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So You Want to Learn Physics (2016)

susanjfowler.com

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Re: So You Want to Learn Physics (2016)

#31

Post by fjsolwmv »

anonytrary wrote: post #8

The author recommends some interesting popular books: 1. The Feynman Lectures on Physics 2. The Character of Physical Law by Richard Feynman 3. Deep Down Things: The Breathtaking Beauty of Particle Physics by Bruce Schumm 4. The Particle Odyssey by Frank Close 5. Weinberg's The First Three Minutes IMO someone who seriously wants to learn physics should read these books after they have gone through the typical undergr…

The Feynman lectures were specially designed for creme de la creme undergrads who already did a course in physics in high school. They are a terrible way for a noob to try to learn.

Also strange that the author warns against exotic topics and then 3/5 of these recommendations are exotic things 99.9% of readers will never encounter.

Re: So You Want to Learn Physics (2016)

#32

Post by fjsolwmv »

mathgenius wrote: post #12

Books are too low bandwidth. You will get stuck, mostly on trivial stuff. Then what do you do? My advice is to find a teacher. If they are any good they will speed up the process by one or two (or more) orders of magnitude. Even the professionals do this.

Not everyone can afford thousands of dollars for tutoring. But forums and MOOCs are good.

Re: So You Want to Learn Physics (2016)

#33

Post by fjsolwmv »

nyc111 wrote: post #5

> ...the pure joy of understanding the universe around us is one of the most beautiful experiences you can ever have in life. But you do not need to study physics for 25 years in order to understand how the world works. Academic physics that she wants us to learn to undersdand the world is just a new academic subject invented or formalized in the 19. century. Archimedes knew 0 (zero) physics and made huge discoveries…

Not sure why you were downvoted. I agree that the average popular person will get more out of physics doing things they can (re)discover themselves, like Archimedes work on bouyancy and Newton's work on optics. Too many folks are stuck in the read/cram/exam mentality from competitive schooling.

Re: So You Want to Learn Physics (2016)

#34

Post by Tomte »

perlgeek wrote: post #27

Having completed a graduate level Physics education, I can attest that the selection of topics is solid. (Can't comment on the books, I learned in a different language where other books tend to be used).

Assuming it's German, would you like to list some of your favorites?

I've noticed that I mostly read English textbooks on all kinds of subjects, because it's easier to get recommendations on HN or sites like chicmath.

Re: So You Want to Learn Physics (2016)

#35

Post by snops »

nyc111 wrote: post #9
nyc111 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. It seems to me that in those huge physics projects like CERN what most physicists do is programming or data analysis.

> computing science ... is slowly but surely becoming an essential part of many areas of modern physics research. Also, this means that fundamental assumptions and the calculations are hidden from view. Recently, some physicists questioned the findings of LIGO but if I understand correctly all is decided by data analysis software and outside teams have a disadvantage to decipher it.

The LIGO result is actually excitingly available as an IPython notebook, which provides a tutorial to verify the data yourself, using entirely open source software. https://www.gw-openscience.org/s/events/GW150914/GW150914_tu... The actual signal processing isn't that complex IMO.

I don't know how open the LIGO hardware is, but it's very unlikely you would build one yourself to verify.

Re: So You Want to Learn Physics (2016)

#36

Post by pge »

nyc111 wrote: post #7
sleavey wrote: post #4

I went to university intending to study computing science, but switched to physics half way through under the assumption that you could teach yourself computing science more easily than physics. I wouldn't change what I learned for the world, and I'm now in physics academia, but it's funny how my job these days involves using some of the algorithms, mathematics and data structures that I was just about to start learn…

I agree. It seems to me that in those huge physics projects like CERN what most physicists do is programming or data analysis.

This is very true - I was a physics undergrad and learned to code working in a project at cern. While the underlying physics was the foundation of the project, the day to day work was all coding: processing and analyzing the huge amounts of data coming out of the experiment.

