott is far more overt than in other versions of the Doomsday Argument) is the biggest problem (William Eckhardt has also points out the problem of retrocausality). We may not have a privileged position, or reference frame, or time at which we find ourselves alive, seeing (as in Gott's first example) the Berlin Wall, etc., but that doesn't make it random or justify locating t-NOW randomly within his derived interval (which based upon an assumption about the probability distribution of a random variable given that we are experiencing/observing/etc. what we are when we are and that there is no reason to think this particular time "special"). One of the reasons that his equations seem to work at times is because they allow for an unreasonable duration. Using his math, if I happen to walk in on a stranger's birthday party, am invited in because of course I am famous and my presence is a present, I would predict with high probability using Gott's math that the woman should live to be ~125-150 years old. Other times, they will fail because we cannot derive a probability distribution from the assumption that our particular observation time isn't just not "special" but is actually equiprobable (in a way that can't be defined since we don't know the possibilities it is equiprobable with.
But I would suggest checking out the book given in the link. It's free, after all.
dust1n
Zindīq
Thanks for the response, btw. I couldn't find this thread because it was a sticky, so now that I have, just wanted to say thanks again. The book has some pretty cool explanations of various ideas, and why they don't work.
Since it's not too math heavy, I was actually able to understand this:
"And it is clear, once we focus our attention on it, that our prior probabilities must be considered. It would be foolish when estimating the future duration of Stonehenge or the Berlin Wall not to take into account any other information you might have. Say you are part of a terrorist organization that is planning to destroy Stonehenge. Everything has been carefully plotted. The explosives are in the truck, the detonators are in your suitcase; tonight at 11 P.M. your confederates will to pick you up from King’s Cross St. Pancras... Knowing this, surely the odds of Stonehenge lasting another year are different from, and much lower than, what a straightforward application of the delta t argument would suggest. In order to save the delta t argument, Gott would have to restrict its applicability to situations where we in fact lack other relevant information. But then the argument cannot be used to estimate the future longevity of the human species, for we certainly have plenty of extraneous information that is relevant to that. So Gott's version of DA fails."
http://www.anthropic-principle.com/?q=book/chapter_6#6b
If I understand the book right, regardless of this particular issue, before and after, there is still some serious problems implicit in it. Thanks for that.
Absolutely excellent suggestions!
I second this suggestion. The Fabric of Cosmos remains the best popular science book that covers the entire scene of time-space-GR-QM-entropy relevant to understanding the what science has to say about reality while being extremely beginner friendly (no math) and as conceptually accurate as possible. Hope he updates the book with latest discoveries of Higgs Boson, Gravity waves and actual demonstration of "Cat-states" in the lab.
Well written, but advocates for multiverses. So if you want to know what the best arguments for it are, this is the one.
Just ordered it. Will read through.
I will like to add a recommendation for understanding Quantum Mechanics.
It is
Quantum Physics: A Beginner's Guide ( Alistair Ray)
Its excellent introduction to fundamental quantum mechanics and its many many wide-ranging usefulness (from molecular structure to cryptography) with clear non-mathematical explanation of concepts, excellent figures and a few basic algebraic math formula kept separate in boxes to give you a feel of its predictive powers. And very cheap in Kindle!
I also note that Susskind's Lecture in Quantum Mechanics is now out in book form
Quantum Mechanics: The Theoretical Minimum
Only recommended for the mathematically inclined and who really want to know what the deal with Entanglements and EPR paradox is about. Book is appropriate for a non-specialist with undergrad STEM education.
I agree with you that Dr. Silk's infinite cosmos is the best non-technical intro to cosmology out there (clear info and no drama)
I would recommend that people augment the book with his more dynamic lecture series
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU3TaPgchJtRO_vo7H5paPCo8Brzfqi2q
Hope these help
I second this suggestion. The Fabric of Cosmos remains the best popular science book that covers the entire scene of time-space-GR-QM-entropy relevant to understanding the what science has to say about reality while being extremely beginner friendly (no math) and as conceptually accurate as possible. Hope he updates the book with latest discoveries of Higgs Boson, Gravity waves and actual demonstration of "Cat-states" in the lab.
Well written, but advocates for multiverses. So if you want to know what the best arguments for it are, this is the one.
Just ordered it. Will read through.
