
Ask HN: How to self-study physics? - hsikka
Hey HN,<p>I&#x27;m a CS graduate student, and I do a lot of Deep Learning Research. I&#x27;ve always wanted to get a strong foundation in Physics, and while on lockdown because of COVID, I thought it would be a great opportunity.<p>I&#x27;ve run across this incredible guide <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.susanjfowler.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2016&#x2F;8&#x2F;13&#x2F;so-you-want-to-learn-physics" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.susanjfowler.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2016&#x2F;8&#x2F;13&#x2F;so-you-want-to-l...</a> and I was also thinking about going through MIT Open Courseware following their bachelor&#x27;s curriculum.<p>Do you all have any suggestions or tips? I really appreciate it!
======
scottlocklin
For the love of God, don't use Feynman lectures to learn physics. That's
something you read after you know physics, for relaxation and conceptual
stuff. Resnick & Halliday is a much better freshman/sophomore book.

Susskind's "theoretical minimum" is actually pretty good.

[http://theoreticalminimum.com/courses](http://theoreticalminimum.com/courses)

Fowler gives a pretty conventional undergraduate physics curriculum (adding
Feynman in there somehow). If it were me: learn the math tools first. I assume
you know linear algebra; learn differential equations. From there, go straight
to higher level books. There's very little difference in undergraduate vs
graduate quantum mechanics and E&M other than the math is slightly more
sophisticated in grad school. Might as well do it right. Messiah for QM and
Jackson for E&M. Classical mechanics, the tradition is to learn Lagrangian
mechanics in high level undergrad and Hamiltonian in grad school. There's no
real reason to do it in this order, and a decent reason (understanding
Quantum) to do it in reverse order. Amusingly, the math is cleaner in
Hamiltonian mechanics, but you may find yourself unable to do some simple
problems you can do with Newtonian physics; so this will be a weird working
backward thing. Stat Mech, I think you should just read Reif; skip Ma or
whatever they use in grad school now.

FWIIW I know/knew people who did this: started grad school without having done
any undergrad courses in physics. I think skipping a lot of the introductory
stuff, and visiting it later is actually better.

The rest of it can be done with the same machinery you learned in QM, E&M,
Mechanics and Stat Mech. Max leverage if you had to pick one: probably
classical mechanics for a DL guy, E&M for general knowledge of tools.

I'd suggest not actually trying to simulate physical systems on a computer:
you probably stare at computers too much anyway.

~~~
propter_hoc
I can't believe I am reading a recommendation that someone with little
background in E&M self-studies with Jackson. That book is incredibly difficult
even with a great graduate-level professor.

~~~
scottlocklin
The problems from undergrad (I think we used Purcell) were virtually
identical. Jackson's book had problems which were more
algebraically/computationally difficult, but otherwise; it was basically the
same thing. It's a well written classic; no reason to use the book with
slightly wimpier problems.

He asked me how to learn physics; not how to learn some wimpy undergrad
physics which doesn't give you the big picture. Hindsight my undergrad E&M
book was a waste of time, and we should have just used Jackson. I still have
Jackson (and Eyges) on my shelf; the undergrad book was recycled years ago.

~~~
madhadron
My graduate E&M course was actually taught out of Schwinger, which I thought
was quite nice. I would never recommend it as a first run through E&M.

Jackson's problems are more technically difficult than, say, Purcell's, but
how much of that difficulty actually helps with understanding E&M?

------
physicsAI
I thought I would also add my two cents, though there have been many excellent
responses already. I recently defended my PhD in Physics (MIT '18).

First of all - great idea! It is never too late to learn math and physics! In
fact, with hard work and commitment, anybody can muster them to a high level.

(1) Reading =/= understanding in math and physics. You understand a topic only
if you can solve the problems.

(2) Work through the solved problems you encounter in textbooks carefully.

(3) Most people around me have never read any physics textbook cover to cover.
E.g. reading Halliday, Resnick & Walker completely might take you years! Not
all topics are equally important. Focus on the important parts.

(4) You need guidance on what is important and what is not. Online courses,
college material (especially problem sets!), teaching webpages could be a
helpful guide. MIT OCW is an excellent resource, once you are ready for it.

(5) Finding someone to talk to is really useful. You will likely have
questions. Cultivating some relationship that allows you to ask questions is
invaluable.

(4) College courses in math and physics have a very definitive order. It is
really difficult to skip any step along the way. E.g. to understand special
relativity, you must first understand classical physics and electrodynamics.

(5) Be prepared that the timescales in physics are long. Often, what turns
people off is that they do not get things quickly (e.g. in 15-30 minutes). If
you find yourself thinking hours about seemingly simple problems, do not
despair! That is normal in physics.

(6) You have to 'soak in' physics. It takes time. Initially, you might feel
like you do not make a lot of progress, but the more you know, the quicker it
will get. Give yourself time and be patient and persistent.

(7) Often, just writing things down helps a lot with making things stick. It
is a way of developing 'muscle memory'. So try and take notes while reading.
Copying out solved problems from textbooks is also a good technique.

(8) Counterintuitive: If you get completely stuck, move on! Learning often
happens in non-linear ways. If you hit an insurmountable roadblock, just keep
going. When you return in a few days/weeks, things will almost certainly be
clearer.