Re: So You Want to Learn Physics (2016)

#37

Post by anta40 »

fjsolwmv wrote: post #31
anonytrary wrote: post #8

The author recommends some interesting popular books: 1. The Feynman Lectures on Physics 2. The Character of Physical Law by Richard Feynman 3. Deep Down Things: The Breathtaking Beauty of Particle Physics by Bruce Schumm 4. The Particle Odyssey by Frank Close 5. Weinberg's The First Three Minutes IMO someone who seriously wants to learn physics should read these books after they have gone through the typical undergr…

The Feynman lectures were specially designed for creme de la creme undergrads who already did a course in physics in high school. They are a terrible way for a noob to try to learn. Also strange that the author warns against exotic topics and then 3/5 of these recommendations are exotic things 99.9% of readers will never encounter.

My major subject in highschool (2001-2004) was science. Now I work as a software developer.

Yes I admit my physics knowledge is already rusty, and would like to refresh it. On a glance, The Feynman Lectures looks pretty doable...

Re: So You Want to Learn Physics (2016)

#38

Post by pge »

fjsolwmv wrote: post #31
anonytrary wrote: post #8

The author recommends some interesting popular books: 1. The Feynman Lectures on Physics 2. The Character of Physical Law by Richard Feynman 3. Deep Down Things: The Breathtaking Beauty of Particle Physics by Bruce Schumm 4. The Particle Odyssey by Frank Close 5. Weinberg's The First Three Minutes IMO someone who seriously wants to learn physics should read these books after they have gone through the typical undergr…

The Feynman lectures were specially designed for creme de la creme undergrads who already did a course in physics in high school. They are a terrible way for a noob to try to learn. Also strange that the author warns against exotic topics and then 3/5 of these recommendations are exotic things 99.9% of readers will never encounter.

I also recall hearing that as an undegrad curriculum, the lectures never worked well (even when feynman himself was teaching them). His way of understanding physics is beautiful but not intuitive for most people. I read them after getting a degree in physics and it was fascinating to see his approach precisely because it was so different (and elegant) than the way it is typically taught, but I could not have understood them nearly as well if I had not already learned the concepts in a more traditional way.

All that is to say- The Feynman lectures are wonderful, but I would not recommend them as a first text.

Re: So You Want to Learn Physics (2016)

#39

Post by perlgeek »

Tomte wrote: post #34
perlgeek wrote: post #27

Having completed a graduate level Physics education, I can attest that the selection of topics is solid. (Can't comment on the books, I learned in a different language where other books tend to be used).

Assuming it's German, would you like to list some of your favorites? I've noticed that I mostly read English textbooks on all kinds of subjects, because it's easier to get recommendations on HN or sites like chicmath.

Oh, it's been a long time :-), but I'll try to dig through my memory.

I think I liked the Gerthsen, our Profs also recommended Demtröder, which was OK, but somehow I never liked it as much.

In theoretical physics, Nolting and Fließbach were good -- though I cannot remember which topic I learned from where.

I did my Diplomarbeit on spin transport in mesoscopic systems, and really liked "Electronic Transport in Mesoscopic Systems" by Datta, which at the time seemed to be the only accessible and clear writing on the subject.

Disclaimer: I tended to go to the lectures very regularly, and mostly learned from there, so the books very mostly supplemental material for me.

Re: So You Want to Learn Physics (2016)

#40

Post by nyc111 »

joeblau wrote: post #16
nyc111 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon Musk talks about arguing from first principles and claims this is the physics way without going into details. What else did he say about physics that you liked?

When he was going into the Boring companies tunneling evaluation trying to figure out weather current tunneling tech was power constrained or heat constrained. Also he mentioned the supersonic jet design that he has. There were also some undertones with the Tesla Roadster, Tesla Pickup truck and SpaceX BFR.

Ok, thanks for giving details. But these can be classified more like engineering issues. I don't know if you agree.
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