String Theory and M-Theory: A Modern Introduction

by Katrin Becker (Author), Melanie Becker (Author), John H. Schwarz (Author)

17 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-0521860697

ISBN-10: 0521860695

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String theory is one of the most exciting and challenging areas of modern theoretical physics. This book guides the reader from the basics of string theory to recent developments. It introduces the basics of perturbative string theory, world-sheet supersymmetry, space-time supersymmetry, conformal field theory and the heterotic string, before describing modern developments, including D-branes, string dualities and M-theory. It then covers string geometry and flux compactifications, applications to cosmology and particle physics, black holes in string theory and M-theory, and the microscopic origin of black-hole entropy. It concludes with Matrix theory, the AdS/CFT duality and its generalizations. This book is ideal for graduate students and researchers in modern string theory, and will make an excellent textbook for a one-year course on string theory. It contains over 120 exercises with solutions, and over 200 homework problems with solutions available on a password protected website for lecturers at www.cambridge.org/9780521860697.

Editorial Reviews

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"This is the first comprehensive textbook on string theory to also offer an up-to-date picture of the most important theoretical developments of the last decade, including the AdS/CFT correspondence and flux compactifications, which have played a crucial role in modern efforts to make contact with experiment. An excellent resource for graduate students as well as researchers in high-energy physics and cosmology."
Nima Arkani-Hamed, Harvard University

"An exceptional introduction to string theory that contains a comprehensive treatment of all aspects of the theory, including recent developments. The clear pedagogical style and the many excellent exercises should provide the interested student or researcher a straightforward path to the frontiers of current research."
David Gross, Director of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barabara and winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2004

"Masterfully written by pioneers of the subject, comprehensive, up-to-date and replete with illuminating problem sets and their solution, String Theory and M-theory: A Modern Introduction provides an ideal preparation for research on the current forefront of the fundamental laws of nature. It is destined to become the standard textbook in the subject."
Andrew Strominger, Harvard University

"This book is a magnificcent resource for students and researchers alike in the rapidly evolving field of string theory. It is unique in that it is targeted for students without any knowledge of string theory and at the same time it includes the very latest developments of the field, all presented in a very fluid and simple form. The lucid description is nicely complemented by very instructive problems. I highly recommend this book to all researchers interested in the beautiful field of string theory."
Cumrun Vafa, Harvard University

"This elegantly written book will be a valuable resource for students looking for an entryway to the vast and exciting topic of string theory. The authors have skillfully made a selection of topics aimed at helping the beginner get up to speed. I am sure it will be widely read."
Edward Witten, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton and winner of the Fields Medal in 1990

"A welcome addition to the literature and most likely will be the required text for those physicists who intend to study the many facets of this fascinating subject... String Theory and M-Theory is THE string textbook."
Pierre Ramond, University of Florida, Gainesville, Physics Today

"... a beautiful description of almost all the questions in the field that have been answered so far and those that are still open. The reader of the book gets a good picture of the current state of string theory..."
Marcel L. Vonk, Johannesburg, Mathematical Reviews

Book Description

This book guides the reader through string theory, one of the most exciting and challenging areas of modern theoretical physics. It is ideal for graduate students and researchers in modern string theory, and will make an excellent textbook. It contains exercises with solutions, and homework problems with solutions.

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Product details

Hardcover: 739 pages
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (January 15, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0521860695
ISBN-13: 978-0521860697
Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 1.5 x 10 inches
Shipping Weight: 3.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 17 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #948,082 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #169 in Waves & Wave Mechanics (Books)
- #627 in Mathematical Physics (Books)
- #139 in Particle Physics

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math_guy51

The one String theory book to get !

