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I found Sean Carroll's "A No Nonsense Introduction to General Relativity" (about page here. pdf here), a 24-page overview of the topic, very helpful for beginning study. It all got me over the hump of learning the meaning of various terms associated with GR, most of which I had heard before without understanding. It also outlined the most important examples.

Is there a similar document for quantum field theory, which presents the main equations, briefly describes the main ideas, and summarizes the most important applications and results so that the reader can feel the lay of the land before studying in depth?

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As long as there is no no-nonsense QFT, there will not be such an introduction ;-) – Vladimir Kalitvianski Jul 5 '11 at 12:45
Sean should write one. – Ted Bunn Jul 5 '11 at 14:19
possibly related: physics.stackexchange.com/q/1267/2451 – Qmechanic♦ Jul 5 '11 at 14:19
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't Hooft's pdf? (69 pages, including renormalization) staff.science.uu.nl/~hooft101/lectures/basisqft.pdf – pcr Jul 5 '11 at 20:13
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Great question! – Robert Filter Jul 11 '11 at 20:58

3 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

Gerard t'Hooft, Quantum Field Theory for Elementary Particles, Is Quantum Field Theory a theory?, Phys.Rept. 104 (1984) 129-142. This is a beautifully written review.

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Veltman's book Diagrammatica is awesome when it comes to the basics of field theory and what it all means:

http://www.amazon.com/Diagrammatica-Feynman-Diagrams-Cambridge-Lecture/dp/0521456924/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_2

Reading through that one is in my opinion getting it right from the horse's mouth. Not heavy on the calculations but more on how the QFT and it's tools all work together to form a coherent picture of the subject.

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Thank you, but this is a 300-page book. – Mark Eichenlaub Jul 5 '11 at 18:28
True but I think you'll find that it's REALLY easy to read. It's not high powered math and honestly I haven't found anything that got to the heart of the matter as quickly or with less math. QFT is a big subject and GR is more standalone. Reading a chapter in that book will run you about 20 min and it doesn't hurt the brain because it's all stuff an undergrad can easily do. The other reviews of QFT I've seen are very technical and extremely dense. I'd still check it out but please let me know if you find a better shorter alternative. I'd like to read something that succinct myself. :) – unclejamil Jul 5 '11 at 23:08
Okay, thanks. I'll see if it's in the library. – Mark Eichenlaub Jul 6 '11 at 0:54
up vote 2 down vote

Feynman's Book "QED" is probably your best bet. He spells out what is going on in the equations of quantum electrodynamics in about 120 pages and briefly touches on how these equations generalize in other parts of QFT.

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