What is a mathematician?

What is a good reading list for a mathematician to learn physics quickly?

• (Quickly being a key part of this question.) I am a Professor of Mathematics in a top university. I know quite a bit of math, and in particular quite a bit of Algebraic Geometry. My Differential Geometry is just okay, but I can quickly amend that. (Reading mathematics texts is easy for me.) However, I know absolutely no physics beyond a high school level. Starting from Quantum Field Theory (a mathematically interesting theory) is too difficult for me because I don't have the background. On the other hand, reading Feynman's Lectures, or some other huge background text, takes too long, and I lose interest. There's also the fact that physicists use notation that is confusing to me as a mathematician... What is a reading list for someone like me who is mathematically mature, that would give an interesting and *quick* introduction to physics? (I am ultimately interested in the topics: particle physics, quantum field theory, general/special relativity, quantum mechanics, high energy physics, string theory, and supersymmetry.) I'm looking for short books and texts, not giant tomes.

• Answer:

  It actually sounds like you would do better to read short/simple books that err on the side of intuition (and simple math). Once you have the intuition, you can either skip directly to original papers (which would be cited in these short books) or read more advanced books (which are also cited within these books or are easy to find later on). Once you know the basics (and sometimes even without knowing the basics) you can talk to a physicist colleague/ grad student about what they are working on and what technical difficulties they are running into...that is if you feel too bad about using the real winning strategy of making them sit at a whiteboard for 4 weeks and having them give you a crash course on all of physics :) With that in mind, here are some good books in the fields you've mentioned to quickly build up intuition about physics: Preliminaries a) Mechanics [1] http://www.amazon.com/Classical-Mechanics-John-R-Taylor/dp/189138922X b) Electricity and Magnetism [2] http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Electrodynamics-Edition-David-Griffiths/dp/013805326X http://www.amazon.com/Electricity-Magnetism-Vol-II-Berkeley/dp/0070049084 c) Thermodynamics & statistical physics [3] http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Thermal-Physics-Daniel-Schroeder/dp/0201380277/ref=pd_sim_b_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=19MMCK0X4WPHRNEKWSVR Core 1) Quantum Mechanics:  http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Quantum-Mechanics-2nd-Edition/dp/0131118927 2) Special Relativity: http://www.amazon.com/Special-Relativity-M-I-T-Introductory-Physics/dp/0393097935/ref=pd_sim_b_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=0Z8Q32RRYS0188S544E3 3) General Relativity: [4] http://www.amazon.com/Classical-Theory-Fields-Fourth-Edition/dp/0750627689 4) Particle Physics:  http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Elementary-Particles-David-Griffiths/dp/0471603864 5) Quantum Field Theory: http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Theory-Nutshell-Edition-nutshell/dp/0691140340 (this one is really fun) http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Mechanics-Integrals-Richard-Feynman/dp/0070206503 http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-238-geometry-and-quantum-field-theory-fall-2002/ (MIT course tailored towards mathematicians) 6) String Theory Nice intro book: http://www.amazon.com/A-First-Course-String-Theory/dp/0521880327 Accompanying MIT Courses: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-251-string-theory-for-undergraduates-spring-2007/,  http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-821-string-theory-fall-2008/ [1] You mostly want to know how Calculus of Variations makes its way into physics and be able to solve basic mechanics problems with the technique as well as an emphasis on using conservation laws, symmetry and geometry. So feel free to skip to the relevant sections.  [2] You need to know Maxwell's equations and be able to translate standard toy problems into boundary value problems with straightforward solutions [3] You won't really get some of the fermion/boson/entropy stuff if you dont skim through some really simple thermodynamics. [4] You can probably skip straight to the SR and GR sections