'The road to reality' Roger Penrose?

Question

Had to take a year or two off of Uni due to financial difficulties. Studied biomedical engineering for two years.

Reading The road to reality by Penrose. Would you recommend any other books of that type that could help to gain deep understanding of science (mathematics, physics)?

What is your opinion on that book?

Answer 1

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("'The road to reality' Roger Penrose? ... What is your opinion on that book?")

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I'm not a physicist, astronomer, or cosmologist but here's my view:

Three or four years ago I read Roger Penrose's book: THE ROAD TO REALITY: A Complete Guide To The Laws Of The Universe

ISBN: 13-978-0-679-45443-4

and found it to be absolutely amazing in scope and materials covered concerning the physics governing reality and the Universe. The math was above my working mathematical ability, but the general ideas and concepts were understandable and manageable. That was my first reading of the book, and I look forward to getting back to it for a second read soon. My math skills and knowledge of cosmology and physics are better now, so I feel like I get more from it on the second read. I would recommend the book to an advanced undergraduate or graduate physic student.

A similar book of about the same level of information and complexity is:

The EMPEROR'S NEW MIND: Concerning Computers, Minds, And The Laws Of Physics

by Roger Penrose

Published in the United States

by Oxford University Press, New York

First published in 1989 and then with corrections in 1990

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Mathematics wise, I found the following useful:

MATHEMATICS For Engineers And Scientists

by Alan Jeffrey

ISBN: 1-58488-488-6

In the first chapter, it very briefly takes you though the basic math you'll need to successfully compete the book and work all of the sample problems (answers in the back). A reader should have at least 2 semesters of calculus behind them before getting into this text; the problems range in all categories of physics, astronomy, and engineering and the text material is laid out cleanly with lots of room on the sides for keeping notes and calculations, etc. It gets into Scalar, Vectors and Fields at a level that would permit manipulating and working Maxwell's' equations for electromagnetism. Goes into Series, Taylor's theorem and its uses; first order and higher-order differential equations, Laplace transforms, Probability and Statistical Analysis, and other topics related to computer language programming.

In general, the material is pretty challenging.

Other sources that might be useful:

MathTutorDVD.com

http://mathtutordvd.com/

The Great Courses

http://www.thegreatcourses.com/

Best regards

Source(s): self