Bookish collections of physics and math writing

On this blog (or my old blog) are many article sized bits of writing that were eventually incorporated into “bookish” compilations (a total of about 6400 pages of pdfs):

• • Geometric Algebra for Electrical Engineers.  This was the product of an ECE2500 project course, and is structured much more like an actual book than many of the more exploratory works below.  It still needs lots of work and polish, but has the fundamentals in place.
  • Exploring physics with Geometric Algebra.
  • Misc Physics and Math Play. This is a collection of odds and ends that were not associated with a specific topic or course.  639 pages.
  • Classical mechanics. This includes a fair amount of self-study material related to the theory of Lagrangians, Hamiltonians, and Noether’s theorem that were originally in the Geometric Algebra compilation above.   Also includes notes and a couple problems from occasional Wednesday audits of 2012 University of Toronto PHY354H1S, Advanced Classical Mechanics,taught by Prof. Erich Poppitz.  475 pages.
  • Quantum Physics I (PHY356H1F), taught by Prof. Vatche Deyirmenjian, fall 2010.  263 pages.
  • Relativistic Electrodynamics (PHY450H1S), taught by Prof. Erich Poppitz, spring 2011.  387 pages.
  • Quantum Physics II (PHY456H1F), taught 2011 by Prof. John E. Sipe, fall 2011.  281 pages.
  • Continuum Mechanics (PHY454H1S), taught by Prof. Kausik S. Das, spring 2012.  375 pages.
  • Advanced Classical Optics (PHY485H1F), taught by Prof. Joseph H. Thywissen, fall 2012.  382 pages.
  • Basic Statistical Mechanics (PHY452H1S), taught by Prof. Arun Paramekanti, spring 2013.  399 pages.
  • Condensed Matter Physics (PHY487H1F), taught by Prof. Stephen Julian, fall 2013.  330 pages.
  • Graduate Quantum Mechanics (PHY1520H), taught by Prof. Arun Paramekanti, fall 2015.  (435 pages).
  • Advanced Antenna Theory (ECE1229H1S), taught by Prof. G.V. Eleftheriades, spring 2015.
  • Winter 2016: ECE1236H “Microwave and Millimeter-Wave Techniques”, taught by Prof. G.V. Eleftheriades. 207 pages.
    • These microwave notes are incomplet as I dropped the course, to concentrate on phy1610, Scientific Computing for Physicists which I was taking concurrently.  Two simultaneous courses was difficult on a part time schedule.
  • Quantum Field Theory I (PHY2403F), taught this year by Prof. Erich Poppitz.  Course home page: Quantum Field Theory I.  (409 pages).  This course covered a subset of the first ~125 pages of Peskin and Schroeder’s Introduction to Quantum Field Theory (an 800 page introduction!)

Some of these courses were undergrad physics courses taken part time in 2010-2013 as a non-degree student at the University of Toronto, and others were taken as part of a part time UofT M.Eng degree program taken throughout 2014-2018.

See physicsplay-git for the latex sources of all these notes.

Redacted course notes.

The following course notes have problem set solutions, project related content if applicable, and links to some associated computer algebra notebooks (Matlab, Mathematica, Julia, …) all redacted.  For each of the courses below problem set solutions are replaced by CIA-style blackout marks;)

Feel free to contact me for the complete version (i.e. including my problem set solutions) of any of these notes, provided you are not asking because you are taking or planning to take this course.

• • Modeling of Multiphysics Systems (ECE1254H1F), taught by Prof. Piero Triverio, fall 2014.  (redacted: 196 pages, full version 300 pages.)
  • Electromagnetic Theory (ECE1228H), taught by Prof. M. Mojahedi, fall 2016. (redacted: 183 pages, full version 256 pages).
  • Convex Optimization (ECE1505H), taught by Prof. S. Draper, winter 2017. (redacted: 127 pages, full version 145 pages).These convex optimization notes are incomplet, covering only the first 9 lectures. The unredacted notes include my solution to problem set 1.

