Product Description

More than 1 million Demystified books sold

String theory is an emerging model of physics that can, in principle, explain all of the particles and fundamental forces of nature by modeling them as vibrations of tiny supersymmetric strings. Using the proven Demystified format, this book elucidates the highly mathematical and complex topic of string theory, covering key topics such as particle physics, quantum field theory, D-brane physics, and different types of strings. YOu will learn the mathematical tools necessary to truly decipher string theory.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #76561 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 306 pages

From the Back Cover

UNRAVEL the mystery of STRING THEORY

Trying to understand string theory but ending up with your brain in knots? Here's your lifeline! This straightforward guide explains the fundamental principles behind this cutting-edge concept.

String Theory Demystified elucidates the goal of the theory--to combine general relativity and quantum theory into a single, unified framework. You'll learn about classical strings, conformal field theory, quantization, compactification, and T duality. The book covers supersymmetry and superstrings, D-branes, the holographic principle, and cosmology. Hundreds of examples and illustrations make it easy to understand the material, and end-of-chapter quizzes and a final exam help reinforce learning.

This fast and easy guide offers:

• Numerous figures to illustrate key concepts
• Sample problems with worked solutions
• Coverage of equations of motion, the energy-momentum tensor, and conserved currents
• A discussion of the Randall-Sundrum model
• A time-saving approach to performing better on an exam or at work

Simple enough for a beginner, but challenging enough for an advanced student, String Theory Demystified is your key to comprehending this theory of everything.

About the Author

David McMahon has worked for several years as a physicist and researcher at Sandia National Laboratories. He is the author of Linear Algebra Demystified, Quantum Mechanics Demystified, Relativity Demystified, MATLAB Demystified, and Complex Variables Demystified, among other successful titles.

Customer Reviews

Doeswhat it says, if you have the background
This book really eases you into the strange and difficult field of string theory, but only if you have the background, this is not a popular science book! The background is differentiation, integration, ordinary differential equations, partial differential equations, classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, a little quantum field theory, and special and general relativity. the books i reccomend to get this background, if you dont have it, are:
1) Engineering mathematics, K.A Stroud (6th edition)
2) Advanced Engineering Mathematics, K.A Stroud (4th revised edition)
3) Mechanics series (1,2,3&4), Douglas Quadling
4) Quantum Mechanics Demystified, David McMahon
5) Quantum Field Theory Demystified, David McMahon
6) Relativity Demystified, David McMahon

Wit the nessecary background this text is perfect to lead to more advanced ones on the subject.

Good, but full of minor errors and typos.
As above really, a good introductory book on this complicated area of physics/mathematics but the final editing and quality control leaves a lot to be desired with many errors still in the final product. If you know a bit about university level mathematics and this area of research then you can spot the mistakes fairly easily but a newcomer to this topic may not spot these errors and subsequently may be misled.

Reasonable
As an introduction to the basics of string theory, this is not too bad. It handles the bosonic string well, and makes a decent stab at motivating supersymmetry. However, there are some flaws. First, it is full of typos, which is not good in an elementary book for beginners. Second, the crucial Virasoro algebra is skirted around rather than confronted head on. Now, I know this is quite a subtle piece of physics, but it is vital for determining which states are physical and setting the dimension of space-time in which the theory is consistent. Just pulling it out of a hat, as here, with no motivation will just not do.

World-sheet supersymmetry is quite well done (see above), though again the lack of a rigorous discussion of the super Virasoro algebra hampers understanding. The transition to space-time supersymmetry and manifest supersymmetry is bodged. Worse still, the crucial introduction of gauge fields and heterotic string theory is very weak and rather confusing.

Finally, the last few chapters (from that on the heterotic strong onward) are poor. I am thinking especially of the one on black holes where some genuinely exciting physics is marred by a sketchy approach. If explaining where all the formulae came from was considered beyond the scope of the book, perhaps this chapter should have been omitted.

On the whole, I'd recommend beginners with some familiarity with QM to read the book by Zwiebach.