thoughts on your Jackson course?
>Ed Witten was a journalism major at Brandeis University. After he graduated, he became interested in theoretical physics.
>His father Louis Witten was a physicist, so when he was home in Cincinnati he began talking with one of his father’s colleagues about physics. The professor told him that if he was really interested, he should read Jackson, the standard E/M textbook for physics grad students, and notoriously very difficult to read. The professor likely told him this to get rid of him.
>In two weeks he returns to the professor and says, "I have read it, and I understand it. What’s next?” (For reference, my father, a successful physicist in his own right, told me that studying Jackson on his own would’ve taken him a year.) The professor obviously didn't believe Witten, so he started asking him questions, and to his surprise, Witten actually understood the material well.
>Ed Witten was a journalism major at Brandeis University. After he graduated, he became interested in theoretical physics.
>His father Louis Witten was a physicist, so when he was home in Cincinnati he began talking with one of his father’s colleagues about physics. The professor told him that if he was really interested, he should read Jackson, the standard E/M textbook for physics grad students, and notoriously very difficult to read. The professor likely told him this to get rid of him.
>In two weeks he returns to the professor and says, "I have read it, and I understand it. What’s next?” (For reference, my father, a successful physicist in his own right, told me that studying Jackson on his own would’ve taken him a year.) The professor obviously didn't believe Witten, so he started asking him questions, and to his surprise, Witten actually understood the material well.