~~~
commandersaki
Isn't an important aspect of learning Physics is being able to conduct
experiments in a lab?

~~~
abdullahkhalids
Absolutely. How can you claim to model something if you haven't at least
looked at the thing with your own eyes, played with it with your (metaphoric)
hands?

Experiments teach you, that reality is complicated and models have to be
simple, but with judicious choices of assumptions, one can still get accurate
and precise prediction out of simple models. I am a theoretical physicist, but
I would say the experimental courses I have taken were the most important
courses in understanding the limitation of theory.

~~~
jhrmnn
I disagree. Perhaps in some areas, like electromagnetism or optics, but there
are large fields in physics where it's not necessary (statistical mechanics,
quantum mechanics, gravity, high-energy physics)

~~~
abdullahkhalids
I am not saying that you should to do experiments in every area. Just that
experiments in a few areas (usually mechanics/EM/optics/basic QM targeted by
undergrad labs) is sufficient to give you the necessary intuition about the
limitations of theory in all areas.

------
impendia
Hi hsikka,

Are you a PhD student? And if so, are you aiming at a career in academic
research? I'll offer my advice as a math professor, and as someone who
supervises students.

If you want to get a strong foundation in physics, then reading Halliday +
Resnick, and doing a large number of the exercises, would be one good way to
go about it. (Look for used copies of previous editions on Amazon -- they'll
be cheap.) There are plenty of other good suggestions in the blog post you
linked, and also in this thread.

However, and I hate to throw water on such a noble aspiration, are you sure
that this is what you want to do? Getting a "strong foundation" takes a lot of
effort. If you want to invest this effort, then great! But you might consider
investing that effort into learning something closer to your field, which
would _both_ be interesting _and_ directly help in your research.

In my observation, it is common for graduate students and professors to learn
about areas outside their research area, but they don't always worry so much
about getting a "strong foundation". For example, when I was a PhD student,
one of my fellow students enrolled in a graduate course in physics, without
worrying too much about whether he satisfied the prerequisites. It was a great
experience for him, and it's one that apparently helped him a great deal in
his mathematics research career.

Myself, I have invested a fair amount of time learning algebraic geometry,
which is a difficult area of mathematics, different from my specialty. The
results have been ambiguous -- I still don't know the field nearly as well as
I wish I did. In particular, I still have only a sketchy understanding of the
foundations. But, happily, I know enough to talk to algebraic geometers.
Indeed, I'm currently writing a paper with a colleague in the subject, which
involves both his specialty and mine -- it's not one that either of us could
have written on our own.

In any case, good luck and best wishes to you!

~~~
Simon_says
How does Halliday + Resnick compare to Young + Freedman?

~~~
zinclozenge
At that level, the textbooks are more or less the same. So neither is superior
than the other.

~~~
godelski
I found in my undergrad I used both. Sometimes one would explain a specific
topic better. Sometimes I just needed to hear the topic explained from a
different voice. With the number of old editions and online copies floating
around, I don't think it is bad to recommend both.

------
orbifold
There are a few themes that physics revolves around:

1\. Action Principle: A lot of problems in mechanics can be boiled down to
writing down the correct Lagrangian.

2\. Statistical physics, this teaches you about to think in terms of
"Zustandssummen" and is the starting point for deriving lots of interesting
laws like black body radiation.

3\. Field (Gauge) Theory, turns out you can write down and derive interesting
Lagrangians for Electrodynamics, Fluid Dynamics and General Relativity as
well.

3.1. Noethers Theorem and Symmetries allow you to get a unified view of
conserved quantities.

4\. Spinors, they are fundamental for understanding the quantum behaviour of
matter

5\. Path Integrals necessary to understand Feynman diagrams and Calculations
in Quantum Field Theory.

6\. Do the harmonic oscillator in as many different ways as possible, a lot of
physics can be understood by solving the harmonic oscillator or coupled
oscillators. Once you've understood why this is the case and the situations in
which it isn't true, you will have understood a lot of physics.

