String Theory/M-Theory

[darkmatter4brains]

Actually, I haven't That's why I said I'm hoping! In theory I can do the prereqs by the time the string theory course rolls around, but given that I plan to take a bunch of GR-track courses as well, whether that happens in practice is completely up in the air.

Have you seen David Tong's excellent QFT lecture notes? http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/tong/qft.html

No, I haven't seen those! I just saved every one of those pdfs to my hard drive. Thanks! My impression with QFT is that there are no really good books ... just gotta get all the somewhat decent materials you can find and sorta use all of 'em to get something real good off each area.

But, If you find one you really like this fall as you take it , post it on up if you remember

Hope you get to take the string theory class and are still on this board .. we can all pick your brain then

 

[yevaud]

although, I've also been leaning towards the Higgs not being found and based on Yevaud's recent thread, maybe my opinions are best ignoored :lol:

Trust me, the Jury is still out on this, despite my enthusiasm.

 

[ramparts]

Another possibly helpful resource which I've heard good things about, but I haven't read myself: http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9803075

 

[QED]

Trust me, the Jury is still out on this, despite my enthusiasm.

That was actually an excellent and informative thread. I just peeked. While it may not be the Higgs, keep in mind how many TeV's it would actually take to find it. It doesn't decay, which makes it a slippery little devil, but damnit the mass calculations are THERE. I say if it exists (and I'm thinking if it's not Higgs, it's definitely something else that causes mass and we're still on the right track), it's going to take a lot more time and energy to locate. Literally. :?

 

[KickLaBuka]

GR? Can't prove the existence of a 4D spacetime manifold with a Riemannian metric, could just be a useful mathematical tool. Quantum mechanics? Prove the existence of the wavefunction. Same thing applies. I don't see how these are qualitatively different from the extra dimensions in string theory.

I fail to see how using one "accepted" and equally fundamentally undefined set of physics as a basis to create new fundamentally undefined set makes it somehow ok. The solution itself is quite beautiful. No theory that tries to explain the small scales from the outside in will ever understand the energy involved. The answer is in cosmology, and only cosmology.