Expert: Daniel Mazur - 5/20/2009

Question
Dear Daniel,

This is Siddharth. I am sorry to bother you again. I have been thinking about everything you wrote earlier. There is still one question lingering in my head. You mentioned that I will be deciding which area I would be specializing in by choosing to study General Relativity (I am learning the math for it, btw) and String Theory, etc. And you also mentioned the relation between Solid State Physics and QED, etc.

I am actually not very interested in Solid State Physics, however I have mastered the basic Statistical Mechanics at the undergraduate level. I have also learnt pretty much all there is on Optics, Electromagnetism and Quantum Mechanics, at the same level. I feel comfortable with the problems also.

My question is, can I learn String theory (it seems very intriguing!) without having done the other field theories first? Or in other words, is it necessary that one should do everything in the same order as it has developed in the last whole century to be able to understand current research and scientific papers?

Also, if I do Relativity (since it interests me the most) what are my options to get into the same line of research afterwards? I mean what are the areas that I can get into professionally?

I realize that all this would take me a lot of effort and time and I probably sound a little over ambitious, but I do not wish to wait till I get into a graduate school to do all this. I also understand that GR and String theory are not part of the QE (for that I am working on lots of problems from various books with relevant topics.)

As you know I am learning everything on my own, without any tutor or guide, so I am bound to run into confusion every once in a while. I am very grateful for all the time you took out for my questions in the past. I hope you’ll help me out this time also :)

Thanks again,
Siddharth
India


Answer
Hello,

you don't need to know field theories to study string theory. You only need to get a suitable book that is designed for string beginners like "A first course in string theory" by B.Zwiebach. At some point the field theories will come in useful, because authors like to explain things about a theory using correspondence to other theories.

Whether you do General Relativity or String theory, your one and only profession to actually use this knowledge is being a theoretical cosmologics/astrophysicist or theoretical particle/high-energy physicist. Those theories are not used in any other branch of science I know of. The only way to do research in the field is start by being a good MS/PhD student of a famous professor of the same nature, work with him and learn from him and after PhD keep finding jobs in the field. It's a really competitive field and job positions are scarce.

I am glad to help and glad to hear that you are doing fine in your solitary progress through undergraduate topics.

Good luck!
Daniel