I would recommend a depth first instead of breadth first approach. Pick
something advanced that really interests you and work backwards what
prerequisites you need to understand it. There are parts of classical physics
that are super interesting but barely anyone learns about them anymore (I
skimmed through Sommerfeld's lectures on theoretical physics once, they
contain all kinds of super interesting problems with spinning billiard balls,
tops and so on, this was at a time when Quantum Mechanics was in its infancy).

~~~
peter_d_sherman
"A lot of problems in mechanics can be boiled down to writing down the correct
Lagrangian."

There's something that intuitively sounds very right about that...

This list seems very interesting...

I will have to explore all of these areas in greater detail... I'm not a
physicist by profession, but I find most of your list's topics fascinating...

------
stared
I self-studied physics when I was a high-school student. I read The Feynman
Lectures of Physics, and it was a great introduction (especially Vol 1 and 2;
Vol 3 gives interesting insights but I wouldn't treat is like a canon of
quantum physics). It is accessible online,
[https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/](https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/),
so go there and read chapter by chapter the pace you like. AFTER there are
plenty of ways to go, but for an overview, it is a masterpiece.

However, make sure you practice your skills. It is very easy to get the
impression that one understands something, yet not being able to solve a basic
exercise (no matter if it is programming or physics).

For an intro to quantum physics, I gathered some materials "Quantum mechanics
for high-school students": [https://p.migdal.pl/2016/08/15/quantum-mechanics-
for-high-sc...](https://p.migdal.pl/2016/08/15/quantum-mechanics-for-high-
school-students.html)

As you come from a programming background, I really encourage you to write
small simulations of some pieces. For problems, it is easy to find books with
problems for Olympiad preparation (I have a long list of them but in Polish).
Or something like: [https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/20832/is-
there-a...](https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/20832/is-there-a-
physics-puzzles-site-like-project-euler)

~~~
jhrmnn
Second this. Vol 1 was the most influential physics book at high school for
me. Though be prepared to go through it repeatedly. At least as a teenager
with still developing abstract thinking, I had to think things through over
and over again.

------
gjstein
I was a physicist for a time and I learned physics via numerical simulation: I
would find problems I could solve by hand and code them up---solving
integrals, derivatives, systems of equations all numerically and comparing the
results. Only a handful of physics problems have closed-form solutions, and
being able to turn an interesting problem into code and "play around with it"
was enormous fun for me and helped me build intuition as well. This advice
strongly depends on your mathematics background, but with some basic calculus
you can already start playing around.

~~~
kkaranth
This sounds interesting! Could you talk a bit more about what sources you used
to find problems and learn from that translated well to this approach?

~~~
op03
Math for Game Programmers - Jorge Rodriguez. There is a playlist on youtube.

Game programming is an underrated/underused tool to teach math, physics and
programming.

~~~
jmiskovic
Game engine implements only a tiny slice of physics science, and even that in
very distorted smoke-and-mirrors way in order to make it run in realtime. You
learn more about computational optimizations, numerical methods and linear
algebra, while physics is mostly elementary level. For example, all of optics
is stuffed into highly optimized and simplified rendering pipeline and
"physically based rendering" is anything but.

------
greattsclerouse
I'd recommend starting here: [https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/audio-video-
courses/#physics](https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/audio-video-courses/#physics)

In my experience these are some of the best online courses you can watch to
learn physics. Personally, I would look into the trying to watch the lectures
from Walter Lewin--Walter is a fantastic orator and has a really great mad-
scientist persona that is really captivating. Some additional archived
lectures can be found here:
[http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/34001](http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/34001)
and here: [https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/archived-physics-
courses...](https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/archived-physics-courses/)

I got my minor in physics from NYU many many moons ago (yes I'm getting old),
but I found that the MIT lectures and OCW materials went way beyond the NYU
coursework in both breadth and depth. I watched these lectures and worked
through the lecture notes & assignments for Physics I, II, III, Quantum I, II,
and several others in addition to digging into the Mathematics lectures /
content. I found this material to be the most helpful out there. I'll also
point out that I emailed the professors (Lewin, and others) and was pleased to
receive a warm and helpful response on several occasions. I hope these are as
helpful for your learning as they were for mine.

Once, you are able to complete the video lectures here, OCW has a massive
amount of content for some of the more advanced courses that aren't in video
format. In my experience, going through these video lectures and some of the
mathematics lectures should set you up well to be able to comprehend even the
most advanced content across field theory and string theory.

Cheers!

------
steerablesafe
Hi, I'm a physicist and former IPhO contestant from Hungary. Unfortunately
most of the books I could suggest are Hungarian, but there are some resources
in English for hard physics problems.

KoMaL [1] is a high school competition, students have one month to solve five
physics problems (they can solve more, but only the five best is counted each
month). Unfortunately older archives are only in Hungarian, but this is an
endless resource, you can come back for new problems each month.

Ortvay [2] is a yearly take-home, one week long problem solving competition
for University students. These problems are _very_ hard, so don't be
discouraged by not being able to solve them right away.

[3] and [4] are some of my favorite books with Physics problems from Hungarian
authors. The problems have varying difficulty, but they are clearly marked in
this regard. There are separate hints and full solutions.

[1]
[https://www.komal.hu/verseny/feladatok.e.shtml](https://www.komal.hu/verseny/feladatok.e.shtml)
[2] [https://ortvay.elte.hu/main.html](https://ortvay.elte.hu/main.html) [3]
[https://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/physics/gener...](https://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/physics/general-
and-classical-physics/200-puzzling-physics-problems-hints-and-
solutions?format=AR&isbn=9780521774802) [4]
[https://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/physics/gener...](https://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/physics/general-
and-classical-physics/200-more-puzzling-physics-problems-hints-and-
solutions?format=HB&isbn=9781107103856)

------
Areading314
Some tips:

* Don't get discouraged. Physics is hard!

* Work on problems, and don't let yourself look at the solutions too soon. Sometimes it takes a few _days_ of thinking to solve a problem.

* When reading through equations, go really slow. Make sure you fully understand each step and don't let yourself skim.

Edit: +1 for the guide you linked, it looks excellent.

------
longtermd
Read the Feynman Lectures
[https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/](https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/)

