I will probably date myself with this comment, but in my highschool days there used to be this TV series called the Mechanical Universe produced by Caltech. It was so fantastically good, perhaps peak pedagogy for its time.
I watched that series multiple times when i was in high school and early college. Really inspiring and the visualizations still live in my head. Unusually good production for an educational show. Set a new standard.
There has always been commentary that the size (over 1300 pages) of the General Rel book Gravitation by Meisner Thorne and Wheeler was done for demonstration purposes. Apparently, modern versions are only 2.5" thick which leads me to believe they must be on incredibly thin paper. I remember it being about 4-5".
The thing with MTW is that it's so big that it's quite hard to really mull over it (for me at least).
it's a book that I can imagine reading a lot in a very quiet world (i.e. basically a dorm or library before phones or computers) but it's very hard to actually get my teeth into it without that.
I just looked through the diffraction chapter and some chapters I'm much less familiar with. This is an incredible ~graduate level text for these subjects. I've been looking for something like this for a while! Thanks!
Skimmed through chapter 1. That sounds like the way I was taught this subject in high school, nothing revolutionary. Not sure why they're talking so much about its brilliance
Typically non-relativistic and non-quantum is called "Newtonian". Classical is just for anything which is not quantized, and so far no one knows how to quantize general relativity.
For an idea of how far the average US physics education has been dumbed-down in the past three decades, I doubt a 3rd year US-educated physics graduate student could pass a test on any of the chapters.
I don’t think this is very accurate. Classical fluid dynamics is a dying art, yes, but classical mechanics and electromagnetics are still a huge part of the curriculum.
The vast majority of US grad students already pass tests on chapters 1-9 (the ones that are taught) before they even begin their "true" graduate career (aka their "masters"). Most graduate E&M (Jackson) and Thermo/Stat (Landau) mech classes cover their individual topics to an even greater level of detail than these materials.
As for the uncovered subjects, it turns out quantum mechanics occupies a large space of the "new physics" that graduate students are trained to do.
There are definitely an incredible amount of utility and knowledge to be gained from the classical field theories, and obviously many outstanding and new problems that I think need more attention as well. At the same time let's not understate the utility of quantum mechanics that most grad students are specializing in.
Not really dumbed down, just that it prioritizes quantum physics instead of classical. One can debate whether this is a good set of priorities but it's flippant to say a curriculum focused on quantum mechanics is dumber than one focused on fluids and elasticity/continuum mechanics.
A lot of modern research in classical mechanics is typically covered by applied math and/or mechanical engineering departments, sometimes also applied physics or engineering science. Magnetohydrodynamics is relevant for a lot of proper academic physicists, but by no means all of them. Just a consequence of how academia specialized, for better or worse.
> Many so-called mainstream physicists who believe in quantum theory dismiss your theory as pseudoscience. What is Mills Grand Unified Theory of Classical Physics (GUTCP) underlying the SunCell® that harnesses the new, pollution-free primary power source based on forming Hydrinos®?
Oh I don't know, the one that predicts the numbers correctly in a simple, transparent way everyone can apply, especially when compared to the ramblings of a weirdo trying to sell something?
If you can find the place on this website where he demonstrates the calculation that gives the energy levels of the hydrogen atom or the band gap of a metal, please show me.
> Helium's first ionization energy is −24.587387936(25) eV. This value was measured experimentally. The theoretic value of Helium atom's second ionization energy is −54.41776311(2) eV. The total ground state energy of the helium atom is −79.005154539(25) eV, or −2.90338583(13) Atomic units a.u., which equals −5.80677166(26) Ry.
Where are those calculations in chapter 7? I can't find them. I only find a few nice closed formulas. Hydrogen has closed formulas (almost), but Helium not.
If you compare it with the Wikipedia page, the energy of Helium has no closed formulas. There are four approximated method, and the list exclude the brute force method of using Gaussian[1] or Psi[2] that can solve any molecule with a high approximation using a decomposition into a big number of orbitals.
