We map each point and a small enough neighbourhood of it to , so we can talk about the manifold points in terms of coordinates.
Does not require any further structure besides a consistent topological map. Notably, does not require metric nor an addition operation to make a vector space.
A notable example of a Non-Euclidean geometry manifold is the space of generalized coordinates of a Lagrangian. For example, in a problem such as the double pendulum, some of those generalized coordinates could be angles, which wrap around and thus are not euclidean.
Collection of coordinate charts.
Bibliography:
- www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1PAxNKB_Zc Manifolds #6 - Tangent Space (Detail) by WHYB maths (2020). This is worth looking into.
- www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxB4aH8h5j4 actually gives a more concrete example. Basically, the vectors are defined by saying "we are doing the Directional derivative of any function along this direction".One thing to remember is that of course, the most convenient way to define a function and to specify a direction, is by using one of the coordinate charts.
- jakobschwichtenberg.com/lie-algebra-able-describe-group/ by Jakob Schwichtenberg
- math.stackexchange.com/questions/1388144/what-exactly-is-a-tangent-vector/2714944 What exactly is a tangent vector? on Stack Exchange
www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq7sb3toTww&list=PLxBAVPVHJPcrNrcEBKbqC_ykiVqfxZgNl&index=19 mentions that it is a bit like a dot product but for a tangent vector to a manifold: it measures how much that vector derives along a given direction.
The book unfortunately does not cover the history of quantum mechanics very, the author specifically says that this will not be covered, the focus is more on particles/forces. But there are still some mentions.
A metric is a function that give the distance, i.e. a real number, between any two elements of a space.
Because a norm can be induced by an inner product, and the inner product given by the matrix representation of a positive definite symmetric bilinear form, in simple cases metrics can also be represented by a matrix.
Local symmetries appear to be a synonym to internal symmetry, see description at: Section "Internal and spacetime symmetries".
A local symmetry is a transformation that you apply a different transformation for each point, instead of a single transformation for every point.
Bibliography:
- lecture 3
- physics.stackexchange.com/questions/48188/local-and-global-symmetries
- www.physics.rutgers.edu/grad/618/lects/localsym.pdf by Joel Shapiro gives one nice high level intuitive idea:
- Quora:
Quantum Mechanical View of Reality by Richard Feynman (1983) by
Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
Sample playlist: www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW_HsOU6YZRkdhFFznHNEfua9NK3deBQy
Basically the same content as: Richard Feynman Quantum Electrodynamics Lecture at University of Auckland (1979), but maybe there is some merit to this talk, as it is a bit more direct in some points. This is consistent with what is mentioned at www.feynman.com/science/qed-lectures-in-new-zealand/ that the Auckland lecture was the first attempt.
Some more information at: iucat.iu.edu/iub/5327621
By Mill Valley, CA based producer "Sound Photosynthesis", some info on their website: sound.photosynthesis.com/Richard_Feynman.html
They are mostly a New Age production company it seems, which highlights Feynman's absolute cult status. E.g. on the last video, he's not wearing shoes, like a proper guru.
Feynman liked to meet all kinds of weird people, and at some point he got interested in the New Age Esalen Institute. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman this kind of experience a bit, there was nude bathing on a pool that oversaw the sea, and a guy offered to give a massage to the he nude girl and the accepted.
youtu.be/rZvgGekvHest=5105 actually talks about spin, notably that the endpoint events also have a spin, and that the transition rules take spin into account by rotating thing, and that the transition rules take spin into account by rotating things.
More precisely, each generator of the corresponding Lie algebra leads to one separate conserved current, such that a single symmetry can lead to multiple conserved currents.
This is basically the local symmetry version of Noether's theorem.
Then to maintain charge conservation, we have to maintain local symmetry, which in turn means we have to add a gauge field as shown at Video "Deriving the qED Lagrangian by Dietterich Labs (2018)".
Bibliography:
- photonics101.com/relativistic-electrodynamics/gauge-invariance-action-charge-conservation#show-solution has a good explanation of the Gauge transformation. TODO how does that relate to symmetry?
- physics.stackexchange.com/questions/57901/noether-theorem-gauge-symmetry-and-conservation-of-charge
Pinned article: Introduction to the OurBigBook Project
Welcome to the OurBigBook Project! Our goal is to create the perfect publishing platform for STEM subjects, and get university-level students to write the best free STEM tutorials ever.
Everyone is welcome to create an account and play with the site: ourbigbook.com/go/register. We belive that students themselves can write amazing tutorials, but teachers are welcome too. You can write about anything you want, it doesn't have to be STEM or even educational. Silly test content is very welcome and you won't be penalized in any way. Just keep it legal!
Intro to OurBigBook
. Source. We have two killer features:
- topics: topics group articles by different users with the same title, e.g. here is the topic for the "Fundamental Theorem of Calculus" ourbigbook.com/go/topic/fundamental-theorem-of-calculusArticles of different users are sorted by upvote within each article page. This feature is a bit like:
- a Wikipedia where each user can have their own version of each article
- a Q&A website like Stack Overflow, where multiple people can give their views on a given topic, and the best ones are sorted by upvote. Except you don't need to wait for someone to ask first, and any topic goes, no matter how narrow or broad
This feature makes it possible for readers to find better explanations of any topic created by other writers. And it allows writers to create an explanation in a place that readers might actually find it.Figure 1. Screenshot of the "Derivative" topic page. View it live at: ourbigbook.com/go/topic/derivativeVideo 2. OurBigBook Web topics demo. Source. - local editing: you can store all your personal knowledge base content locally in a plaintext markup format that can be edited locally and published either:This way you can be sure that even if OurBigBook.com were to go down one day (which we have no plans to do as it is quite cheap to host!), your content will still be perfectly readable as a static site.
- to OurBigBook.com to get awesome multi-user features like topics and likes
- as HTML files to a static website, which you can host yourself for free on many external providers like GitHub Pages, and remain in full control
Figure 3. Visual Studio Code extension installation.Figure 4. Visual Studio Code extension tree navigation.Figure 5. Web editor. You can also edit articles on the Web editor without installing anything locally.Video 3. Edit locally and publish demo. Source. This shows editing OurBigBook Markup and publishing it using the Visual Studio Code extension.Video 4. OurBigBook Visual Studio Code extension editing and navigation demo. Source. - Infinitely deep tables of contents:
All our software is open source and hosted at: github.com/ourbigbook/ourbigbook
Further documentation can be found at: docs.ourbigbook.com
Feel free to reach our to us for any help or suggestions: docs.ourbigbook.com/#contact