I will like to add a recommendation for understanding Quantum Mechanics.
It is
Quantum Physics: A Beginner's Guide ( Alistair Ray)
Its excellent introduction to fundamental quantum mechanics and its many many wide-ranging usefulness (from molecular structure to cryptography) with clear non-mathematical explanation of concepts, excellent figures and a few basic algebraic math formula kept separate in boxes to give you a feel of its predictive powers. And very cheap in Kindle!
I also note that Susskind's Lecture in Quantum Mechanics is now out in book form
Quantum Mechanics: The Theoretical Minimum
Only recommended for the mathematically inclined and who really want to know what the deal with Entanglements and EPR paradox is about. Book is appropriate for a non-specialist with undergrad STEM education.
I agree with you that Dr. Silk's infinite cosmos is the best non-technical intro to cosmology out there (clear info and no drama)
I would recommend that people augment the book with his more dynamic lecture series
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU3TaPgchJtRO_vo7H5paPCo8Brzfqi2q
Hope these help
Thanks! I completely forgot I ever wrote any of these posts. I would probably change much.
I appreciate the additions.
I would agree that this book is a good one for those who wish to learn about quantum physics without the kind of sensationalism common to too many popular physics texts and yet also without the technicalities present in various "popular" works by authors who (like me) regularly fail to adequately simplify things. I would add, however, Alastair Rae's Quantum Physics: Illusion or Reality? (2nd Ed.). It's also a popular text but is perhaps more focused on the nature of quantum physics rather than its applications. The two texts together complement each other rather nicely, I think.
He has written books to accompany both his lectures in classical physics and quantum mechanics. Like the lectures, they're good if you've already come across much of the material (particularly the mathematics).
There exists a far better book I've since discovered (MIT's recorded lecture series on quantum mechanics I from MIT OCW opens with an introduction to QM based upon the first chapter of this book): Quantum Mechanics for and Experience. It is brilliantly written and perhaps the best simplification of QM I've ever encountered, allowing the reader to understand the nuances of EPR, nonlocality, etc., in ways no other text I know of allows without a background knowledge in Hilbert spaces, probability theory, etc. That said, the book does introduce the reader to a self-contained account of certain mathematical notations, notions, and their relevance to QM that I imagine would prove to be something of a challenge for anyone who has never encountered vectors or Dirac's bra-ket notation. Still, with a single chapter that assumes no real knowledge in mathematics, David Albert manages to give the reader the formalisms necessary to appreciating the nature of quantum mechanics at a level otherwise wholly unattainable.
Yes, thanks! In addition to your suggestions, you've reminded me that this thread exists and I should consider how I might update it myself (rather relying wholly on the help from other members such as that you've supplied here).Hope these help
I found the perimeter institute to be a goldmine
Perimeter Institute
The research areas lists the many scientists involved in areas such as
Cosmology, particle physics, quantum field's and strings etc.
The video library is a great source
Another is Cornell arvix site, many published papers
arXiv.org e-Print archive
Perimeter Institute
The research areas lists the many scientists involved in areas such as
Cosmology, particle physics, quantum field's and strings etc.
The video library is a great source
Another is Cornell arvix site, many published papers
arXiv.org e-Print archive
Shadow Link
Active Member
Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality? Chapter 10 "Deconstructing the Bang...what banged?" pages are not shown in the link provided.
Bob Jones
Prove It!
I have very little scientific education,but the top three books which has educate me with respects to Physics:
(1) The First Three Minutes by Dr. Steven Wineburg. An explanation in simple laymen´s English concerning the formation of our universe.
(2) "It Must Be Beautiful-Great Equations of Modern Science" Edited by Grahman Farmelo. Eleven Great Essays concerning particle physics, game theory and complex math. Great for lay people.
(3) The Strangest Man-Paul Dirac by Graham Farmelo
This book is a masterpiece!
(1) The First Three Minutes by Dr. Steven Wineburg. An explanation in simple laymen´s English concerning the formation of our universe.
(2) "It Must Be Beautiful-Great Equations of Modern Science" Edited by Grahman Farmelo. Eleven Great Essays concerning particle physics, game theory and complex math. Great for lay people.
(3) The Strangest Man-Paul Dirac by Graham Farmelo
This book is a masterpiece!
JIMMY12345
Active Member
Hiya link does not seem to work -can you repost?