If they can give a nice closed formula for Helium (without magical ad hoc constants), it would be huge. Nobody has one, nobody believe there is one. It doesn't matter if the derivation of the formula makes no sense, the Bohr atom made no sense in 1913, but he had a nice formula that made sense like 20 years later.
First ionization energy of two electron atoms calculation is shown on p266 (p292 in the reader app) with a table showing agreement with experiment for many 2-electron atoms on p269 (p296 in reader app).
This (brilliant light power) is generally believed to be fraud and/or pseudo science. And the founder (Randall Mills) has been around for over 30 years, collecting money, never producing anything meaningful.
So be cautious.
It's amazing how most people use Wikipedia as the ultimate authority. Try reading the book there's a lot of excellent content that doesn't require following the math in detail, although the math is there in detail to support the theory.
I will probably date myself with this comment, but in my highschool days there used to be this TV series called the Mechanical Universe produced by Caltech. It was so fantastically good, perhaps peak pedagogy for its time.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8_xPU5epJddRABXqJ5h5G0dk...
I watched that series multiple times when i was in high school and early college. Really inspiring and the visualizations still live in my head. Unusually good production for an educational show. Set a new standard.
For those who would like a print version, this manuscript eventually got published as Modern Classical Physics https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691159027/mo...
I was weighing up (...) buying a copy of this the other day, in a physical bookshop. The thing was so big I couldn't actually buy it.
There has always been commentary that the size (over 1300 pages) of the General Rel book Gravitation by Meisner Thorne and Wheeler was done for demonstration purposes. Apparently, modern versions are only 2.5" thick which leads me to believe they must be on incredibly thin paper. I remember it being about 4-5".
https://www.amazon.com/Gravitation-Charles-W-Misner/dp/06911...
Maybe tome size a Kip thing?
The thing with MTW is that it's so big that it's quite hard to really mull over it (for me at least).
it's a book that I can imagine reading a lot in a very quiet world (i.e. basically a dorm or library before phones or computers) but it's very hard to actually get my teeth into it without that.
Yeah, unless you're taking a class like ph236 covering the material it's just absurd.
I hadn't realized it, but it looks like this new book is for ph136 the junior level (1st year grad) general rel prep class.
https://www.its.caltech.edu/~esp/ph136b/text.html
"General relativity for the gifted amateur" just came out by the way. I suspect an instant classic. I am very rusty so shall be going through it.
Interesting that they changed the author order to put Kip Thorne first... marketing?
I just looked through the diffraction chapter and some chapters I'm much less familiar with. This is an incredible ~graduate level text for these subjects. I've been looking for something like this for a while! Thanks!
Skimmed through chapter 1. That sounds like the way I was taught this subject in high school, nothing revolutionary. Not sure why they're talking so much about its brilliance
You learned about stress tensors and PDEs in high school?
Interesting that relativity is included here; to me it's one of the main things separating modern physics from classical.
Typically non-relativistic and non-quantum is called "Newtonian". Classical is just for anything which is not quantized, and so far no one knows how to quantize general relativity.
Classical means "not quantum." It doesn't mean "not relativity." Relativity is a classical discipline.
I think in modern physics "classical" often means "not quantum", rather than "pre-modern".
For an idea of how far the average US physics education has been dumbed-down in the past three decades, I doubt a 3rd year US-educated physics graduate student could pass a test on any of the chapters.
I don’t think this is very accurate. Classical fluid dynamics is a dying art, yes, but classical mechanics and electromagnetics are still a huge part of the curriculum.
The vast majority of US grad students already pass tests on chapters 1-9 (the ones that are taught) before they even begin their "true" graduate career (aka their "masters"). Most graduate E&M (Jackson) and Thermo/Stat (Landau) mech classes cover their individual topics to an even greater level of detail than these materials.
As for the uncovered subjects, it turns out quantum mechanics occupies a large space of the "new physics" that graduate students are trained to do.
