String Theory Demystified

Dear David, 23 October 2015Your recent message actually obliged me to do some serious thinking about whether or not I was truly satisfied in having ordered and received a copy of String Theory Demystified. Dear sir, I must admit that you opened quite a few avenues for conjecture not to mention a few potential cans of worms, at least given the tenor of customer reviews currently posted by amazon and surely those that have been posted in the recent past. Sad to say, there are apparently those among us who have nothing better to do than to whine, weep, and wail for seemingly no good reason, and these outbursts are worse than merely wanting "egg in their beer", as the saying on the street goes, i.e., there is no pleasing these noisome nitpickers under any rational circumstances whatsoever! I guess it should not come as any great surprise to me that some reviewers even incorporate the most obscene of unnecessary expletives and other imprecations purely on the pretext of not being perfectly satisfied with their purchases, such dissatisfaction many a time quite simply predicated upon their own misunderstanding of just what it was they thought they were buying! I am writing all this merely to try to convince you that you ought not be so tough on yourself, particularly if a bad review may not at all be your fault. I can tell you from years of personal experience that it is not easy to imagine the outright ignorance and utter childish petulance of some reviewers who have vehemently written reviews back to amazon merely to vent their spleens, and this for no apparently rationally viable reason.As to the matter of my being satisfied with my purchase of the work mentioned above, please know that I am thrilled to finally be in a position to feel that I may now be negotiating some of the barriers that used to keep me away from investigating modern physics on my own. In reading the short samples of the cited work on-line, I actually found that I could somehow follow the line of reasoning in the excerpt, something that I had not been able to do in the past. I am of that generation in which many a textbook that could potentially be of use to a student was often inordinately filled with references such as: ..."it is intuitively obvious that',... "the reader can easily verify that",... "it can be easily demonstrated that", etc. ad nauseam. If the truth be told, at least in the past, matters may not have been intuitively obvious, many readers may not have been as cerebrally nor mathematically sophisticated as world class physicists who have taken to writing their own inordinately abstruse treatises, and demonstrations of true reasoning may not have been that easy to come by in the round. It may possibly be that over the years I have finally achieved some infinitesimally higher plane of reasoning ability, whence the ability to comprehend the line of thought in many a contemporary mathematics or physics textbook, God surely be praised for this! Anyway, I had no wish to let the opportunity go by to investigate the domain of string theory, particularly since my past self-tutoring sallies in this direction had met with such meager positive results. I have no preconceived notions to the effect that the work I purchased through you is in any wise a complete and thoroughly rigorous treatise. Yet, for now, it is a rather comfortable starting point for satisfying my curiosity about this "mystifying" aspect of modern theoretical physics. The level of the text in question is such that I believe I can handle understanding the mathematical derivations and the physics underlying these same. So, for now, I am well pleased with this work as well as with your efforts to get it to me in a timely fashion, the merchandise having arrived quite intact and in pristine condition. To be sure, I have you to thank for these pleasant prevailing circumstances. I am truly grateful to you, sir.r. galindo

The most challenging part of string theory for those who want to learn it is not the routine calculations and "index gymnastics" that is found in this book but rather the essential meaning and "intuition" behind the mathematics of the theory. As physical theories go, string theory makes unprecedented use of very complicated and esoteric mathematics, coming from fields such as algebraic geometry, algebraic topology, and the theory of several complex variables. The cover of this book promises that the reader will be able to understand the mathematical tools necessary to "decipher" string theory, but it does not make good on these promises.What the book does rather well is to introduce the reader well versed in relativistic quantum field theory to string theory as it was articulated in the first two decades of its discovery as a theory. Yes, the author does discuss more modern topics in string theory such as D-branes, Chan-Paton indices, the Ads/CFT correspondence, and the holographic principle, but he does so in a manner that does not shed light on the formidable mathematics behind these concepts. The treatment is very cursory and does not prepare the reader for meaningful perusal of the research literature.There is no discussion for example on the mathematics of Calabi-Yau manifolds, and the accompanying notions of holonomy, mirror symmetry, and orbifolds. There is no in-depth discussion on how non-Abelian gauge symmetries are incorporated into string theory other than what is done in one chapter on heterotic string theory. There is no discussion at all on how to use K-theory to classify D-brane charges. Yes, these are all complex mathematical topics, but it is THESE topics that cause problems for students or those curious about string theory, especially those that are teaching themselves, a readership that this book was supposedly written to target.This reviewer recommends the book by Becker, Becker, and Schwarz as the best one for addressing some of the "intuition" behind the mathematics of string theory. To get a deep appreciation of this mathematics though will require years of study and searching in the original mathematical literature, some of this going back over a century. It is well worth the time and effort, even if one does not intend to conduct original research in string theory, but instead is passionately curious about what could in terms of its mathematics alone be easily described as the most beautiful theory ever constructed.

The hardest thing about string theory is knowing how much math and physics you'll need to have under your belt even to get started. Many undergraduate physical science majors will find Barton Zwiebach's excellent "A First Course in String Theory" rather tough going, and they need something a tad lighter. If you find yourself in that fix, then this is the book for you.Author David McMahon is an accomplished writer, and he seems to know exactly what problems beginners are facing when they try to learn this difficult subject. True, he tries to cover a little too much material in this short book (Zwiebach's first edition deals only with bosonic strings, and it's over 550 pages), and there are LOTS of typos, but the basic concepts are there, along with the minimal amount of mathematics to get through the theory.

David McHahon does provide a simplified and straight forward overview of String Theory, but fails to make the physics lucid and inviting.He does, however, take great pains to provide lots of worked examples.This does help in gaining a proficiency in tackling String Theory and understanding its underlying concepts. It is, however, not a substitutefor a good textbook.One problem that undermines the effectiveness of String Theory: in this and is a few of his other workbooks on physics and math, his solutions are riddled with typos.He and his readers would be better served if his editor were more careful and demanding.In short, a workbook worth having if you have enough confidence to trust in your own math and skills to overcome his editor's shortfalls.

If you have some basic knowledge in Quantum Field Theory, Particle Physics & Relativity then this book is a must to gain an in depth knowledge in Supersymmetry, Dp-Branes, Higher Dimensions, String Quantisation, Detailed workout of problems of Bosonic, Type I, Type IIA, Type IIB, Heterotic SO(32), Het E8*E8 along with lucid explanation and theoritical presentation. Excellent for beginners to understand. Go for it... Every penny worth it. After reading this book go on for 'A first Course in String Theory" by Barton Zwiebach.

A good introduction to the mathematics of String Theory, but we warned this is not easy mathematics. A knowledge of Langrangian mechanics, quantum theory and quantum field theory is required to get the best out of this book.

Great reference for all maths and physics students.