I have no idea why these sorts of posts are popular. Past college you're not going to learn physics by trying to self-study an entire university course. The best way to learn is just to pick a small part of physics you'd like to learn (preferably related to your job), i.e. how GPS work or some fluid mechanics etc... Then learn the physics you need for that. Knowledge accumulation can't be organized in a straight line…
So you want to learn physics (second edition, 2021)
31–40 of 73 posts
Re: So you want to learn physics (second edition, 2021)
#32I've found pacing to be the biggest problem with self-learning of academic subjects. Suppose we are learning from a textbook. The things we learn in each chapter are built upon in the subsequent chapters. If we go forward before we have a good enough understanding it can make it very hard to learn that next chapter. On the other hand if we wait to go forward until we feel we really have mastered the material up to th…
Re: So you want to learn physics (second edition, 2021)
#33I have no idea why these sorts of posts are popular. Past college you're not going to learn physics by trying to self-study an entire university course. The best way to learn is just to pick a small part of physics you'd like to learn (preferably related to your job), i.e. how GPS work or some fluid mechanics etc... Then learn the physics you need for that. Knowledge accumulation can't be organized in a straight line…
I'd disagree and have done exactly that. I started with a reasonable basis in physics, but self studying through an entire course dramatically expanded my understanding. For an example of what I mean this [1] is Feynman's lecture on conservation of energy. It's something every schoolkid learns -- I'm fairly sure I saw my first pendulum from the nose demo in middle school, yet Feynman will take this and make you compl…
Re: So you want to learn physics (second edition, 2021)
#34Re: So you want to learn physics (second edition, 2021)
#35I have no idea why these sorts of posts are popular. Past college you're not going to learn physics by trying to self-study an entire university course. The best way to learn is just to pick a small part of physics you'd like to learn (preferably related to your job), i.e. how GPS work or some fluid mechanics etc... Then learn the physics you need for that. Knowledge accumulation can't be organized in a straight line…
I'd disagree and have done exactly that. I started with a reasonable basis in physics, but self studying through an entire course dramatically expanded my understanding. For an example of what I mean this [1] is Feynman's lecture on conservation of energy. It's something every schoolkid learns -- I'm fairly sure I saw my first pendulum from the nose demo in middle school, yet Feynman will take this and make you compl…
I agree with your comment overall, but people have different reasons for learning and it may not be productive to tell them they are learning for the wrong reason. Let's celebrate all learning for I fear we are heading in a direction where it will become increasingly uncommon.
Re: So you want to learn physics (second edition, 2021)
#36I wonder how much all the textbooks that the author recommends would cost in total...
Re: So you want to learn physics (second edition, 2021)
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd disagree and have done exactly that. I started with a reasonable basis in physics, but self studying through an entire course dramatically expanded my understanding. For an example of what I mean this [1] is Feynman's lecture on conservation of energy. It's something every schoolkid learns -- I'm fairly sure I saw my first pendulum from the nose demo in middle school, yet Feynman will take this and make you compl…
Conservation of energy is simply the invariance of a system to translation in time: the system shows the same time evolution from a well defined starting state regardless of whether that state exists at a time t or a time t+t' with an arbitrary t'. This is one application of Noether's theorem. This is an example of a topic that unstructured self study would likely skip. But it is included in every properly structured…
https://curtjaimungal.substack.com/p/what-is-energy-actually
Ignoring that, saying "energy must exist because of Noether and time-translation" doesn't really tell what energy actually is, not a very satisfactory response
Re: So you want to learn physics (second edition, 2021)
#38I have no idea why these sorts of posts are popular. Past college you're not going to learn physics by trying to self-study an entire university course. The best way to learn is just to pick a small part of physics you'd like to learn (preferably related to your job), i.e. how GPS work or some fluid mechanics etc... Then learn the physics you need for that. Knowledge accumulation can't be organized in a straight line…
I'd disagree and have done exactly that. I started with a reasonable basis in physics, but self studying through an entire course dramatically expanded my understanding. For an example of what I mean this [1] is Feynman's lecture on conservation of energy. It's something every schoolkid learns -- I'm fairly sure I saw my first pendulum from the nose demo in middle school, yet Feynman will take this and make you compl…
Re: So you want to learn physics (second edition, 2021)
#39I have no idea why these sorts of posts are popular. Past college you're not going to learn physics by trying to self-study an entire university course. The best way to learn is just to pick a small part of physics you'd like to learn (preferably related to your job), i.e. how GPS work or some fluid mechanics etc... Then learn the physics you need for that. Knowledge accumulation can't be organized in a straight line…
Re: So you want to learn physics (second edition, 2021)
#40I have no idea why these sorts of posts are popular. Past college you're not going to learn physics by trying to self-study an entire university course. The best way to learn is just to pick a small part of physics you'd like to learn (preferably related to your job), i.e. how GPS work or some fluid mechanics etc... Then learn the physics you need for that. Knowledge accumulation can't be organized in a straight line…
And why not? Because humans' brains stop working after they graduate from colleges?
Most college students don't work that hard.