Thread: String Theory and M-theory Study Material

Hi,

I recently watched a program about String Theory and M-theory in Discovery channel. It was amazing. I want to know more about it. Can anyone please advice me where I should start. I am an engineering Graduate.

Can you give me address of any website or give me information about a book which covers basic topics and advance topics of string theory and it's related subjects?

Regards,

Sachin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_theory

http://www.superstringtheory.com/

You may be interested in the works of Gerard 't Hooft, a nobel prize winner who's done some research in the field. I know about him because I was at one of his readings, which btw was completely beyond my comprehension :wink:

Brian Greene worte a great book on it a while back that I really enjoyed..... I can't think of the title right now, but a search on Amazon should yield it.

JM

you mean 'The Elegant Universe' which was also made into a TV series.

Originally Posted by sachinastro

Hi,

I recently watched a program about String Theory and M-theory in Discovery channel. It was amazing. I want to know more about it. Can anyone please advice me where I should start. I am an engineering Graduate.

Can you give me address of any website or give me information about a book which covers basic topics and advance topics of string theory and it's related subjects?

Regards,

Sachin

I have a master's in physics and the last class I took was on this topic. The texts we used for the course where Superstring theory by Green, Schwarz & Witten, and Superstring theory Volumes I & II by Joseph Polchinski. M theory is a fairly recent synthesis of competing string theories and the math is even more sophisticated than the quantum field theory needed for the two texts. If you are looking for a metaphysical description of M-theory for popular consumption I cannot be very helpful since I haven't read any. Brian Greene is certainly the most well know author of attempts of this sort on the topic of string theory and Stephen Hawking's new book "The Universe in a Nutshell" supposedly talks about p-branes as well.

I'd recommend Brian Greene's "The Elegant Universe" as someone already mentioned. It's a very readable book for those without a lot of background in physics

Why not try Hyperspace by Michio Kaku?
And talking about hyperspace, has anyone here tried visualising higher dimensions before? Or is it proven impossible?

Wow, thanks for posting those links Wallaby. I've heard of this and I'm taking 20 hours this semester so I haven't had time to check it out, it's nice to have this quick rundown.