deathofamind

I'm looking for a messageboard to learn about and discuss quantum physics. Anybody know of any? I guess this will have to do for now. But I'd really love to know of any big messageboards that are totally dedicated to science and/or physics.

Okay, so I'll give this a try here... maybe someone can help. Basically it all boils down to this... here is my understanding of these theories, and please correct me if I'm wrong:

quantum electrodynamics (QED): explains electromagnetism in a way that agrees with the requirements of both special relativity and quantum mechanics.

quantum chromodynamics (QCD): explains the strong force in a way that agrees with the requirements of both special relativity and quantum mechanics.

quantum flavourdynamics (QFD): this is where I'm really drawing a blank. I read that this explains the weak force, but then I also read that it explains the weak force AND all of QED... making it the theory of the electroweak force. But which one is it... just weak, or both? Argh! And what really confuses me is why when I search google.com for "quantum electrodynamics" or "quantum chromodynamics", I get about 25,000 results each... but when I search for "quantum flavourdynamics" and "quantum flavordynamics", I only get about 50 results total!! Shouldn't QFD be just as important as the others? Is it just a name that nobody uses? And if this isn't what I thought it was, then IS there even a theory of the electroweak force that agrees with both special relativity and quantum physics?

As you can tell I'm sure, I'm just a lay-person with no proper science schooling who is really into this stuff. I read Feynman's book on QED, and I loved it, although I'm sure I didn't understand all of it. I also liked Hyperspace by Michio Kaku. But I haven't read those in years. Hm... maybe I should re-read them. Anybody know of any other good books dealing with this stuff? particleadventure.org is a pretty good site for people like me, but I couldn't find the answer to my QFD question there.

Sorry for babbling so much. If anybody could help or point me in the right direction, it would be greatly appreciated!

DamagedGoods

If you just want some good info on QM in general, the third book in Feynman's "Lectures On Physics" is a good source.

Jackalope

Do you possibly mean the theories that describe up, down, top, bottom, charm, and strange quarks? Runnning a Google search that searches for all the terms:
quantum, strange, charm, quark
Turns up about 4960 sites. Flavor is the correct term, but Quantumflavordynamics doesn't seem to be the widely used term for the theories.

--Lee

fando

Well, I'm not familiar with any general physics bboard for laypeople. I know of harcore boards, but those aren't recommended for the faint of heart. If you find any general ones, please let us know. However, feel free to ask questions here. There are plenty of members with Physics backgrounds in the woodworks.

Hmm, I just stumbled on this one:

http://www.physicsforums.com/

Jackalope

You can try this one, though it's mostly a place to keep updated on new developments:
http://physicsweb.org/

Feather

Also go here, for they list many references as well:

http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/

deathofamind

Not really... I mean, maybe that's what QFD is, and I'm just confused. Hm...

And thanks to everybody for the site suggestions... physicsforums.com looks like exactly what I was looking for!

AdamWho

I am interested in why you want to know more about these advanced theories. Explanations would mean little without significant background knowledge.

Is there a more fundamental question about QM that you need answered?

deathofamind

Well like I said, I read Richard Feynman's book on QED, and I really enjoyed it. So I think a lot of this stuff CAN be understood without a physics degree, as long as you find the right books. You know, I mean the popular science books... the discovery channel sorta stuff, for the lay-person. I'm not expecting to understand the mathematics behind it... but what I'm mainly interested in are the concepts. And I think the concepts are the most important part to understanding it, even without the math.

As a popular example, I think Stephen Hawking is very good at explaining this stuff in a language that anybody can understand, and his books have been very successful (well, yeah, he focuses on cosmology, but it's all related). I guess I read a few general books on this sorta stuff, and now I'm anxious to learn about some of the specific areas that captured my interest.

And I mean, all those general books get boring after a while. If I hear about the double slit experiment or Shroedinger's cat one more time, I'm gonna vomit.

asvani

When physicists talk to one another about 'quantum physics', it usually involves a great deal of stuff like operators on Hilbert space, commutators, delta function, spectral theory, observables, eigenvalue problems, etc.

In my opinion, it is virtually impossible to truly understand what QM is about from reading Stephen Hawking's and Feynman's popular books for lay people. To experience the sort of psychological trauma that an ordinary physics student has to endure when he first learns of QM, you must know something about the Stern-Gerlach experiment. The SG experiment is the simplest demonstration of the QM nature of our world, not the cat thing.