October 14, 2018

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

If you want to stick to a single textbook ..this is the one to get !
It is quite up to date, extremely readable and didactic since it includes key solved exercises which a newcomer to the field needs to go over (seasoned String Theorists probably would skip over many of them ) .
If you are in need of a basic (yet quite comprehensive) S.T. Intro turn to the (affordable) McMahon DeMystified USER FRIENDLY book.
I think the "In a nutshell" and "Polchinski" books are very good too, but they expect the reader to work out way too many calcs on their own and they gloss over concepts and calcs that are only obvious to readers with a fair amount of String Theory background. Skipping those calcs can easily mislead the reader into thinking they understand the material ...
It's a Mystery why String theory has taken so long to evolve (about 50 years) and is still encountering serious difficulties (the latest one being the humongous number of available Vacuum states - "Landscape problem")
Given the large amount and the high caliber of String Theorists (including Nobel Prize winners) it would be reasonable to expect for the Physics community to delineate the capabilites, limitations and use of the theory ...

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K. Yost

A Nearly Perfect Introductory Text

December 28, 2011

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

I definitely fell into an odd class of people who wanted to educate myself about string theory, yet I am not and will never be an academic physicist. What I needed was a text that introduced string theory and its mathematical underpinnings in a rigorous way, but one that was geared more for well informed, mathematically inclined amateurs, than for graduate students.

This book fit the bill very nicely. It is not a "popular" account of the field for interested non-science majors, but it is doubtlessly a good text for an undergraduate level course in string theory for physics majors. If you prefer to avoid calculus, linear algebra, geometry, and math in general, this book is not for you. For that matter, if you don't have a reasonable grasp of quantum field theory and relativity, this book is not for you.

The great strength of this work, for me, was the clear and concise explanations of the material. Although I do own both Barton Zwiebach's, "A First Course in String Theory" and Elias Kiritsis's, "String Theory in a Nutshell" only very rarely did I feel the need to consult either of those to clarify the points made by the authors in this book.

The one niggling criticism I have is that I would have preferred there be more exercises and problems throughout the book. At least for my purposes, being engaged in self-study, struggling through exercises is key to cementing the concepts in my mind. That was where I was very glad to have "String Theory in a Nutshell," as it contains close to 500 exercises, whereas this book has around 300, divided between 'exercises' (for which solutions are provided) and the more numerous 'problems' (for which they are not).

I a bit feel stingy giving this text 4-stars simply because I'd have preferred there be more exercises, but giving it 4.5 stars is not an option. Suffice it to say that I could have just as easily rounded up to five stars.

There are a number of topics omitted by the authors that have come up in subsequent study, but it shouldn't be shocking that a 700-page treatment of a fast moving field like string theory would fail to be entirely comprehensive. Those unaddressed topics (that I presently know of) are treated in more advanced texts, and thus far I don't believe that the quality or usefulness of this book suffers for any of the omissions.

If I could only recommend one of the three introductory texts on string theory that I've read, I would generally select this one. I found the discussions far more clear in this book than I did in Kiritsis's treatment of the same topics, and both books are more mathematically rigorous than Zwiebach's "A First Course in String Theory."

Armed with what I've learned from the authors, I am now in a position where I can turn to graduate level texts without succumbing to frustration at my own ignorance. "String Theory and M-Theory" provided me with the solid foundation I was hoping for; one on which I can easily build.

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Cedric

Good textbook for a course, not so good for self-learning

March 28, 2016

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

The instructor of the 1-semester strings grad course I am taking uses this as the textbook. This book is a good company to a course for its conciseness and fast track to superstrings. However, I don't recommend reading it for self-learning, as it skips a lot of details and subtleties. For self-learning purpose I recommend Polchinski Book 1 and then return to the chapter of this book on superstrings and beyond.

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David McMahon

Great book to learn strings from

February 12, 2008

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

This is a nice book to have if you're trying to learn string theory. The presentation is rather straightforward. What's really nice is each chapter has several solved examples. But best of all the writing is clear and its relatively (no pun intended) easy to follow the book to the end. In my opinion, this book is accessible to anyone with a basic physics (or even math) undergraduate education. Zweibach is a great book for sure, but by design it cuts corners in an attempt to make the subject accessible to undergraduates. I don't think thats really necessary (except maybe avoiding path integrals). What I like about this book is it does not cut corners. Topics that are avoided in Zweibach are definitely discussed in here.

13 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Five Stars

October 30, 2017

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Great book!

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