The author is aka Susan Fowler and author of three books and has a degree in physics.
The Post is basically about how to get a degree or at least the equivalent and would require an effort of years.
So you want to learn physics (2021)
11–20 of 170 posts
Re: So you want to learn physics (2021)
#12I dropped out of Physics back in the day, because I loved computers a bit more, and now that I'm kind of fed up with computers I'd like to remove the thorn and do something like this. But I find that so much time has passed that I would need to brush up parts of my high school maths first, and this kind of discourages me before even starting.
Using math to model a system instead of learning math qua math does wonders for ease of understanding. Derivates and integrals become easy if you're using them to model the relationship between position/velocity/acceleration. I don't think I really got linear algebra until using it to learn quantum computing.
Re: So you want to learn physics (2021)
#13It’s a decent list but thermodynamics is introduced way too late in the list (after modern and quantum wtf) and fluid dynamics and fluid mechanics including aerodynamics is entirely missing.
If you have a physics education (I have an engineering education) can you tell me if you can really get a physics degree without bumping into Bernoulli or Navier-Stokes?
At least just to see the lay of the land.
Re: So you want to learn physics (2021)
#14(2021) anything new here?
Undergraduate physics hasn't changed much in the past two years.
Re: So you want to learn physics (2021)
#15It’s a decent list but thermodynamics is introduced way too late in the list (after modern and quantum wtf) and fluid dynamics and fluid mechanics including aerodynamics is entirely missing. If you have a physics education (I have an engineering education) can you tell me if you can really get a physics degree without bumping into Bernoulli or Navier-Stokes? At least just to see the lay of the land.
I am writing my physics PhD thesis and I did not study fluid mechanics (other than the few chapters in the standard general physics).
It will really be dependent on what is your physics field but you can definitely survive in physics without deep knowledge of fluid mechanics except when your study require it
PS: I am a particle physicist.
Re: So you want to learn physics (2021)
#16It’s a decent list but thermodynamics is introduced way too late in the list (after modern and quantum wtf) and fluid dynamics and fluid mechanics including aerodynamics is entirely missing. If you have a physics education (I have an engineering education) can you tell me if you can really get a physics degree without bumping into Bernoulli or Navier-Stokes? At least just to see the lay of the land.
That is a very "pure physics" way to approach physics, and I think it's right if you want to build up the underlying principles. That was how my college taught physics, and it helped to make many otherwise unintuitive parts of thermodynamics understandable.
Also, physicists don't necessarily include fluid dynamics as a core discipline. It is almost mechanical engineering to them. I'm not surprised to see it missing.
Re: So you want to learn physics (2021)
#17Previous posts, if you want to take a look at the comments there:
Re: So you want to learn physics (2021)
#18It’s a decent list but thermodynamics is introduced way too late in the list (after modern and quantum wtf) and fluid dynamics and fluid mechanics including aerodynamics is entirely missing. If you have a physics education (I have an engineering education) can you tell me if you can really get a physics degree without bumping into Bernoulli or Navier-Stokes? At least just to see the lay of the land.
That is a very "pure physics" way to approach physics, and I think it's right if you want to build up the underlying principles. That was how my college taught physics, and it helped to make many otherwise unintuitive parts of thermodynamics understandable. Also, physicists don't necessarily include fluid dynamics as a core discipline. It is almost mechanical engineering to them. I'm not surprised to see it missing.
yeah NS is just newton's laws, which is part of mechanics
Re: So you want to learn physics (2021)
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is a very "pure physics" way to approach physics, and I think it's right if you want to build up the underlying principles. That was how my college taught physics, and it helped to make many otherwise unintuitive parts of thermodynamics understandable. Also, physicists don't necessarily include fluid dynamics as a core discipline. It is almost mechanical engineering to them. I'm not surprised to see it missing.
yeah NS is just newton's laws, which is part of mechanics
Newton's laws and centuries worth of intuition about fluids but sure.
Also stating the equation isn't the same thing as studying it.
Re: So you want to learn physics (2021)
#20It’s a decent list but thermodynamics is introduced way too late in the list (after modern and quantum wtf) and fluid dynamics and fluid mechanics including aerodynamics is entirely missing. If you have a physics education (I have an engineering education) can you tell me if you can really get a physics degree without bumping into Bernoulli or Navier-Stokes? At least just to see the lay of the land.
I have a B.S. Physics from NMT graduated in 2009 (they changed some of the courses a year or two after my cohort) but the main series progression was Modern Physics -> Waves -> Classical Mechanics, E/M/Optics -> Quantum -> Thermo. Never really did much of anything fluids-wise other than some viscosity/drag stuff in Mechanics