Guide to math needed to study physics http://www.superstringtheory.com/math/index.

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The Official String Theory Web Site:--> Mathematics --> Math Guide I -- Undergraduate level physics

The language of physics is mathematics. In order to study physics

seriously, one needs to learn mathematics that took generations of
brilliant people centuries to work out. Algebra, for example, was
cutting-edge mathematics when it was being developed in Baghdad
in the 9th century. But today it's just the first step along the
Books at
journey.
Amazon.com:
Algebra
Bob Miller's
PreCalc and Algebra provides the first exposure to the use of variables
Trigonometry for and constants, and experience manipulating and solving
the Clueless linear equations of the form y = ax + b and quadratic
equations of the form y = ax2+bx+c.
Bob Miller's
Calculus I for the Geometry
Clueless
Geometry at this level is two-dimensional Euclidean
Calculus Made geometry, Courses focus on learning to reason
Easy geometrically, to use concepts like symmetry, similarity
and congruence, to understand the properties of geometric << Previous
How to Ace shapes in a flat, two-dimensional space.
Calculus: The Next >>
Trigonometry
Streetwise Guide
Trigonometry begins with the study of right triangles and
the Pythagorean theorem. The trigonometric functions sin,
cos, tan and their inverses are introduced and clever
identities between them are explored.

Calculus (single variable)

Calculus begins with the definition of an abstract functions

of a single variable, and introduces the ordinary derivative
of that function as the tangent to that curve at a given
point along the curve. Integration is derived from looking
at the area under a curve,which is then shown to be the
inverse of differentiation.

Calculus (multivariable)

Multivariable calculus introduces functions of several

variables f(x,y,z...), and students learn to take partial and
total derivatives. The ideas of directional derivative,
integration along a path and integration over a surface are
developed in two and three dimensional Euclidean space.

Analytic Geometry

Analytic geometry is the marriage of algebra with

geometry. Geometric objects such as conic sections,
planes and spheres are studied by the means of algebraic
equations. Vectors in Cartesian, polar and spherical
coordinates are introduced.

Linear Algebra

In linear algebra, students learn to solve systems of linear Books at

equations of the form ai1 x1 + ai2 x2 + ... + ain xn = ci Amazon.com:
and express them in terms of matrices and vectors. The
properties of abstract matrices, such as inverse, Ordinary
determinant, characteristic equation, and of certain types Differential
Equations

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Guide to math needed to study physics http://www.superstringtheory.com/math/index.html

of matrices, such as symmetric, antisymmetric, unitary or

Hermitian, are explored.

Ordinary Differential Equations

This is where the physics begins! Much of physics is about

deriving and solving differential equations. The most
important differential equation to learn, and the one most
studied in undergraduate physics, is the harmonic
oscillator equation, ax'' + bx' + cx = f(t), where x' means
the time derivative of x(t).

Partial Differential Equations

For doing physics in more than one dimension, it becomes

necessary to use partial derivatives and hence partial
differential equations. The first partial differential
equations students learn are the linear, separable ones
that were derived and solved in the 18th and 19th
centuries by people like Laplace, Green, Fourier, Legendre,
and Bessel.

Methods of approximation

Most of the problems in physics can't be solved exactly in

closed form. Therefore we have to learn technology for
making clever approximations, such as power series
expansions, saddle point integration, and small (or large)
perturbations.

Probability and statistics

Probability became of major importance in physics when

quantum mechanics entered the scene. A course on
probability begins by studying coin flips, and the counting
of distinguishable vs. indistinguishable objects. The
concepts of mean and variance are developed and applied
in the cases of Poisson and Gaussian statistics.

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The Official String Theory Web Site:--> Mathematics --> Math Guide II -- Graduate and beyond

Here are some of the topics in mathematics that a person who

wants to learn advanced topics in theoretical physics, especially
string theory, should become familiar with.

Real analysis
Books at
Amazon.com: In real analysis, students learn abstract properties of real
functions as mappings, isomorphism, fixed points, and
Geometrical basic topology such as sets, neighborhoods, invariants
Methods of and homeomorphisms.
Mathematical
Physics Complex analysis

Geometry, Complex analysis is an important foundation for learning

Topology and string theory. Functions of a complex variable, complex
Physics manifolds, holomorphic functions, harmonic forms,
(Graduate Texts Khler manifolds, Riemann surfaces and Teichmuller
in Physics) spaces are topics one needs to become familiar with in
order to study string theory. << Previous
Group Theory in
Group theory
Physics Next >>
Modern particle physics could not have progressed
without an understanding of symmetries and group
transformations. Group theory usually begins with the
group of permutations on N objects, and other finite
groups. Concepts such as representations, irreducibility,
classes and characters.

Differential geometry

Einstein's General Theory of Relativity turned

non-Euclidean geometry from a controversial advance in
mathematics into a component of graduate physics
education. Differential geometry begins with the study of
differentiable manifolds, coordinate systems, vectors and
tensors. Students should learn about metrics and
covariant derivatives, and how to calculate curvature in
coordinate and non-coordinate bases.

Lie groups

A Lie group is a group defined as a set of mappings on a

differentiable manifold. Lie groups have been especially
important in modern physics. The study of Lie groups
combines techniques from group theory and basic
differential geometry to develop the concepts of Lie
derivatives, Killing vectors, Lie algebras and matrix
representations.