~~~
funklute
It's perhaps worth being aware that when Feynman initially gave his course at
Caltech, most of the students either did extremely well or completely bombed
the exam. The middle ground kinda disappeared. So if you read the Feynman
lectures and struggle to understand his perspective from the first few
chapters, it may be best to give up sooner than later (and move onto other
sources).

------
occamschainsaw
I second Feynman lectures! It is a delightful introduction to physics.
Susskind's theoretical minimum series is also a good starting point:
[http://theoreticalminimum.com/courses](http://theoreticalminimum.com/courses)

~~~
rex_lupi
The Feynman lextures are must if someone wants to develop intuitions in
physics. Volume 3 (quantum mechanics) is a bit difficult for new learners or
undergraduates, but I absolutely recommend reading vol.1 & 2.

------
Myrmornis
I've also been self-studying physics recently. Here are the books that I
settled on as providing a good introduction to classical mechanics:

Classical Mechanics - John R Taylor

Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics - Sussman & Wisdom
[https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/structure-and-
interpretation-...](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/structure-and-
interpretation-classical-mechanics-second-edition)

The Theoretical Minimum - Susskind
[https://theoreticalminimum.com/](https://theoreticalminimum.com/)

Introduction to Classical Mechanics - David J Morin

~~~
thatcherc
Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics is so cool - I highly
recommend it, especially to someone with a programming background. It's one of
the main reasons I switched from CS to physics in college.

------
knzhou
Back in the day I self-studied through MIT OCW, and found it remarkably
complete. It's better in quality than what you would get at almost all
universities, including MIT itself (!), because only the best lecturers tend
to get immortalized on OCW.

Going through the series 8.012, 8.022, 8.03, 8.033, 8.04, 8.044, 8.05, 8.06
will give you the core theoretical knowledge of a physics major. (I assume you
already know all the relevant math background.) If you prefer lecture notes, I
imagine the best thing is to go through David Tong's lecture notes [0] from
start to finish, as these cover almost the entire Cambridge undergraduate
curriculum very clearly. If you want textbooks, at least in America, the books
one uses for these courses are pretty standardized, and Fowler's blog post
lays out these standard choices. For more advanced books, I have a pretty
extensive bibliography in the front matter of my personal lecture notes [1].

0:
[http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/tong/teaching.html](http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/tong/teaching.html)
1: [https://knzhou.github.io/#lectures](https://knzhou.github.io/#lectures)

------
JabavuAdams
1) Richard Wolfson's _Essential University Physics_ is excellent! It doesn't
get lost in math, but also doesn't oversimplify. It's thinner than Halliday &
Resnick, e.g. I've read a lot of Classical Mechanics books, and this is my
favourite for a solid foundation for university-level physics. The first half
(volume) is Mechanics, and the second volume is on electricity and magnetism.

So, that's a typical first-year (two term) course in physics.

After that, do Purcell for Electricity & Magnetism

You'll often get advice, like "you need to learn XYZ math first". Don't listen
to this! Just learn the math as you go along -- it's much more efficient. The
have to learn X first puts up unnecessary roadblocks and chances to get
discouraged. You can always circle back for more elegant treatments once you
math up. E.g. learning 4-vectors makes special relativity a lot less ad-hoc
and weird seeming. It becomes obvious.

