Free Quantum Mechanics Lectures from Yale University

Quantum mechanics is one of those tricky subjects, which are hard to learn from books alone. It's one of those branches of physics that are best understood when explained by an experienced lecturer. That's why I present you this mini series of lectures by professor Ramamurti Shankar from Yale university.

There 7 lectures in total, which cover most of the main topics of QM starting with double slit experiment and De Broglie wavelength and ending with various postulates of QM.

The lecturer is really good, as he explains all the concepts in an easy to understand way and always keep asking students if they're following. In addition, he always tries to give practical examples of physics concepts, which is great.

Here's the first lecture. The link to other lectures is below the video.

Links to other lectures: Link 1

                                  Link 2

You might be interested in:

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On the Nature of Time...

So lately I've stumbled upon this great website containing public domain docummentaries on various subjects in science. It contains a variety of physics docummentaries and lectures, usually a couple of decades old. The most interesting thing about these lectures is that old vintage feel that only old docummentaries have.









Thanks for checking this out! The link of the website with all this public domain stuff is here.

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Review of "The Road to Reality" by Roger Penrose

So recently I managed to buy some great books about physics at a low price and one of them was another great book by Sir Roger Penrose "The Road to Reality".

My first impression when I saw the book at the store was that it was huge, and I mean huge, it has almost 1100 pages. So if you're thinking of buying this book be ready for long weeks of pure maths and science fun. But is it really that fun?

The book starts with some remarks from the author about the notation, which is useful, and some remarks about overall math usage in the book, which is also handy. The prologue is really amazing, as it drags you in, by telling a short story how Pythagoras, who had a hunger for knowledge, joined the brotherhood of 571 wisemen, and began his journey to secrets of mathematics and science. At this point you feel like reading an interesting novel that shows the fun side of science as well as dragging you in with a mysterious narrative. But what is the rest of the book about?

Well, it's about maths and physics of course. It has basically everything covered. And I mean everything! Starting with the roots of physics and mathematics, ending with string theory, quantum mechanics, general and special theories of relativity and even some speculative modern science theories. The book is divided in 34 chapters in total. Also it has some great diagrams and drawings, which really help you understand the physics in some parts of the book. The final part of the book contains some thoughts by the author about the nature of reality itself.

Naturally, every layman would like to know how much maths is used in the book. And the answer is - not that much. But I have to tell you, it's get's quite confusing after a couple of first chapters. And as you progress through the book, maths equations, diagrams and some ideas become incredibly confusing and hard. So I wouldn't recommend this book for those who hate maths or get a headache from even a simple equation. Also the physics is also quite hard, so I recommend this one only for experts.

Also it's worth noticing that almost all concepts of physics are explained from a perspective of mathematical theories and ideas, after all Roger Penrose is famous for mathematical physics, so be ready for more maths than physics.

So the final score:

Content: 9.7/10 ( contains almost everything you need to know about physics )
Beginner "Friendliness":  2/10
Narrative: 6/10 ( start's with a bang, but eventually ends up as another book written in a "dry science" style)
Illustrations: 9/10 (contains some amazing geometrical figures and diagrams)

Overall score 6.7/10

Final verdict: a great book for experts or hardcore science and maths fans, however, a little two confusing for the laymen.

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History of the Universe Part 3

So I wrote another edition to the series "History of the Universe". If you're interested, you can check it out here: History of the Universe Part 3. Thanks!

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Maths Can Be Fun

So as you might have noticed I've been lately watching a lot of documentaries and lectures about physics, maths and all that stuff. I presented you the Ted Talks channel a while ago, and I still think it's one of the best channels on youtube so feel free to check it out. However, I also found some great docummentaries from BBC a while ago. One if them I would like to share with you. It's called The History of Mathematics.

Now when it comes to maths, I guess I'm like most of you - I don't enjoy spending countless hours solving the same problems and writing everything all over again after making a silly mistake. Yet, at the same time, I realise that there is another side of mathematics. It's like the dark side of the moon, that we never see, yet it's so mysterious and cool. The beauty of maths is all around us, after all, even Galileo once said - maths is the languange of our universe. The ability to use simple equations to understand our universe, calculate amazing things, like distances to stars or mass of the sun using simple techniques that were invented thousands of years ago soung fantastic to me. Unfortunatelly, most of the teachers and school systems simply hide this beautiful side of mathematics under tons of boring homework and bad explanations.

But let's get back to the subject. I found this great documentary, which tells the story of mathematics. It's narated in a very interesting way. Also it shows the more interesting side of mathematics, and how it evolved since the ancient times. I really enjoyed this BBC documentary and I hope you will too. So here's the link (you will find later parts on youtube).

History of Mathematics Part 1

Thanks for reading!


Also check this out if you're interested:

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Hilarious Michio Kaku Interview

I guess you all know who Michio Kaku is, however, for those who are not so lucky - Michio Kaku is a famous theoretical physicist, author and a famous science person. Among many books, he has written such famous books as Physics of the Impossible.

So this evening I was searching for interviews with Michio Kaku on youtube and found this hilarious interview. It's Michio Kaku talking with some crazy old man, who keeps distracting him :D
Well anyway, enjoy:

Thanks for reading!

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So You Want to Learn Physics?

So you want to learn physics? Good choice! But can you really learn it if you're bad at maths or too old for for college? The answer is yes.

For more than 3 years I've been studying various subjects of physics on my free time and I found many good books and free lectures. The hardest part about self-studying is finding suitable books and lectures. Most of the time you just simply find books that are too hard or too easy, thus it's important to know good authors and lecturers.

So a couple of months ago I stumbled upon a great video lecture of physics from Yale university. Basically it's a part of a project in which universities from all around the world share video lectures with people on the web. This is a general course on physics - it contains a variety of subjects, such as mechanics, special relativity, waves and other classical stuff. For most of the part, maths is fairly straightforward (as much as maths for physics can get).

So here's the link with the free lectures (there is a variety of other free lectures on this website covering astronomy, economics, chemistry and so on):

Free Yale Courses

Just for a taste - first lecture:

PS. if you find maths during the video lectures overwhelming you can always check out some great books on maths from the For Dummies series. You can find them here:

Maths for Dummies

Thanks for reading!

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