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nibotFlying turned out to be no trouble at all, and I even got a complimentary in-flight mojito! Also, I realized I was quite dressed the nerd part, with my One Quark Two Quark Red Quark Blue Quark T-shirt and reading Schultz's A First Course in General Relativity, both augmenting the pre-existing frazzled-gradstudent look. But, let me remind you, a nerd drinking a complimentary in-flight mojito.
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Schultz's book has a pretty good introduction to tensor analysis on manifolds. I like how Schultz writes: I feel like he wrote these notes as he was learning the material himself, as a guide to the next to follow that path. He frequently interjects exactly the right clarifications, repetitions, or rhetorical questions. He doesn't just tell you why this is how it is, he also tells you why it isn't some other way. The text is practical, accessible, and motivated. It's modern and abstract but still with plenty of calculations you can try immediately. The exercises look good. My one complaint is that he jumps into the subject with no mention of manifolds—the talk of vectors, duals, and bases "at a point" are painful, since we're still allegedly just dealing with a single space (though maybe he clarified this earlier in some material I skipped). But that's relatively harmless, and he gets to tangent spaces soon enough.
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Schultz's book has a pretty good introduction to tensor analysis on manifolds. I like how Schultz writes: I feel like he wrote these notes as he was learning the material himself, as a guide to the next to follow that path. He frequently interjects exactly the right clarifications, repetitions, or rhetorical questions. He doesn't just tell you why this is how it is, he also tells you why it isn't some other way. The text is practical, accessible, and motivated. It's modern and abstract but still with plenty of calculations you can try immediately. The exercises look good. My one complaint is that he jumps into the subject with no mention of manifolds—the talk of vectors, duals, and bases "at a point" are painful, since we're still allegedly just dealing with a single space (though maybe he clarified this earlier in some material I skipped). But that's relatively harmless, and he gets to tangent spaces soon enough.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-11 07:26 am (UTC)The LLO meeting sounds kind of fun. I'm particularly interested in your LAAC group. (How many acronyms can I put into this response?)
What do you guys talk about in the Pulsar group? (Don't say, "Pulsars.")
no subject
Date: 2006-08-11 07:28 am (UTC)But Delta has this new "Shaken right at your seat!" mixed drinks program. I think the flight attendant was just eager to try out the shaker.
My row was neglected during the regular beverage service, and, when this was pointed out (not by me), the flight attendents became endearingly obsequious, bestowing us with complimentary beverages!
no subject
Date: 2006-08-14 04:26 pm (UTC)