Scientists at CERN observe three "exotic" particles for first time

[xocetaceans]

15. This may sound a bit crazy, but...

Last edited Fri Jul 8, 2022, 03:22 PM - Edit history (1)

I think that there might be some value in combining undergraduate physics and chemistry degree programs a little bit more closely.

The thrust of physics is essentially to get past the basics of Newtonian mechanics, statistical mechanics and EM theory and to extend this via Hamiltonian mechanics and Lagrangian mechanics: one picks up special relativity along the way and then one has a foundation for the quantum mechanics of the hydrogen atom. This gets extended to quantum field theory (which uses Lagrangian densities in action integrals and the idea of minimization of the action). In broadly talking about quantum field theory and particle physics, that's when gauge theory and symmetries end up out front as descriptions of what is being discussed. SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1) talks about groups, group representations, etc and describes the standard model in that SU(3) relates to quantum chromodynamics (the strong force; relating to quarks and gluons) and SU(2)xU(1) (the electroweak force; relating to W+,W-,Z0 bosons and photons). This is a terribly oversimplified, off-the-cuff summary, but it has been quite a while for me.

Physical chemistry for chemistry majors seems to be a really good course - which I regret never having taken. From the outside, it seems to give one closer contact to important experimental data relating to statistical mechanics - i.e., enthalpy, entropy, etc. Anyway, it seems like it would give one a firmer foundation (i.e., an experimental foundation) in the early parts of a physics degree - the ones that relate to thermodynamics and, say, the quantum mechanics that applies in chemical reactions.

Anyway, perhaps physical chemistry and the physical chemistry lab course would be good for undergraduate physicists. What do you think?

To elaborate slightly, my above description leaves out mentioning almost all the math that underpins everything. If you've never looked at the standard model from the point of view of applied mathematics, here is a seemingly good lecture course that I ran into the other day. I haven't watched it, but, from the lecture titles, the ones that most directly relate to particle physics are those after lecture #34:

&list=PLOzRYVm0a65dGef0BEA_CWbVCO6BtMZhE

That being said, it might not be safe to skip the earlier lectures, depending on what is already known.

Knowing aspects of group theory is very important to the standard model. Most math texts are quite far away from anything directly applicable to the physics and focus on establishing the mathematical theory of groups, rings and fields - i.e., Herstein's book on Abstract Algebra. However, there is a more efficient and more visualizable approach to understanding group theory which allows one to quickly get past the basics of discrete groups and get on to continuous groups (Lie groups). That approach is based on Cayley diagrams and is discussed online in these lectures, which I would highly recommend to anyone whether they have seen group theory before or not:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwV-9DG53NDxU337smpTwm6sef4x-SCLv

They are based on an approach taken in this book, Visual Group Theory, by Nathan Carter -- https://bookstore.ams.org/clrm-32/.

(While one is mentioning very interesting math books that are perhaps worth a look, there are also these, Visual Complex Analysis, by Tristan Needham -- https://www.amazon.com/Visual-Complex-Analysis-Tristan-Needham/dp/0198534469 , and also Visual Differential Geometry, also by Needham -- https://www.amazon.com/Visual-Differential-Geometry-Forms-Mathematical/dp/0691203709 .)

Of course, visualization can be a two-edge sword if one accidentally brings unrecognized assumptions into one's arguments. This was pointed out in a recent 3Blue1Brown episode:

Anyway, I'm writing this without knowing what you know or what exactly you are interested in - forgive me if I'm covering topics that are already well-known to you and for the extensive length of this reply. I just believe that modern physics is a beautiful thing that is worth knowing, so I hope that this reply is useful in that light.