A First Course in String Theory, 2nd Edition

I approached this book in two parts. First, I went through the first half of the book which is about Physics in various dimensions like Very Special Relativity, Electromagnetism and Gravity., The it passes to the mechanics of the relativistic classical particle, its quantization, the mechanics of classical string and finally their quantization. The author works in the Light-cone gauge formalism and uses the Nambu-Goto action of the string. A good overview of the main facts about the bosonic string is given through out the following chapters, the first half or first part of this book ends on chapter 14 with an introduction to Superstrings. Then I jumped straight to the last two chapters 24 and 25 which are about string interactions and Riemann surfaces and Loop amplitudes in string theory. Here I must point out that he only does the stuff for open strings, I guess because the theory for Riemann surfaces and therefore tree and one loop amplitudes for closed strings is more involved mathematically. But it was nice to see in working action the Schwarz -Christoffel conformal mapping. Then I left this book for a while and only after going through several more books on the subject decided to came back on it for the second part which is called "Developments". Now for this part it is also the best and probably the only accesible introduction to the subject of D-branes, string charges, Non-linear Dirac - Born - Infeld electrodynamics and it even has a chapter which I am about to finish now that makes the contact between string phenomenology and the particle content of the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics which is not easy at all, using the so called or at least he calls them Brane color which when 3 of them together generate U(3)=SU(3)xU(1) gauge fields, the gluons, that couple to one of the open strings end which represent the quarks and 2 left branes together generate the U(2)=SU(2)xU(1) gauge group of the electroweak part of the SM. This is the INTRODUCTION you MUST go through in order to begin to understand D-branes, it also touches on T-duality and the AdS/CFT correspondence, the book is like his author professor Barton Zwiebach at the MIT, simply brilliant!

This is a long and careful buildup of the mathematical machinery of string theory, patiently developing the tools theorists use to work this subject. The book is carefully laid out and shows the high quality materials which can be achieved when a text is developed out of a real course tested with real students over a period of time. It is an introduction to string theory which leaves no term undefined, no basic undeveloped but brings the student to the threshold of current research in a logical sequence. I find it easy to read and follow Zwiebach's style of writing.However, this is not a 'popular' book. There are such 'popular' books which attempt to give some elements of string theory or other contemporary physics or cosmology but fail miserably. A classroom text won't have that problem. (To see an example how NOT to communicate string theory to anyone, take a look at "The Little Book of String Theory" by Steven Gubser of Princeton, which substitutes analogies about dancing for real teaching, and is of little value to readers of any background.)No one should make the mistake the Zwiebach book is for the general reader - it is not. Don't be misled that it is an undergraduate course text; true, but an MIT advanced undergraduate text, for elite MIT physics pre-professionals who are at the level of graduate students elsewhere. Also their preparation is extensive and uniform. The book is perfectly understandable for the physics student on a PhD track and already familiar with electromagnetism, relativity and quantum mechanics. But not otherwise. For example, there is a one page review of the variational principle of least action in mechanics; no one who hasn't studied this before is going to learn it in one page. Besides the target audience of professional-track MIT students, the book may be accessible for self study by physicists and engineers working in other fields who want to understand what all the shouting is about and are willing to put in the time and concentration. The second edition corrects numerous errors and misprints of the first edition which could cause much puzzlement otherwise.It is a lot of work to develop a polished text like this and many universities unfortunately do not really reward research faculty for doing so. MIT is different and Prof. Zwiebach has received well deserved honors for producing the course and the book. As string theory is one of the frontier intellectual explorations of humankind in our generation, it is a worthy subject to learn and to teach.

This is a wonderful book for someone just learning string theory. I'm trying to do all the problems and many of them are quite tough (I have a PhD in physics.) The thoughtthat these problems are assigned to undergraduates at MIT is somewhat depressing - either I'm getting senile or they are awesomely talented. Maybe a little of both.I wish I could get a hold of the solutions (which are available to instructors). Many of the problems teach things about theoretical physics IN GENERAL which I wish I had learnedas an undergraduate (or even as a grad student.)One of the negatives in struggling with this material is the thought that string theory is really just a step toward M-theory, which is the best candidate for a "theory of everything."One has to master four or five different string theories and then be told that strings are really not relevant to the currently accepted theory. Since I am retired and have plenty of time, I will continue to struggle with it, but it takes plenty of patience.In the hands of an instructor who can review (or present solutions) to the problems, this is a wonderful book.Congratulations to Professor Zwiebach for producing a great text.