[musgravepeter]

(PhD, 1996 in general relativity)

Embedded graphics drivers for real-time systems.

I keep the physics part of my brain alive by developing physics based Unity assets (nbodyphysics.com) and supporting a package for GR on github (grtensor).

I still buy WAY too many physics books. Current aspiration is to work through "Modern Classical Physics" Thorne/Blandford.

[megnaro]

I bought Modern Classical Physics last summer as a birthday gift to myself and I am also slowly going through it.

[vijayshankarv]

Oh wow! This looks like the physics book that I always wanted to read. Phd 2016 in condensed matter physics - now working in a mid-size (~600 people) software company as a data scientist.

[tMcGrath]

Modern Classical Physics is a great book - I've recently started working through it (just about to move on to chapter 2). I'd be interested in chatting about it with others/cross-checking solutions. Anyone who's interested, drop me an email (address in my profile).

If you're thinking of getting it but want to check it out, there's a 2012 draft version that the authors have previously taught from here: http://www.pmaweb.caltech.edu/Courses/ph136/yr2012/. It's not the same as the book, of course, but from a skim it seems quite similar.

[vijayshankarv]

Thanks! This looks like what I will start with. Can't find your email in your profile, though.

[hyperjeff]

Ex-PhD student in general relativity here, also slowly going thru that book. If anyone wants to start a reading (slack?) group together, I’d be interested. I have no one to talk to about this stuff IRL.

[vijayshankarv]

I would love to join a reading group (on slack or another messaging platform) on this book.

[ambicapter]

Does Slack let you write LaTeX?

[jason_slack]

And is this book a good read for someone re-learning math having only taken high school physics?

[musgravepeter]

Depends on what the math re-learning covers. You'd need differential equations and 2nd year calculus.

A good choice for less math might be "Gravity from the ground up" by Schutz.

[hpcjoe]

I know what you mean on keeping the physics part alive. I've written a bunch of code for doing simple molecular dynamics and varying the interaction types. I've also gone off and discovered I like number theory.

None of this pays the bills, right now I help build clouds, and I used to build supercomputers, and high performance storage systems.

[wrycoder]

http://nbodyphysics.com/blog/2017/06/12/on-being-the-dumbest...

Somehow I doubt it! In any case, you are like me - doing engineering and software, while doing my physics as a hobby and loving it. I'm working on Physics from Symmetry. Definitely a 21st century book - not at all like the traditional development of the subject.

[musgravepeter]

Physics from symmetry looks really fun. Another book for the pile! (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsundoku)

[uberswe]

Love your website, when I get home I am going to boot up my PC and play around with some of your code :)

[scottlocklin]

I was actually at Pitt when Rovelli and Newman were still team teaching GR and always regretted not taking this course. Would Modern Classical Physics be enough in the GR section to get the basics down? It looks decent for the stuff I know about (optics and so on).

[jtms]

I’d imagine there could be some really interestingly massive simulation possibilities integrating nbody with unity’s new ECS system

[musgravepeter]

Mind reader!

Yeah, I'm keen to give that a go. Interestingly it is not a problem that is very easy to parallelize, since every mass will affect every other mass. There may still be some cool ways to use ECS though.

[jtms]

Yeah I can see that... at least all the other non-rigidbody stuff is (theoretically) much more efficient.

[vanderZwan]

Have you ever considered working on some low-hanging fruit problem in a non-physics field?

[musgravepeter]

Some of the Unity asset work might fit that description e.g. provide a library of chaotic attractors packaged for use in a game.

My grad work had no connection to data/stats and I have not bumped into any low hanging fruit where Riemannian geometry might be the answer!

[SiempreViernes]

I don't know that differential geometry ever made anything simple, so I don't know if there is any obvious fruit to be had. But there might be some, weird, unexpected fruit in the back; for instance, there exists a formulation of thermodynamics in terms of differential geometry: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/#abs/arXiv:physics%2F0604164

[tMcGrath]

As far as I know, a good differential-geometric understanding of nonequilibrium thermodynamics still hasn't been achieved.

The central issue is understanding how changes in control parameters (for instance concentrations of catalysts in a chemical system, or local fields in a spin system) affect the evolution of the probability distribution over states. Some work has been done in close to steady state (for instance [1,2,3]) but it's far from resolved.

This has some nice applications - designing efficient protocols for microscale devices, for instance.

[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/1603.07758 [2] https://arxiv.org/abs/1507.06269v1 [3] https://arxiv.org/abs/1201.4166