P.S. I was prototyping a subscription app to teach E&M, but started to think
of just teaching physics in general. Would you pay something like $15/mo to
have a adaptive-learning app/game/personal AL tutor to teach you first & 2nd
year physics?

~~~
Koshkin
> _Purcell for Electricity & Magnetism_

This once came out as part of Berkeley Physics Course [1] which I think would
be a great complement to Feynman's Lectures.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Physics_Course](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Physics_Course)

------
madhadron
It would help to know what background you have and what interests you/what you
hope to get out of it. Did you have basic physics in undergrad?

Foundation can mean a lot of things. It can mean having a really solid grasp
of how Newtonian mechanics is put together. It can mean having a solid grasp
of doing experimental physics on classical systems. It can mean having a
mathematical understanding of symplectic manifolds and quantization. It can
mean replacing your naive physical model of motion in your hind brain with a
learned, Newtonian model.

If you've never done any lab work, actually getting a stopwatch and conducting
experiments with balls rolling down inclined planes and the like can be...eye
opening.

You will need problems to work, otherwise anything you do is superficial. For
example, here's a collection of elementary physics problems:
[https://archive.org/details/BukhovtsevEtAlProblemsInElementa...](https://archive.org/details/BukhovtsevEtAlProblemsInElementaryPhysics/page/n23/mode/2up)
(The Russians were great about building this kind of collection.)

If you can give some more detail, it will help us direct you better.

------
mdturnerphys
You might try Feynman's Lectures on Physics. They're available free online [0]
or you can get a nicely bound boxed set.

[0]
[https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/](https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/)

------
ohiovr
Hyperphysics is nice if you haven't seen it: [http://hyperphysics.phy-
astr.gsu.edu/hbase/hframe.html](http://hyperphysics.phy-
astr.gsu.edu/hbase/hframe.html)

------
thebiglebrewski
I was interested in this too as someone who's worked in web apps the last 8-10
years and was super inspired by the SpaceX Falcon Heavy landing (science
fiction is now science fact!) I looked into graduate programs, especially
those online, and found the JHU Space Systems Engineering program. The
prerequisites for THAT program are a year of college Calculus and a year of
college Physics. I'm currently taking that, "year", which is really just
Physics I and II and Calculus I and II at Thomas Edison State University.
They've been doing distance learning for decades.

The courses aren't super cheap, they're around $2,000 each, but having
classmates, a mentor, deadlines, and a legit program to structure my learning
around has been so helpful. Not to mention that my grades are legit for pre-
reqs if I do want to go the full grad school route. I'm almost done with the I
level courses and started the II level courses 2/3 of the way through the I.

I think a lot of people on here might say my approach is kind of basic (I see
people recommending working differential equations or something to start), but
I've found it really enlightening to start from the very beginning and things
are starting to get challenging as I get into the second level, especially
with Calculus. Maybe if you just looked up Physics I and II and Calc I and II
curriculums, and got the textbooks (Conceptual Physics by Paul G Hewitt and
Calculus: Early Transcendentals by Robert Smith) you could do a lot of the
same exercises.

Hope that's helpful!

------
topaz0
I'm a current PhD student in physics. Here's a bit of an oddball idea, that
might be complementary. Read, sit with, and understand this paper:
[https://journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/10.1103/PhysRev.106.620](https://journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/10.1103/PhysRev.106.620)

I say this because \-- It motivates and sketches statistical mechanics, which
I expect is the most interesting topic to you given your specialty. \-- It
elegantly makes a point that I think is very important about physics: that
physics is _almost entirely_ mathematical. The remainder is just about
constraining the math to reflect the possibilities that seem to be actually
realizable in nature.

Of course there's a lot more to physics than is described here, and you'll
want to study the particular phenomena that emerge -- that's the whole point.
But I think that given your background, setting this perspective will allow
you to ask the right questions when you approach a new topic, and allow you to
go out of the normal order.

One more note about the nature of doing/understanding physics: a huge part of
it is taking the right limit. Reasonably complicated systems described in the
language of some theory are generally intractable to analyze exactly, or to
draw general conclusions from, so you need to throw something away to make
progress. Figuring out the right limit is the same as figuring out what
details you can throw away while preserving the core phenomenon you're
interested in.

------
brummm
I think the guide is ok, but I actually believe some of the things that are in
the graduate section should be in the undergraduate section.

One thing that is important: Everything starts with classical mechanics.
Newtownian phsyics is the base for everything and you will never advance
without knowing this really well. That said, in my undergrad mechanics class
in my first term as a physics student, we started out with classical Newtonian
mechanics and then quickly moved on to the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian
formulations of classical mechanics. I don't see why that should be something
reserved for graduate classes.

Further, since you're not a math or physics student, I assume you will quickly
reach the limits of your math education. Things that are required for properly
understanding the theoretical foundations even just mechanics are:

\- n-dimensional calculus (think Tensors, Gradients, divergences, Laplacians,
etc.)

\- complex numbers and functions

\- basic knowledge of differential equations and ways to solve them

\- things like Fourier transforms and things like Vector spaces, groups and
symmetries

\- basic statistics knowledge of course

\- linear algebra

Second, like some people have already mentioned: Just reading a book will not
teach you physics. Actually solving the problem in whatever resources you're
using will, though. They take much, much longer than just reading a book,
however.

------
buzzkillington
I have a bunch of letters before my name that have something to do with
physics and what you're asking is far to open.

If you want a general grounding have a look at Fundamentals of Physics any
addition and work through some of the problems.

You will need calculus, which CS doesn't use at all.

If you want something better:
[http://www.goodtheorist.science/](http://www.goodtheorist.science/) It will
take you 10 years or so.

------
iSpiderman
I discovered the post by Susan Fowler a few years ago and really liked it.

I studied physics (2001-2006) and teach physics (and math) at a high school
and am working through the list of proposed books (and others [1]) again, just
to stay up-to-date :)

Other ressources: brilliant.org, quanta magazine,youtube channels
(Veritasium/Vsauce/Physics Girl/PBS Spacetime...), ...

[1] e.g. Leonard Susskind's "The theoretical minimum" series.

------
Hasz
I would like to add one of my favorite mathematical "cookbooks" \--
"Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences" by Mary Boas.

Bad Integrals? Tensor Analysis? Fancy functions and special polynomials? PDE
tricks?

Boas has solutions!

Methods are practically explained and succinct. It's my favorite book to brush
up on a old technique or learn some new methods.

Wolfram's Mathworld is also a good reference, but not as much of a learning
tool.

