Book Review: Advanced University Physics

Time for another book review, this time Mircea Rogalski and Stuart Palmer, Advanced University Physics. This book is for sale in the book store below.

This is the second edition of a book that I long found useful as a reference, but not as a textbook as there were no practice problems. In the second edition, this has been fixed and there are now ample problems, so I can recommend it as a textbook.

Goodbye to a Dear Friend

I learned today that a dear friend passed away. Hakki Ogelman was not just a colleague, he was a dear friend.  A world-renowned astrophysicist, he was responsible for my first poster presentation at a professional conference; an analysis of the time series data from a gamma-ray burst. That was way back in 1995. Hakki was in charge of the research group Compact Objects at Wisconsin (COW). Hakki suffered a debilitating stroke in the mid 1990's, but perservered. He lost a months-long battle to cancer on 4 September 2011. He passed quietly, for which I am grateful. Goodbye, old friend, I will miss you...

Been Away Again

I have been away for a couple of months. In that time my co-author on the book, Leonard Susskind, and I have been working on the final draft of our book THEORETICAL MINIMUM: Claswsical Mechanics and hope to have it done in a few weeks.

MAST is working on developing education modules for basic science.

I have had a paper on numerical modeling of the diffusion equation accepted for publication in The Mathematica Journal.

I will be working on the show The Wonders of Physics this year.

I will be doing more in the coming days.

Lots of Things: Mathematica Consulting to Quantum Gravity to Storm Chasing

It has been a month and a half since my last post. Sounds almost like confession, doesn't it?

I could say that I have been snowed under with work, I have been sick for a week, I have been planning and executing the storm chase from Hell and another that was very successful. I could say that I have been trying to get MAST into the Mathematica Consulting game. I could say that I have been working on a new idea in quantum gravity. All of these things are true, and yet none of them are sufficient.

The truth is that I have been somewhat lazy. For that I apologize. I will not promise not to do it again.

Book Deal

Today I received the executed book deal for my collaboration with Leonard Susskind on the book Theoretical Minimum: Classical Mechanics. The book will be published by Basic Books. We have until January of 2012 to finish it, but don't be surprised if we finish early.

Book News

Leonard Susskind and I have now signed a contract with Basic Books for the Theoretical Minimum: Classical Mechanics. This book is contracted to be completed by January of 2012 (don't be surprised if it is finished before then).

Check Out the Research Log on MAST

There is a research log that allows you to view our research as we conduct it. You can find it at: http://www.madscitech.org/rlog/rlog1.html

More Fun With Tensors

Tensor Session 2

More Examples from David McMahon’s Book, “Relativity DeMysified”

Example 2-4

Given,

Fun With Tensors

Fun with Tensors

George E. Hrabovsky

James Firmiss

Example 2-3 from David McMahon’s book Relativity Demystified.

Given the line element

we seek to find the metric tensors for raising and lowering indices for vectors and one-forms. We begin by noting that the metric tensor is symmetrical,

I have been busy

Between working on the book deal, writing the second draft of the book, finishing The Wonders of Physics, working a contract, and working on the Institute for Scientific Computing, I have not had a lot of time to work on the blog. We will be doing some storm chasing this weekend. I will post if we gets some good storm pictures.

Wonders of Physics

I am busy, this week, with the Wonders of Physics (click here to go to the web site). This is a public demonstration show. Go to the web site and check it out!

The Book Is DONE!!!

At 05:17 on Monday, 31 January 2011 I finished the first draft of the book Theoretical Minimum I: Classical Mechanics by Leonard Susskind and George Hrabovsky. This book was written in Mathematica 7 and Mathematica 8.

The Book is Almost Done!

I am almost done with the final two cahpters of the book I am writing with Leonard Susskind! I will be done by Sunday!

Book Project Update

Well here I am again. Sorry about the lengthy delay in posting, I am in a full-scale assault on the book to finish it by the end of this week. I have completed chapter 16, am finishing up chapter 15, and will finish 17 and 18 by week's end! The first draft is nearly done!

Here is the book now:

Lecture 1: Dynamical systems.

Interlude 1: Calculus.

Interlude 2: Newtonian mechanics.

Lecture 2: Conservation laws, the principle of least action, and the Lagrangian.

Interlude 3: Vectors and vector spaces.

Lecture 3: Conservation laws imply symmetry.

Interlude 4: Symmetry.

Lecture 4: Time translation symmetry, the conservation of energy, and the Hamiltonian.

Interlude 5: Transformations and matrices.

Lecture 5: Pendulums and springs.

Interlude 6: Complex numbers and ordinary differential equations. 

Lecture 6: The Hamiltonian method of mechanics. 

Interlude 7: Vector analysis.

Lecture 7: Liouville's Theorem and Information Conservation

Interlude 8: Thermodynamics (almost complete)

Lecture 8: Charged Particles in Electromagnetic Fields and an Introduction to Poisson Brackets

Interlude 9: Chaos (not done yet)

Lecture 9: Poisson Brackets and Canonical Transformations

Major New result on Dinosaur Extinction

MAST member Jack Horner (not the paleontologist) has written a paper establishing that the asteroid impact theory of dinosaur exctintion is not necessary to explain the exctintion.

His paper can be found here: http://www.madscitech.org/csg/dinosaur.pdf

Some new results

MAST has begun to post some research results!

1) I have started to do some dripping handrail models of accretion disks. You can find them here: http://www.madscitech.org/csg/accretion.html

2) James Firmiss and I have begun serious work on neutron star equations of state, results will be put up shortly.

3) Chris Winfield is giving a talk on local solvability at the American Mathematical Society meeting in New Orleans, that talk is located here: http://www.madscitech.org/csg/AMS10mintalk.pdf

4) We are doing research and development of database capabilities in Mathematica, mostly due to the efforts of Rocky Wenz.

More results will be reported as they occur!

Book Update

I have now completed 13 chapters out of 18!

Here is the chapter list so far:

Lecture 1: Dynamical systems.

Interlude 1: Calculus.

Interlude 2: Newtonian mechanics.

Lecture 2: Conservation laws, the principle of least action, and the Lagrangian.

Interlude 3: Vectors and vector spaces.

Lecture 3: Conservation laws imply symmetry.

Interlude 4: Symmetry.

Lecture 4: Time translation symmetry, the conservation of energy, and the Hamiltonian.

Interlude 5: Transformations and matrices.

Lecture 5: Pendulums and springs.

Interlude 6: Complex numbers and ordinary differential equations. 

Lecture 6: The Hamiltonian method of mechanics. 

Interlude 7: Vector analysis.

I am now working on Lecture 7: Liouville's Theorem and Information Conservation

Summer School in Scientific Computation

I would like to announce the Madison Area Science and Technology Summer School for Computational Science.

This will be a long Summer School, June 15, 2011 through August 15, 2011.

Tentatively, this will be held at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Department of Physics.

Details can be found at the web site: www/madscitech.org/isc/sschool1.htmlThis web site will be completely functional by January 7, 2011.