(October 7, 2022 at 10:35 pm)Jehanne Wrote:(October 7, 2022 at 8:40 pm)Fireball Wrote: A linear algebra class offered by the math department seems to be one of those classes few physics majors take. Not sure why. It's a great intro to proofs. My alma mater also offered a class that used Dennis Sentilles' book for a class that focused primarily on how to "do" proofs. I got a tiny bit of series solutions and Fourier Transforms at the very end of my DE class. I went to work in electromagnetic propagation topics right out of uni. I didn't get enough of what I needed at uni. Antenna radiation propagation and scattering is full of it. I got out of the antenna business 22 years ago, and don't remember much. I remember even less about quantum mechanics, which I never used.
That's odd, as linear algebra figures prominently in Quantum Mechanics, and also in tensor calculus. One good book is, "Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences" by the late Professor Mary L. Boas. Her son, an academic mathematician, keeps an errata of his mother's book.
We used Boas' book in our junior-level Mathematical Physics class. There was indeed a lot of linear algebra in it. That part was easier for me, as I had already studied LA before taking that class. Like I said, I had no dealings with QM after I graduated. Maybe your memory is better than mine from 40 years ago?
If you get to thinking you’re a person of some influence, try ordering somebody else’s dog around.