ChapterZero

I’m currently taking an extended break from my applied real and functional analysis final, by visiting the library and picking up books I’d like to read over the break. Of course, I’ll probably not read them, but it’s a relaxing exercise. I’ve limited myself to physics, since I’m studing math, so I’d like to see something different:

• The Large scale structure of space-time. Hawkings and Ellis. This is the most ambitious of the books, but it looks like rewarding reading: it introduces GR rigorously and relatively quickly, then goes on to develop two of its important predictions. Namely, singularities that take the form of the beginning and end of the universe, and black holes.
• The Geometry of Physics: an introduction. Frankel. Differential geometry, exterior differential forms, algebraic and differential topology, Lie groups, vector bundles and Chern forms. All that good math for physics stuff, with pictures, and seemly well suited to self-study.
• Special Functions: An introduction to the Classical functions of mathematical physics. Temme. Kind of cheat on my part, because I’d be reading it to get into asymptotic expansions, special functions, and related topics from a different viewpoint than that offered in ACM 101, but still very physic-al, and looks like entertaining reading.

Possibly relevant posts:

• Break reading (3/25/2008)
• New books, again (9/7/2007)
• Taxi-cab geometry? (9/15/2004)