Differential forms

The mathematics of differential forms, developed by Elie

Cartan at the beginning of the 20th century, has been
powerful technology for understanding Hamiltonian
dynamics, relativity and gauge field theory. Students
begin with antisymmetric tensors, then develop the
concepts of exterior product, exterior derivative,
orientability, volume elements, and integrability
conditions.

Homology

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Homology concerns regions and boundaries of spaces.

For example, the boundary of a two-dimensional circular
disk is a one-dimensional circle. But a one-dimensional
circle has no edges, and hence no boundary. In
homology this case is generalized to "The boundary of a
boundary is zero." Students learn about simplexes,
complexes, chains, and homology groups.

Cohomology

Cohomology and homology are related, as one might

suspect from the names. Cohomology is the study of the
relationship between closed and exact differential forms
defined on some manifold M. Students explore the
generalization of Stokes' theorem, de Rham cohomology,
the de Rahm complex, de Rahm's theorem and
cohomology groups.

Homotopy

Lightly speaking, homotopy is the study of the hole in

the donut. Homotopy is important in string theory
because closed strings can wind around donut holes and
get stuck, with physical consequences. Students learn
about paths and loops, homotopic maps of loops,
contractibility, the fundamental group, higher homotopy
groups, and the Bott periodicity theorem.

Fiber bundles

Fiber bundles comprise an area of mathematics that

studies spaces defined on other spaces through the use
of a projection map of some kind. For example, in
electromagnetism there is a U(1) vector potential
associated with every point of the spacetime manifold.
Therefore one could study electromagnetism abstractly
as a U(1) fiber bundle over some spacetime manifold M.
Concepts developed include tangent bundles, principal
bundles, Hopf maps, covariant derivatives, curvature,
and the connection to gauge field theories in physics.

Characteristic classes

The subject of characteristic classes applies cohomology

to fiber bundles to understand the barriers to untwisting
a fiber bundle into what is known as a trivial bundle. This
is useful because it can reduce complex physical
problems to math problems that are already solved. The
Chern class is particularly relevant to string theory.

Index theorems

In physics we are often interested in knowing about the

space of zero eigenvalues of a differential operator. The
index of such an operator is related to the dimension of
that space of zero eigenvalues. The subject of index
theorems and characteristic classes is concerned with

Supersymmetry and supergravity

The mathematics behind supersymmetry starts with two

concepts: graded Lie algebras, and Grassmann numbers.
A graded algebra is one that uses both commutation and
anti-commutation relations. Grassmann numbers are
anti-commuting numbers, so that x times y = y times
x. The mathematical technology needed to work in
supersymmetry includes an understanding of graded Lie

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algebras, spinors in arbitrary spacetime dimensions,

covariant derivatives of spinors, torsion, Killing spinors,
and Grassmann multiplication, derivation and
integration, and Khler potentials.

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The Official String Theory Web Site:--> Mathematics --> Math Guide III - Current research

These are topics in mathematics at the current cutting edge of

superstring research.

K-theory
Books at Cohomology is a powerful mathematical technology
Amazon.com: for classifying differential forms. In the 1960s, work by
Sir Michael Atiyah, Isadore Singer, Alexandre
Sir Michael
Grothendieck, and Friedrich Hirzebruch generalized
Atiyah, A Great
coholomogy from differential forms to vector bundles, a
Mathematician of
subject that is now known as K-theory.
the 20th
Witten has argued that K-theory is relevant to string
Centuryy
theory for classifying D-brane charges. D-brane objects
K-Theory in string theory carry a type of charge called Ramond-
(Advanced Book Ramond charge. Ramond-Ramond fields are differential
Classics) forms, and their charges should be classifed by ordinary
cohomology. But gauge fields propagate on D-branes,
and gauge fields give rise to vector bundles. This << Previous
suggests that D-brane charge classification requires a
generalization of cohomology to vector bundles -- hence Next >>
K-theory.

Overview of K-theory Applied to Strings by Edward

Witten

D-branes and K-theory by Edward Witten

Noncommutative geometry (NCG for short)

Geometry was originally developed to describe

physical space that we can see and measure. After
modern mathematics was freed from Euclid's Fifth Axiom
by Gauss and Bolyai, Riemann added to modern
geometry the abstract notion of a manifold M with points
that are labeled by local coordinates that are real
numbers, with some metric tensor that determines an
extremal length between two points on the manifold.
Books at Much of the progress in 20th century physics was in
Amazon.com: applying this modern notion of geometry to spacetime,
or to quantum gauge field theory.
The Geometry In the quest to develop a notion of quantum
and Physics of geometry, as far back as 1947, people were trying to
Knots (Lezioni quantize spacetime so that the coordinates would not be
Lincee Lectures) ordinary real numbers, but somehow elevated to
quantum operators obeying some nontrivial quantum
The Geometry
commutation relations. Hence the term "noncommutative
and Dynamics of
geometry," or NCG for short.
Magnetic
The current interest in NCG among physicists of the
Monopoles
21st century has been stimulated by work by French
mathematician Alain Connes.

Two Lectures on D-Geometry and Noncommutative

Geometry by Michael R. Douglas

Noncommutative Geometry and Matrix Theory:

Compactification on Tori by Alain Connes, Michael R.
Douglas, Albert Schwarz

String Theory and Noncommutative Geometry by Edward

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Witten and Nathan Seiberg.

Non-commutative spaces in physics and mathematics by

Daniela Bigatti

Noncommutative Geometry for Pedestrians by J.Madore

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