Time to try again.

[swestrup]

I'm going to go and see if I can fall asleep now. Hopefully this time it will work. I might try reading up more on n-dimensional manifolds first but a) it didn't work last time, and b) I'm not sure I won't just keep reading the same words over and over and over.

Comments

[hendrikboom.livejournal.com]

I\m curious. Just what kind of stuff are you trying to learn about n-manifolds? Or are you just using it to get to sleep? The elementary stuff I've seen on manifold theory seems to be all coding. I mean, it's like trying to learn a programming language by reading its compiler. And the advanced stuff always makes it seem like they've picked the wrong language to compile.

[swestrup]

I'm currently reading Penrose's "The Road to Reality" which is his attempt to distill all you need to know to understand modern theories of physics into 1000 pages or so. The first 22 chapters are devoted to getting one up to speed math-wise. He starts with the integers in chapter 1 and is up to partial differentiation by chapter 8 or so.

I'm finding it alternatively frustrating and enlightening to read since he makes (as I've found most math books do) jumps where he's assuming some unmentioned lemma that one has to stop and try to puzzle out for oneself.

In his defense, he's trying to condense a lot of complex math into a small space and he does try to stop and give "the big picture" as to what something is good for, and what the motivation for the math is behind it. I fear he's too highly trained as a mathematician to completely succeed in that endeavour, but enlightening to see his attempt.

I'm currently somewhere around chapter 18, so I'm hoping that the actual physics should be starting soon. I'll have a better idea what I think of it once I'm out of the 'intro' section.

I've been wondering what you or sps would make of the book.