Mathematical Methods for Physics [pdf]
ma.imperial.ac.uk
Mathematical Methods for Physics [pdf]
1–10 of 44 posts
Re: Mathematical Methods for Physics [pdf]
#2Nice! This will make a good companion to Arfken & Weber
Re: Mathematical Methods for Physics [pdf]
#3We're in something of an autodidacticism boom. I have yet to see anyone, in years, actually become proficient at college-level math/physics without formal instruction, just by doing self-study with tutorials like pdfs and videos.
There will always be major knowledge gaps or roadblocks/impasses of understanding, like notation or clarification needed. This is not to say it cannot be done but I have to see anyone do it.
Re: Mathematical Methods for Physics [pdf]
#4We're in something of an autodidacticism boom. I have yet to see anyone, in years, actually become proficient at college-level math/physics without formal instruction, just by doing self-study with tutorials like pdfs and videos. There will always be major knowledge gaps or roadblocks/impasses of understanding, like notation or clarification needed. This is not to say it cannot be done but I have to see anyone do it.
I don't think the OP here was imposing anything.. It seems more like a fitting reference for those who have performed physical calculations before and are looking to refresh.
Re: Mathematical Methods for Physics [pdf]
#5We're in something of an autodidacticism boom. I have yet to see anyone, in years, actually become proficient at college-level math/physics without formal instruction, just by doing self-study with tutorials like pdfs and videos. There will always be major knowledge gaps or roadblocks/impasses of understanding, like notation or clarification needed. This is not to say it cannot be done but I have to see anyone do it.
I don't think the OP here was imposing anything.. It seems more like a fitting reference for those who have performed physical calculations before and are looking to refresh.
I am not implying that the OP is imposing anything. i am just asking a related question.
Re: Mathematical Methods for Physics [pdf]
#6We're in something of an autodidacticism boom. I have yet to see anyone, in years, actually become proficient at college-level math/physics without formal instruction, just by doing self-study with tutorials like pdfs and videos. There will always be major knowledge gaps or roadblocks/impasses of understanding, like notation or clarification needed. This is not to say it cannot be done but I have to see anyone do it.
I have been self-studing alot. In fact, my first experience was the professor asked me to solve one of his final exam questions (for which he had provided his lecture notes for the course) within a few days after I asked for a internship.
The way I do it is to create exercise where I am required to fill as much of details as possible in the must explicit way. Sometimes, this is in the form of lecturing my friends for several hours. Or reproducing some computational results from computational physics (writing software and getting results correctly requires alot of details getting right). Similarly, when I studied such notes (for some of which I did not have accompanying course), I tried to fill as much of details as possible in the notes and do the exercises.
The ultimate state you want to reach is one where you can derive some results topic with enough details from scratch (without looking at the notes), like the way one can remember movie plot or something.
If you can take this process of understanding (and getting details right) very seriously + feynman technique, these can be helpful. But, you need to be really serious about learning and applying them (e.g. reproducing some results)
Re: Mathematical Methods for Physics [pdf]
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think the OP here was imposing anything.. It seems more like a fitting reference for those who have performed physical calculations before and are looking to refresh.
I am not implying that the OP is imposing anything. i am just asking a related question.
Where is your question?
Re: Mathematical Methods for Physics [pdf]
#8We're in something of an autodidacticism boom. I have yet to see anyone, in years, actually become proficient at college-level math/physics without formal instruction, just by doing self-study with tutorials like pdfs and videos. There will always be major knowledge gaps or roadblocks/impasses of understanding, like notation or clarification needed. This is not to say it cannot be done but I have to see anyone do it.
The key ingredient in a formal course is the formal examination. Be it graded exercises or a written or oral exam. It forces studying at a level where you can reproduce and explain the key concepts and results and apply them to something new.
In theory one can do that also with self-study. Most people don't, they just watch some youtube video or read a Wikipedia page, and then they think they have understood something. But the deeper understanding that comes from applying this new knowledge is missing. That step is forced when you take a university course that has some form of examination in-built. Doing it yourself is possible but non-obvious, hard, perhaps even unpleasant, and it's rare people do it. Some do though, and their understanding isn't inferior to a university graduate.
Re: Mathematical Methods for Physics [pdf]
#9We're in something of an autodidacticism boom. I have yet to see anyone, in years, actually become proficient at college-level math/physics without formal instruction, just by doing self-study with tutorials like pdfs and videos. There will always be major knowledge gaps or roadblocks/impasses of understanding, like notation or clarification needed. This is not to say it cannot be done but I have to see anyone do it.
”but I have to see anyone do it”
This is a strange take. Why or how would you ever see someone do it? It is very unlikely you would be aware of them.
I do concur most ppl I’ve seen lacking formal education in physics - no matter how smart - do have some gaps in their knowledge. There seems to be something of a tacit knowledge transfer involved - but I have no clue what it is. Maybe physicists radiate physics particles or something. I’m kidding. But I have no clear mechanistic model what makes physicists physicists. It’s not smarts (some required I guess, but does not suffice).
Maybe it’s just going through a specific set of rote calculations and lab work needed.
Re: Mathematical Methods for Physics [pdf]
#10We're in something of an autodidacticism boom. I have yet to see anyone, in years, actually become proficient at college-level math/physics without formal instruction, just by doing self-study with tutorials like pdfs and videos. There will always be major knowledge gaps or roadblocks/impasses of understanding, like notation or clarification needed. This is not to say it cannot be done but I have to see anyone do it.
”but I have to see anyone do it” This is a strange take. Why or how would you ever see someone do it? It is very unlikely you would be aware of them. I do concur most ppl I’ve seen lacking formal education in physics - no matter how smart - do have some gaps in their knowledge. There seems to be something of a tacit knowledge transfer involved - but I have no clue what it is. Maybe physicists radiate physics particle…
Posts by Susan Fowler "so you want to self-study math/physics" have gone hugely viral here and I have yet to see anyone in the comments or later report that they actually became really good after following her tutorial. Same for any other tutorial or guide or self-study overall. maybe one blogger whose name eludes me but extremely rare.
This is a strange take.
How is it strange? What you meant to say is you disagree.