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I am a third year student in physics and mathematics and taking a course in which each student need to prepare and give one lecture about some topic related to physics. As I saw String Theory in the topics list I thought it could be a good opportunity to start learn it. I have background in quantum mechanics, statistical physics, analytical mechanics, group theory, and I read the book "quantum field theory for the gifted amateur" until chapter 12.

  1. What topics should I learn before string theory?

  2. I would appreciate any recommendations for books or other material about string theory.

Ziv Landau
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1 Answers1

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It's really wonderful to read a young physicist interested in string theory.

For the matter of the lecture I recommend to follow Witten's essay What Every Physicist Should Know About String Theory.

The following videos are about the enormous impact that string theory has produced for theoretical physics as a whole:

-What Every Physicist Should Know About String Theory

-Fundamental Lessons from String Theory with Cumrun Vafa

For a brief summary on string theory textbooks read the following blog post entry:

However I absolutely sure that you should start with the introductory textbook A first course in string theory by Barton Zwiebach.

Ramiro Hum-Sah
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