I received a letter today from the United States. Opening it, I was surprised and delighted to find that it was an invite from the Trustees of the John Templeton Foundation, inviting me to a Pall Mall reception in honour of Michael Heller, winner of the 2008 Templeton Prize!Should be an interesting evening...
Congratulations, Gordon. That appears to be a substantial honour, and you must be very pleased.
ReplyDeleteTook a look at The Structure and Interpretation of the Standard Model at Amazon, today. What struck me most was the prohibitive $ 140.- plus. Moreover, working with imaginary and irrational numbers, or non-Euclidean geometry would rather disqualify me, albeit that the academic book is often one of reasoned debate rather than “mathematically rigorous introduction.“
Still, one way of preventing a useless discussion on the subject would be for you to tell me what kind of readership you had in mind? The real trouble is, of course, that in spite of my concerns about my own abilities, I find the topic irresistible.
D.
I wonder who'll be there? Tony Blair? The Archbishop of Canterbury? Only time will tell. I'll take me camera-phone just in case.
ReplyDeleteNow, The Good Book. Elsevier books are indeed stupidly expensive, and my own more so than most. However, most people think they're further away from understanding physics than they really are. If I were you I'd buy the book, if only to have a target to aim at. Then, I'd also buy one of those books entitled 'Mathematics for Scientists and Engineers'. The latter should introduce you to the basics required, and with a few months' effort, you should be in a position to begin exploring the world of theoretical physics.