~~~
dorchadas
This is the book we started to use in my Mathematical Methods in Physics
course. It was good, but the professor decided (rightly, in my opinion) to
focus more on working from linear algebra/differential equations textbooks so
I never went through it. Might pull it back out and do that.

------
8bitsrule
For a 'strong foundation', you'll want to look at a first-year textbook and
make sure your math skills are up to it. Use something with an eraser on it.

Old joke from Anonymous: "Theoretical physicists aren't very expensive -- they
only need a blackboard and an eraser. Compare that to a philosopher -- much
the same but without the eraser."

------
jgehrcke
The other comments are great! Great resources and points.

I think what is crucially important is to have someone to talk to. To engage
with another human being in a discussion, at every step of the learning curve.

I studied physics in Germany 2005-2010, an then did my PhD 2010-2015.

In hindsight, I must conclude that being forced to discuss things with other
people at every step was what taught me the most, was long-term the most
rewarding.

About my own level of understanding, about judging my abilities, about how to
actually solve problems.

Examples from my time studying:

\- discussion among two people: trying to grasp and crack the same exercise

\- discussion in the larger study group (5 people): when helping each other
out, having to admit not having understood a certain thing, and specifically
trying to address the "wait, I don't get this yet"s everyone has.

\- discussion in exercise class (20 people): presenting "your" solution in a
concise way, seeing other solutions, discussing caveats, pros, cons, elegance,
deficiencies

\- discussion in seminars: presenting "old" concepts to each other, discussing
them and their historical relevance

... and so on.

In hindsight these countless discussions in smaller and larger study groups
were _priceless_ towards understanding what physics is about. I mean it! After
all, physics is science, and in science you can only contribute in a
meaningful way when you understand the mental model of your fellow scientists
reasonably well, when you "speak the same language".

I understand that this might be in conflict with "self-studying physics". If
it is then it's important to be aware of it, possibly to try really hard to
compensate for it (to find someone to do this together with, maybe!).

------
brg
If you can find Walter Lewin's courses online, they can get you through the
first years of physics.

The main way to learn physics though, on your own or in a program, is by doing
problems and labs. You can start by doing the coursework you find for an
established class. Another is by working through problems in a text book. As
for labs, hacking together what you can is both valuable and rewarding. A few
examples are estimating absolute zero, measuring the coefficient of friction,
exploring momentum with ball bearings.

A few other things that I have found work for me. First, work towards a goal.
Whether that be to calculate the orbit of a planet, understand quantum
tunneling, or estimate a dynamic process. The second is to take the time
follow thoughts as far as you can, using the social communities and resources
available on the web (quora, reddit, etc).

------
kevstev
I see a lot of people recommending Halliday and Resnick, but I used Serway-
Physics for Scientists and Engineers in college and that textbook was one of
the best I felt I ever read. Its been quite some time since I was in college
though, maybe its fallen out of favor?

~~~
knzhou
No, Serway's totally fine! But Halliday, Resnick, and Krane was written for
honors freshman physics courses, so it's just kicked up a notch relative to
the other intro books.

------
macco
[https://openstax.org/details/books/college-physics-ap-
course...](https://openstax.org/details/books/college-physics-ap-courses)

Is a great starting point. There are also free online courses for that.

------
yummypaint
There are some general concepts that make frequent appearances, it's worth
looking out for them because they can help form connections between different
areas. Some examples: 1. the harmonic oscillator and associated quadratic
potential. 2. Wave-like phenomena and the wave equation. This comes up in all
kinds of mechanical and em systems, plus the schroedinger equation itself. 3.
Decomposition of functions into orthogonal sets of other functions, its not
just a mathematical trick, but a powerful way of reconceptualizing things. 4.
Approximations and expansions are everywhere. Always keep in mind what it is
youre solving for and look at its sensitivity to other properties of the
system.

------
Jun8
If you have the freshman/junior Halliday-Resnick stuff down I'd suggest
jumping right in. Susskind's Theoretical Minimum
([https://theoreticalminimum.com](https://theoreticalminimum.com)) is
excellent, he has a lot of videos online. I'm using the book version
([https://www.amazon.com/Theoretical-Minimum-Start-Doing-
Physi...](https://www.amazon.com/Theoretical-Minimum-Start-Doing-
Physics/dp/0465075681)) for self study.

------
atemerev
Mostly what other people have said here, I’ll recap:

— Solve exercises

— Learn the fundamentals (action principle, conservation laws, symmetries,
statistical physics)

— With that, work on generalized coordinates, Lagrangian and Hamiltonian
mechanics

— Brush up your calculus, vector calculus and linear algebra kung-fu

— Have a personal project to aim your efforts. For me, it was understanding
precisely how nuclear weapons work (so I have to run many geometrical and
hydrodynamic calculations). For you it might be something else.

— If you stuck with some textbook, grab another one, you will be able to
return later with the new knowledge. Physics is fractal.

Best of luck!

------
wwarner
MIT Open Courseware is the best I've found.
[https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/](https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/)

------
cameronperot
I have a list of resources [1] I found to be helpful when I was doing my
physics undergrad. I can highly recommend MIT's courses.

Learning physics can be tough at times if you're doing it alone as it's common
to get stuck on a hard problem and need to talk it through with someone else.
If you ever want to discuss any problems feel free to reach out to me (see the
contact page on my website).

[1] [https://cameronperot.com/resources/](https://cameronperot.com/resources/)

