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Vol. IIThe Curriculum§ III
The Curriculum  ·  § III

A Chart of the Territory.

Thirty-eight reference documents, mapped from Physics 101 to the frontier of quantum gravity. The full path of study, with its junctions and its branches.

The curriculum is presented here as a railway chart, in the manner of a Victorian transit map. The thirty-eight reference documents are stations. Six lines connect them. The Quantum Trunk is the spine of the work, with the Classical Branch running alongside and the Gravitational Spur descending to the frontier. All routes terminate at Paper I.

Click any station to read the document. The full station index follows below the chart.

A Chart of the Curriculum
Pl. II
❦From the Press at Bend, Oregon · MMXXVI
Physics 101 Physics 102 Math for QM Modern Physics Particle Physics QM Worked Problems Special Relativity& Tensors QFT IScalar Field QFT IIDirac Field QFT IIIPhoton Field QFT IVInteractions QFT VFeynman Diagrams QFT VILoops QFT VIIRenormalization QFT VIIIRenorm. Group QFT IXPI (Bosons) QFT XPI (Fermions) QFT XIYang-Mills QFT XIIStandard Model QFT XIIIFinite T QFT XIVEFT QFT XVChPT QFT XVISMEFT QFT XVIIAnomalies QFT XVIIIInstantons Lagrangian Mechanics Classical Field Theory Statistical Mechanics Condensed Matter General Relativity QFT XIXSolitons QFT XXSUSY I QFT XXISUSY II QFT XXIIString I QFT XXIIIString II QFT XXIVAdS/CFT QFT XXVBlack Holes QFT XXVIQuantum Gravity Ten Astounding Ten Unsolved Ten Neglected PAPER IThe Frontier

Lines of the Curriculum

The Foundation Way
The Math & Quantum Hub
The Quantum Trunk
The Advanced QFT Loop
The Classical Branch
The Gravitational Spur

Index of Stations

All Thirty-Eight, by Line.

arranged in the order of the journey

The Foundation Way

Where the journey begins. Newtonian mechanics, classical EM, the road to modern physics.

  1. i. Newton, finally. Physics 101
  2. ii. The fields beneath the wires. Physics 102
  3. iii. Everything I thought I knew about time was wrong. Modern Physics
  4. iv. The detour through linear algebra. Math for Quantum Mechanics
  5. xi. The particle zoo with a map. Particle Physics

The Math & Quantum Hub

Mathematical foundations and quantum mechanics, the interchange to the Trunk.

  1. xii. Working the problems. Quantum Mechanics: Worked Problems

The Quantum Trunk

The spine of the curriculum: special relativity through the Standard Model.

  1. xiii. What it means to quantize a field. QFT I: Scalar Field Quantization
  2. xiv. Spin, and the price of relativistic quantum mechanics. QFT II: Dirac Field Quantization
  3. xv. Light, properly. QFT III: Photon Field Quantization
  4. xvi. When particles start to interact. QFT IV: Interactions and Perturbation Theory
  5. xvii. Diagrams that mean something. QFT V: Feynman Diagrams and Tree-Level QED
  6. xviii. Loops, and where the infinities come from. QFT VI: Loop Diagrams and Regularization
  7. xix. How we agreed the infinities were fine. QFT VII: Renormalization
  8. xx. Physics organized by scale. QFT VIII: The Renormalization Group
  9. xxi. Every history at once. QFT IX: Path Integrals for Bosons
  10. xxii. Fermions in the path integral, with the sign that won't go away. QFT X: Path Integrals for Fermions
  11. xxiii. Where the geometry gets serious. QFT XI: Yang-Mills Quantization
  12. xxiv. The Standard Model, written out. QFT XII: The Standard Model

The Advanced QFT Loop

What you reach after QFT XII: effective theories, anomalies, instantons.

  1. xxv. Field theory, but hot. QFT XIII: Finite Temperature Field Theory
  2. xxvi. The most useful idea in physics. QFT XIV: Effective Field Theory
  3. xxvii. An entire theory of almost-broken symmetry. QFT XV: Chiral Perturbation Theory
  4. xxviii. The practitioner's tools. QFT XVI: SMEFT and HQET
  5. xxix. Where the symmetry breaks itself. QFT XVII: Anomalies in Depth
  6. xxx. The things perturbation theory cannot see. QFT XVIII: Instantons and Large N
  7. xxxi. Solitons, monopoles, dualities. QFT XIX: Solitons, Monopoles, Dualities

The Classical Branch

Lagrangian mechanics through statistical mechanics and condensed matter.

  1. v. The universe is lazy. Lagrangian Mechanics
  2. vi. Tensors, and the geometry I had not noticed. Special Relativity and Tensors
  3. vii. When fields started doing the work. Classical Field Theory
  4. viii. Entropy, finally not vague. Statistical Mechanics
  5. x. Solids, electrons, and a job market I did not expect. Condensed Matter Physics

The Gravitational Spur

General relativity through string theory and the quantum gravity frontier.

  1. ix. Spacetime curves and I learn to read it. General Relativity
  2. xxxii. Why supersymmetry was so appealing. QFT XX: Supersymmetry Foundations
  3. xxxiii. The exact-result rabbit hole. QFT XXI: Extended SUSY and Exact Results
  4. xxxiv. String theory, foundations. QFT XXII: String Theory Foundations
  5. xxxv. Where everything connects. QFT XXIII: String Theory Dualities and M-Theory
  6. xxxvi. The universe might be a hologram. QFT XXIV: Holography and AdS/CFT
  7. xxxvii. Black holes and quantum gravity. QFT XXV: Black Holes and Quantum Gravity
  8. xxxviii. The candidates for a theory of everything. QFT XXVI: Approaches to Quantum Gravity