If you would be interested in doing some sort of study group on this book post below.

Having flicked through it its a load of physics with about 300 pages of maths at the start then about 800 pages of physics. Its pretty hefty and I plan to read it over the course of a year in a few chapters a week while reading around on each chapter and maybe hunting down problem sets. Would love to have some people to read along with and discuss the stuff in the book with.

I admire your ambition, that is a large book on physics.

Unless you already understand all of the math, I wouldn't bother with trying to study from that book.

I'd love to be able to read that book at some point but it appears to be absurdly difficult if you don't already have a degree in maths/physics.

In the preface Penrose says that he is writing for the lay-man and I am no mathematician and only recently took an interest in physics at all but as far as I've got it seems doable but having some people along for the ride would definitely help.

Ive read the first 100 or so pages 2 or 3 times now before other stuff got in the way (generally laziness if i'm honest) and if it stays at roughly the sme difficulty i think it might be possible to get through as a layman with a lot of reading around. I'm willing to give it a shot starting saturday if a group does get started.

Awesome to have you involved.

I have read it several times . However, the math chapters are good refreshers if you've already studied the material, but they move too fast for stuff that's new to you. I would recommend googling and finding actual course lecture notes for the topics that are new to you.

When do you reckon you will start this study group? I have a very vague interest for this. But I do have a degree i maths (as of Friday next week). I'm 50/50

This is why I want to do it with a few other people and why I want to pace it over several months.

Probs start soonish. I have to finish writing up my final year project but I've also read the first few chapters so I'm pretty flexible. When would be convenient for you?

Also, what is the standard number of hours spent per day on this? I know it's person-dependent, but, when we all get to roughly the same level, are we talking 2 hours? 5 hours? I think that, because the book is so large, if we want to complete it we eventually we will have to start putting in lots of hours per day...

But I haven't really been in one of these groups before and I'm not sure how it works...

My last exam is on Friday.

Edit: also, how often will we meet for (skype?) chat?

To be honest I am not sure. I think once we get started we'll have a better sense of how long it takes. I haven't done one of these either but I don't have much of a maths background so I thought it would be handy to have a few people on board to work through the ideas and share resources with.

I'll see if I can find any similar threads and see how they ran things.

You may start this book alone but you will need another 12 to finish it...
The point of the book is to get you to read the other ... 12 or whatever the real number proves to be like, certainly over 10.

I suspected that it would be a bit like that. I am planning on a pretty long timetable for this to allow for reading/watching/listening around the topics.