~~~
hsikka
This is amazing, thank you! I will most definitely take you up on your offer!

------
daxfohl
After decades of successful and unsuccessful self study, the thing I have
found for myself is that I have to have an end goal in mind of what I want to
do with the knowledge. Then it's usually pretty obvious how to work backwards
and figure out how to get there. I've been tremendously unsuccessful when
trying to learn just with the goal of learning. It's much harder then to
quantify what is good enough, and just end up with a very surface level
understanding even after putting in a lot of work.

------
billfruit
That is a good list. I also suggest looking into Newton's Principa, there is
so much cleaverness in that book.

I would suggest S Chandrashekhar's Principia For the Common Reader.

------
aplause
[http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/books.html](http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/books.html)

~~~
enriquto
This is an extremely good site (especially the physics part). I go back to
this page quite often, whenever I want to start learning something new.

------
kobiguru
Here is a guide by G. 't Hooft to learn physics.

[http://www.goodtheorist.science/](http://www.goodtheorist.science/)

~~~
phtrivier
Looks incredibly comprehensive. Has anyone done similar work for other topics
? (biology springs to mind as something I would have no idea where to start
from.)

~~~
adenadel
Something somewhat similar is How to Become a Pure Mathematician (or
Statistician)

[http://hbpms.blogspot.com/](http://hbpms.blogspot.com/)

------
Jugurtha
Gerard 't Hooft[0] has a dedicated website called "How to become a GOOD
Theoretical Physicist"[1]

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_'t_Hooft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_'t_Hooft)

[1]: [http://www.goodtheorist.science/](http://www.goodtheorist.science/)

------
FuckButtons
Start by brushing up on your math, there’s not much you can really get into
without first getting into the calculus of variations, which you probably
haven’t covered. From that you can get into Hamiltonian mechanics and from
there you can start to really grapple with quantum mechanics.

After dealing with the more technical side, you should read Paul Dirac’s book
“the principles of quantum mechanics”

------
beezle
The most difficult thing will be getting your math up to speed so you really
need to dual track the physics and math.

The Landau books are good but assume probably more math than typical college
text in mechanics, em, qm, etc.

Probably a bit down the road for you if following typical curriculums (perhaps
not others) the MIT 80X series by Zwiebach were good.

------
lonelappde
[http://www.goodtheorist.science/](http://www.goodtheorist.science/)

[http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~hooft101/theorist.html](http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~hooft101/theorist.html)

It take more than a few months to learn.

------
codebolt
I highly recommend Road to Reality by Roger Penrose. Takes you all the way
from classical through modern physics, and introduces all the necessary math.
Gives you a good overview of the territory, but you might want to supplement
with some extra literature/lectures to go more in-depth certain places.

~~~
madaxe_again
Roger Penrose

Kip Thorne

Michio Kaku

Douglas Hofstadter

Isaac Asimov (non-fiction/essays)

All have written numerous excellent books on various physics topics, and each
explains the concepts they wish to convey clearly, with as much or as little
mathematics as you like.

