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About the magnitude: Would it be helpful if one focuses on a single topics e.g. General Relativity? For anyone who went through an engineering/applied math bac
by hnthrowaway0315 4y ago
About the magnitude:
Would it be helpful if one focuses on a single topics e.g. General Relativity? For anyone who went through an engineering/applied math bachelor, basically he/she needs to take about 7~10 courses depending on background and can ignore the rest (e.g. any physics about Quantum Mechanics or any unrelated math e.g. Probability/Statistics)
- sharikous 4y agoYes, and for general relativity even more so. GR is quite separate from the rest of physics, at least until you get to a very deep level. You still need a good teacher. GR is exactly the kind of topic that can seem horribly ugly or incredibly fascinating depending on the teaching method. Moreover raytracing/general physical modeling in a general relativistic spacetime can be exactly the kind of project that can be accessible to a programmer curious about physics
- hnthrowaway0315 4y agoThanks! I think one problem of self-teaching is the difficulty to 1) Figure out which parts of the textbooks are needed and which parts can be shelved; 2) Find a good textbook with detailed answers; 3) Find someone to ask when blocked. I totally agree that a good teacher is at least a 10X multiplier. My plan is to register as an independent student, takes 2-3 courses to show serious business and then find a professor with GR background as a mentor. I don't think it's worthy to get into a program because I'll have to take a lot of off-topic courses then. The simulation is also interesting. I remember someone programming a renderer for black holes based on GR (or something else) and it looks exactly like the one in Interstellar!