On Geometric Algebra

My ‘exploring physics with geometric algebra’ “books” are really notes aggregates, terribly full of redundancies and not recommended.  I did much better with my Geometric Algebra for Electrical Engineers book, but if you are looking for some really good standalone geometric algebra books, I’d recommend:

• Geometric Algebra for Computer Science: An Object-Oriented Approach to Geometry, by Leo Dorst, Daniel Fontijne, and Stephen Mann.
• Linear and Geometric Algebra, by Alan MacDonald
• Vector and Geometric Calculus, by Alan MacDonald
• Geometric Algebra for Physicists, by Chris Doran, and Anthony Lasenby.  This book was too advanced for me at the time I started trying to read it, so my attempt to read it required a lot of additional rumination (and a lot of my exploring physics writing came out of that attempt.)

Blurbs on atomics, memory ordering and barriers

• An attempt to illustrate differences between memory ordering and atomic access
• A nice simple example of a memory barrier requirement
• Timings and correctness issues for mutex release operations [ FIXME: link? ]

Just for fun (mostly from my old blog)

• Air duct cleaning telemarkers. They don’t service tents
• CAA telemarketers are really hard to scare away
• Having fun with empty cubicles: security check fail(s) (IBM sanctioned porn)
• Creative ways to scare off telephone salespeople: the outraged husband, and the attempted terrorist negotiation
• Magnetic monopole discovery at the local dollar store was a fraud
• Roasted Meat Flavour?
• Physics is the science of sex
• Ads by google. electrodynamic field energy for vacuum?
• Ontario Science Center encouraging teen mothers?
• Software Developer spotted on 8200 Warden property
• Herring salad recipe from Dad’s papers
  

Stuff from my old blog

• C/C++ development and debugging.
• debugging
• Development environment
• geometric algebra
• Home improvement
• Incoherent ramblings
• Math and Physics Learning.
• perl and general scripting hackery
• reciepes
• SQL

Other misc bits of writing that I liked (at least when I wrote them) :

• Change of basis and Gram-Schmidt orthonormalization in special relativity (an arxiv posting just for fun … never tried to publish it formally)
• Relativistic origins of the Schrodinger equation (following Pauli’s treatment which I liked, but found too dense for my taste)
• Spherical polar pendulum for one and multiple masses (Geometric algebra used for the multiple spherical pendulum problem)
• Lagrangian and Euler-Lagrange equation evaluation for the spherical N-pendulum problem (same as above, but using plain old rotation matrices instead of geometric algebra)

Archives of posted pdfs by year

I stopped tracking writing by year after 2015, as it was probably only interesting to me.  These are mostly blog sized articles, but also includes the bookish compilations above:

• Archive of writing for 2015.  Antenna theory and quantum mechanics.
• Archive of writing for 2014.  Stokes’ theorem in Geometric Algebra, and multiphysics modelling.
• Archive of writing for 2013.  Statistical mechanics and solid state physics.
• Archive of writing for 2012.  Fluid mechanics and optics.
• Archive of writing for 2011.  Relativistic electrodynamics and more Quantum mechanics.
• Archive of writing for 2010.  Basic Quantum Mechanics.
• Archive of writing for 2009.  Electrodynamics, Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formalisms, Noether’s theorem for solids and fields, quantum mechanics.
• Archive of writing for 2008.  A full year of math and physics learning!  Learned a lot of Electrodynamics, some special relativity, a lot of Geometric Algebra, some Lagrangian theory, and a touch of quantum mechanics.
• Archive of writing for 2007 and earlier.  Topics include vector derivatives, angular velocity, acceleration, angular momentum, Maxwell’s equations in GA form, notes contributed to wikipedia Geometric Algebra page, Cramer’s rule, torque, radial unit vector derivatives, and really really old notes with an attempt to generalize the cross product to higher and two dimensions.