A Course Correction

 

I want to record a small but important update about the direction of this blog.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been working through Frederic Schuller’s Lectures on the Geometric Anatomy of Theoretical Physics. Conceptually, I still think they are excellent. They are very clear about what structures are necessary, what is optional, and what is being paid for at each step. At the level of ideas, I can follow the big picture.

Where I’m running into trouble is more basic and more practical. I don’t yet know what to do with many of the equations. I can read them, and I can often tell why they are being written down, but I don’t have reliable operational control over them. I don’t always know which manipulations are natural, which are forbidden, and which are the point of the construction. That gap makes it hard to proceed honestly.

At this stage, continuing with Schuller would mean accumulating structure faster than skill. I don’t think that’s a good trade.

So I’m going to pause that lecture series for now.

Instead, I’ll be switching to Mathematical Physics by Mary Boas. The reason is straightforward. This book is much more explicit about equations as objects: what kind of statements they are, what operations are allowed, and how calculations are meant to be carried out. It works closer to coordinates and components, and it does not assume that equation-handling reflexes are already in place.

This is not a change in ambition, but a change in sequencing. I still care about geometry, structure, and necessity. I’m just acknowledging that my current bottleneck is not conceptual understanding but equation literacy. Until that improves, higher-level abstraction becomes fragile.

I expect this detour to be temporary. My plan is to return to Schuller once I have better control over the mechanics of the mathematics he uses so fluently. When that happens, I suspect the lectures will feel very different.

For now, posts here will reflect this shift. There will likely be more calculations, more component-level work, and more attention to what equations allow and forbid, rather than what they symbolize.

As always, this blog is not a record of finished understanding. It’s a record of how I’m trying to build it, step by step, without pretending to know more than I do.