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What papers should every physicist read?

NOTES:

  • One paper per answer.
  • Please provide at least a sentence what is inside and why you consider it so worth reading.
  • Choose original papers of important basic results rather than large survey papers or "meta" paper suggestion by Gil Kalai
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Patrik, it is a nice soft question but consider providing the full description in the question (as there is in MO and CSTheory) as What papers should everyone read? without further description is a bit vague IMHO. – Piotr Migdal Nov 24 '11 at 14:01
Just one publication per answer? Okay, I suppose I get to spam a few answers then. – Larian LeQuella Nov 25 '11 at 15:21
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14 Answers

up vote 19 down vote

Scientist: Four golden lessons by S. Weinberg is a must-read for physicists. Regardless of area you study, the applicability of his advice is far-reaching. That's why every physicist, especially the young, should read it.

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OP specifically asks: "Please provide at least a sentence what is inside and why you consider it so worth reading." – Marcin Kotowski Nov 24 '11 at 17:30
I added comments. – Satoshi Nawata Dec 1 '11 at 20:50
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up vote 14 down vote

This article is a must!

J.S. Bell On the Einstein Podolsky Rosen Paradox Physics Vol. 1, 3 195-200 (1964)

Because it is:

  • a milestone in the history of physics,
  • a simple argument that explain why Quantum Mechanics is different from classical intuition,
  • only 5 pages and well written.
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up vote 11 down vote

Well, it's hard to choose just ONE, but if I had to, I thought this one was pretty amazing:

Kenneth G. Wilson, The renormalization group: Critical phenomena and the Kondo problem, Rev. Mod. Phys. 47, 773–840 (1975)

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Free pdf version: prl.aps.org/files/RevModPhys.47.773.pdf – Qmechanic Nov 25 '11 at 12:27
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up vote 7 down vote

R. P. Feynman, Space-Time Approach to Non-Relativistic Quantum Mechanics, Rev. Mod. Phys. 20, 367–387 (1948)

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up vote 7 down vote

I will go with:

on the topic of emergence and complexity in systems with a macroscopic number of constituents.

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An interesting follow-up to this one would be More Really is different, by Mile Gu, Christian Weedbrook, Alvaro Perales, and Michael Nielsen. They are much more concrete, and my opinion, more convincing. – Mateus Araújo Nov 25 '11 at 2:52
+1 Very nice choice! – Heidar Nov 29 '11 at 15:22
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up vote 6 down vote

I like this paper because it's all of four pages long. Electroweak unification. Spontaneously broken symmetry. It's a thrilling paper to read!

Steven Weinberg, A Model of Leptons, Phys. Rev. Lett. 19, 1264–1266 (1967)

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Four pages is hardly unusual in physics. – Joe Fitzsimons Nov 24 '11 at 16:14
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4 pages is hardly unusual in PRL. :) – user1504 Nov 25 '11 at 1:41
But this paper is three pages! – Tsuyoshi Ito Nov 30 '11 at 17:48
@TsuyoshiIto: I must admit I didn't check the claim that it was 4 pages. – Joe Fitzsimons Dec 1 '11 at 7:45
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up vote 5 down vote

Anyone starting in physics has probably already purchased this book at their university bookstore, but I recomend it:

Griffiths, David (1987). Introduction to elementary particles (New ed.). New York: Wiley. ISBN 0471603864.

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Is there anything Griffiths didn't write? I'm particularly fond of my Intro to QM of his. The old fashioned hardback one with the gold cat on the front and back. Excellent introductory text. Intro to EM is also excellent. – Mark S. Everitt Nov 25 '11 at 16:14
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Griffiths' books are excellent, but I don't think this answer is particularly on topic in this thread. – Marcin Kotowski Nov 25 '11 at 17:33
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up vote 4 down vote

Even tough it is not about physics, I suggest the following:

It is a short and concise list of DOs and DON'Ts when giving a talk or a lecture. And it is a pity that many scientists, despite years of frequent practice, make very simple mistakes on that issue.

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I suppose it's too much to hope that the first sentence in that document is "Use LaTeX" :-P – David Zaslavsky♦ Nov 26 '11 at 6:36
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up vote 4 down vote

How can one not have a desire to read some history:

Planck, Max (1901). "Ueber das Gesetz der Energieverteilung im Normalspectrum [On the Law of Distribution of Energy in the Normal Spectrum]" (in German) (pdf). Annalen der Physik 309 (3): 553–563. (1901). "On the Law of Distribution of Energy in the Normal Spectrum (in English)" (PDF). Annalen der Physik 4: 553 ff.

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What's the purpose behind reading these original papers? – Marcin Kotowski Nov 25 '11 at 17:34
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On occasion, it is presumptuous to believe we know more than the great masters. Generally though it is far more presumptuous to assume we haven't figured anything out for our own damn selves in the past 110 years... – wsc Nov 29 '11 at 16:16
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up vote 4 down vote

I would go for two of the Annus Mirabilis papers from Einstein: relativity and Brownian motion. Although the latter requires some knowledge of classical thermodynamics, it is a brilliant example of a clear mind explaining a subject.

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up vote 4 down vote

M. Gell-Mann, "The Eightfold Way: A Theory of Strong Interaction Symmetry"

It's the only one I can't get a hold of online, so it must be good.

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Does any one have a copy of this paper, which they can post online or should I ask Gell-Mann, myself? – Terry Giblin Dec 11 '11 at 19:44
I spoke to soon:osti.gov/cgi-bin/rd_accomplishments/… – Terry Giblin Dec 11 '11 at 19:50
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up vote 3 down vote

Chapter 1, volume 3 of the Feynman lectures. It is simply put, the most important article I ever read in my life.

It is required reading not just for physicists, but really any human that wants to learn about the universe.

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up vote 1 down vote

Theodor Kaluza Theory of 1919.

"The unifying feature of this theory was that it unified Einstein's theory of gravitation and Maxwell's electromagnetic theory.

As Kaku writes

... this unknown scientist was proposing to combine, in one stroke, the two greatest field theories known to science, Maxwell's and Einstein's, by mixing them in the fifth dimension."

I fly all the way to Berlin, just for a copy. LOOPS '05

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up vote 1 down vote

First a gloss to the way I understand the question : "should everyone read" - I mean that every serious researcher (in theoretical physics) has to refer as to an ultimate resource in searching for truth in natural sciences.

I am aware the fact, that many clever adepts in theoretical physics ignore the following milestones, nevertheless If they hadn't, the landscape of modern (theoretical) physics would have been much more optimistic.

  • Astronomia nova - Johannes Kepler (1609)
  • Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica - Isaac Newton (1687)
  • Über die Hypothesen welche der Geometrie zu Grunde liegen - Bernhard Riemann (1854)

These papers/books are indispensable, since no one has mentioned them yet and for their incomparable impact on sciences, more words are worthless.

To mention a modern review paper with many interesting references therein I could add :

PDE as a Unified Subject by Sergiu Klainerman.

An essay on partial differential equations written by a leading expert in the field, I strongly recommend to anyone attemping to know more on the subject as well as to those who would like to get a grasp of interactions between Mathematics and Physics.

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