Preparation without gatekeeping
Check the skills your next step actually uses
Readiness is not a degree, a course title, or one overall score. Choose where you want to go, try only the relevant work-based checks, and review a topic only when it gets in the way of the physics.
- Demonstrated: the result, assumptions, and decisive checks are explicit. Continue.
- Uncertain: the main calculation is plausible, but a convention, hypothesis, domain, boundary term, normalization, or evidence link is still implicit.
- Not yet demonstrated: a consequential check fails, or the reasoning needed by the next step is not yet visible. Review and retry with changed data.
These descriptions apply to one capability in one piece of work, never to a person. There is no total score, and no result restricts access to the site.
Five diagnostic areas
Choose by the work you need to do
A diagnostic asks you to produce a short calculation or explanation. It is untimed, may be completed in any accessible format that shows the reasoning, and does not restrict access to the rest of the site. Separate capabilities receive separate results.
- Core QFT · 2 hard, 1 recommended
Mathematical methods
Linear and tensor reasoning; Fourier transforms, distributions, and Green functions; complex and asymptotic methods.
Take only the sections named by your route.Open this diagnostic - Core QFT · 2 hard
Classical fields and relativity
Variation of actions and boundary terms; Lorentz transformations, causal structure, representations, and spin.
Both checks are expected before the core route relies on them.Open this diagnostic - Core QFT · 1 hard
Quantum mechanics
States, observables, spectra, commutators, symmetries, and agreement between Schrödinger and Heisenberg pictures.
This background is expected for the core route.Open this diagnostic - Core QFT · recommended
Statistics and probability
Probability laws, physical ensembles, fluctuations, correlated samples, estimators, and uncertainty.
Especially useful for quantum matter, phenomenology, thermal QFT, and computation.Open this diagnostic - Core QFT · recommended
Computation and evidence
Precision, convergence, tests, provenance, reproducibility, and the distinction between a successful run and a scientific conclusion.
Essential when your route depends on numerical or reproducible computational work.Open this diagnostic
For Core QFT, hard means that the route relies on that skill before using it.Recommended means valuable preparation, not a hidden gate. A specialist pathway may explicitly require a skill that Core QFT marks recommended.
For a first graduate route
Five hard skills, covered by three diagnostics
Begin with the linear/tensor and Fourier/Green-function sections of Mathematical methods, both sections of Classical fields and relativity, and Quantum mechanics. Add complex/asymptotic, statistical, or computational preparation when a later topic or your chosen specialist pathway needs it.
Focused review
Repair the gap, then return
Each review route connects prerequisite material to the way QFT uses it. Start with the smallest relevant topic; there is no benefit in repeating a whole prerequisite course when one skill is missing.
Mathematical tools
Repair the specific mathematical move that blocks the calculation.
Physics foundations
Rebuild the action, spacetime, representation, or operator reasoning used by QFT.
Statistics and computation
Separate physical fluctuations, estimator uncertainty, numerical error, and reproducibility.
A simple loop
Choose → check → review → re-check → return
- Choose a destination. Start with Core QFT or a specialist pathway.
- Try its required checks. Keep separate notes for separate skills; strength in one area does not hide a gap in another.
- Review one blocking topic. Use the worked connection in the smallest matching route.
- Re-check with changed data. Repeat the corresponding task instead of relying on familiarity.
- Return immediately. Update only that skill and continue from the step that sent you here.