Renormalization Methods: A Guide For Beginners,   ISBN:9780199236527

Customer Rating: 

Incredibly informative. Shows you the "tricks" about how to be a theoretical physicist. Just like being a virtuoso in music there are tricks and shortcuts in theoretical physics that don't always get shared in the classroom or "God forbid!" in a textbook!.
Herein McComb
Provides the reader with the necessary confidence to forge ahead in a difficult field of research.( For example how to calculate a "self-energy" term.)
That is the writer talks directly to the reader. By that I mean the writer discusses with the reader on "how to proceed" in a calculation say that no one has done before. That is he is not just teaching in a normal textbook style but rather is teaching ( or instructing ) how to do research. Not always the same thing as just sitting in a classroom and "watching the professor do it". He is giving the student a chance to learn the "sixth sense" of doing calculations in theoretical physics.

The author is careful to point out the differences between the "Mean Field Approximation" and the "Self consistent assumption".

Please note that a lot of these "tricks" or insights are provided in strategically place footnotes throughout the book. One of my favorites is on page 298. That point was never explained when I took Statistical Physics. The book is chalk full of useful pointers like that.

Also the trick with the convolution for Fourier Transforms and solving for the Green's function is done early on. see p. 28 This again was never explained when I took Mathematical Physics. We were back in the "stone age" with "Separation of Variables". This book is literally a "God-send".

From the very rich and diverse selection of topics one can then oneself go on
to imagine many new applications for this technique called "Renormalization". The use of subtle and powerful methods to avoid singularities ( infinities ) in field theory calculations.

A "ton" of physics in this book! Done in the singularly beautiful style of theoretical physics.


With Best Regards and Thanks
Southern Jameson West
p.s. back in the 60's and before you would have never encounterd a book like this...well maybe, but it would be highly doubtful. In those days nobody it seemed wanted to show you "the tricks".