There are definitely an incredible amount of utility and knowledge to be gained from the classical field theories, and obviously many outstanding and new problems that I think need more attention as well. At the same time let's not understate the utility of quantum mechanics that most grad students are specializing in.
You are speaking out of turn.
sounds like you haven't visited a top-ranked physics department in a while
With or without a LLM "partner"?
Not really dumbed down, just that it prioritizes quantum physics instead of classical. One can debate whether this is a good set of priorities but it's flippant to say a curriculum focused on quantum mechanics is dumber than one focused on fluids and elasticity/continuum mechanics.
A lot of modern research in classical mechanics is typically covered by applied math and/or mechanical engineering departments, sometimes also applied physics or engineering science. Magnetohydrodynamics is relevant for a lot of proper academic physicists, but by no means all of them. Just a consequence of how academia specialized, for better or worse.
We are victims of our success.
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Well, that sounds legit.
> Many so-called mainstream physicists who believe in quantum theory dismiss your theory as pseudoscience. What is Mills Grand Unified Theory of Classical Physics (GUTCP) underlying the SunCell® that harnesses the new, pollution-free primary power source based on forming Hydrinos®?
Classic scam to separate gullible wealthy investors from their money - delivering a revolutionary product real soon now - for the past 35 years:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brilliant_Light_Power
For me it’s the double question marks that showed me how serious they are:
> Q: What is the founding principle of Mills GUT-CP??
On page 15 of the Introduction in
https://brilliantlightpower.com/GUT/GUT_Volume_1/
there's a list of 19 (counted em) shortcomings of Quantum Theory based on Schrodinger math.
That doesn’t change the fact that using “so-called” is a red flag. The physicists are mainstream.
That doesn’t make them right, but using derogatory language like that is not helping make the case against them.
Not sure who wrote that, but it was not me.
This purely classical model doesn't make any fucking sense.
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Oh I don't know, the one that predicts the numbers correctly in a simple, transparent way everyone can apply, especially when compared to the ramblings of a weirdo trying to sell something?
If you can find the place on this website where he demonstrates the calculation that gives the energy levels of the hydrogen atom or the band gap of a metal, please show me.
Getting the energy levels of Hydrogen with a semiclasical method is not difficult. It's the Bohr atom with some disguise. Helium is hard.
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From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_atom
> Helium's first ionization energy is −24.587387936(25) eV. This value was measured experimentally. The theoretic value of Helium atom's second ionization energy is −54.41776311(2) eV. The total ground state energy of the helium atom is −79.005154539(25) eV, or −2.90338583(13) Atomic units a.u., which equals −5.80677166(26) Ry.
Where are those calculations in chapter 7? I can't find them. I only find a few nice closed formulas. Hydrogen has closed formulas (almost), but Helium not.
If you compare it with the Wikipedia page, the energy of Helium has no closed formulas. There are four approximated method, and the list exclude the brute force method of using Gaussian[1] or Psi[2] that can solve any molecule with a high approximation using a decomposition into a big number of orbitals.
If they can give a nice closed formula for Helium (without magical ad hoc constants), it would be huge. Nobody has one, nobody believe there is one. It doesn't matter if the derivation of the formula makes no sense, the Bohr atom made no sense in 1913, but he had a nice formula that made sense like 20 years later.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaussian_(software)
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSI_(computational_chemistry)
First ionization energy of two electron atoms calculation is shown on p266 (p292 in the reader app) with a table showing agreement with experiment for many 2-electron atoms on p269 (p296 in reader app).
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There is no spooky action at a distance as per se
This (brilliant light power) is generally believed to be fraud and/or pseudo science. And the founder (Randall Mills) has been around for over 30 years, collecting money, never producing anything meaningful. So be cautious.
It's amazing how most people use Wikipedia as the ultimate authority. Try reading the book there's a lot of excellent content that doesn't require following the math in detail, although the math is there in detail to support the theory.
https://brilliantlightpower.com/GUT/GUT_Volume_1/