Before I went to university to read physics, I devoured their (and others)
popular science books, and had a pretty good understanding of the majority of
the material on my degree course before I started it - the degree filled in
the blanks, annealed the maths in my mind - but there’s little as good as a
book written by an expert on a topic to imbue knowledge.

~~~
pdonis
In general I think actual textbooks or course materials (the OP mentioned MIT
Open Courseware, which I think is a good set of course materials--full
disclosure: I'm an MIT alum) are better for learning physics, or any
scientific field, than pop science books, however high quality.

That said, if you are going to read pop science books, I don't think Michio
Kaku is a good choice. He is much too prone to treat way-out speculations as
though they were established physics.

------
james_niro
Get Young and Freedman- university Physics and start working on problems. You
can find help with those problems online. Make a study guide with timeline.
Make flash cards and learn the equations. Find exams online and take those
just like you were in school and have a friend grade it.

------
Fiveh2751
I dunno but I think I once came across a reddit post about a user who asked
how they can understand the bits and bites of electronics and they were
reffered to a book which I don't really know its title and its what I
currently looking for.

I need some help to remember this book.

~~~
PascLeRasc
It was probably "The Art of Electronics". It's a fantastic book and absolutely
worth buying.

------
tuckerpo
Find the source outline for an undergraduate physics program at a university
you like. Find equivalent offerings of those courses for free (YouTube, etc).
Watch a couple lectures per day, taking notes, doing the homeworks. 4-5 years
later, you're done. : ^ )

------
tmoot
Physicist here.

Since you probably have a good background in optimization, work through
problems in:

\- Taylor for Classical Mechanics or Goldstein (a bit more advanced) \-
Griffiths for E/M and Quantum.

For stat. mech. I find the chemists have more intuitive textbooks.

\- Introduction to Modern Statistical Mechanics by Chandler

------
peter303
The second time I learned physics or other subjects is through history science
and physicist biography books. This is not as efficient as physics textbooks,
but fleshes out the how and why many of these ideas came about.

------
mam2
You need to chose a subfield, find the classic academic books or moocs on them
until you reach a level that enables you to read research articles. Then you
read the research articles..

------
amelius
May I suggest Susskind's lectures:

[https://theoreticalminimum.com/courses](https://theoreticalminimum.com/courses)

------
blablabla123
Probably first you should get a rough idea what you want to learn. When I
studied Physics the standard track was Mathematics, Experimental Physics
(Mechanics, Electrodynamics), Theoretical Physics (Mechanics), and then other
topics, Wave Physics, Thermodynamics, Solid state Physics and Particle
Physics. Normally first the experimental course comes and then usually with
some delay the theoretical.

Still, you can decide if you want more Mathematics, more Theory or less.
(Probably the CS Maths should get you covered pretty well for the start) I'd
do a research on popular recommendations of books and then see which ones you
like and interest - the styles and contents are often so different. While
going through the books you can try to find nice YouTube videos and other
stuff.

Of course you get a deeper understanding when doing some exercises, although
this can be tough. I'd highly recommend finding a book that has a solution
section/solution book or maybe some online course that offers that. The
exercises for Experimental Physics are usually not long but can be surprising.
;) Also it might be surprising that depending on your interest a strong
foundation in Mathematics is not critical, although you'll still need to wrap
your head around the common math problems.

One motivating thing is that while you go through the topics (Mechanics,
Electrodynamics, Wave theory, QM, ...) the frameworks and approaches are
somewhat repetitive and just get more sophisticated over time.

TL;DR: pick a curriculum and combine it with your favorite material

------
thecleaner
Anyone knows of a good reference for numerical methods for quantum mechanics ?

------
utxaa
start with [http://www.brilliant.org](http://www.brilliant.org)

------
mdo123
Ummm, open a physics text book?

------
antognini
My personal recommendations for an undergraduate course in physics (based in
large part off of my own undergrad curriculum):

Foundations:

1\. Newtonian Mechanics by A.P. French
([https://archive.org/details/NewtonianMechanics/mode/2up](https://archive.org/details/NewtonianMechanics/mode/2up)).
This will give you a good foundation for what is to come.

2\. Spacetime Physics by Taylor & Wheeler --- first edition if you can find
it! It is much, much better than the second! Special relativity is
conceptually strange, but mathematically pretty easy, so you can jump right
into it after learning Newtonian mechanics. Have a little fun!

3\. Electricity & Magnetism by Purcell. This book is a little unusual in that
it _derives_ magnetism from the laws of special relativity. This is the more
natural approach than just asserting the laws of magnetism since magnetism is
fundamentally a relativistic phenomenon.

4\. Waves by Crawford.
([https://archive.org/details/Waves_371/mode/2up](https://archive.org/details/Waves_371/mode/2up))
A bit hard to find in print, but a really excellent textbook. Waves are a
fascinating topic because they come up in every area of physics, so a course
focused around them has a huge number of applications.

5\. Introduction to Quantum Mechanics by Griffiths. _The_ best introduction to
the topic you will find!

6\. Thermal Physics by Kittel & Kroemer. I haven't actually found an
introductory book on statistical physics that I'm crazy about, but this one
isn't too bad.

That should last you some time. But once you're through with those and are
looking for more, then here are some advanced topics:

7\. Analytical Mechanics by Hand & Finch. This will teach you advanced
Newtonian mechanics --- in particular Lagrangian and Hamiltonian dynamics.
There is a chapter on chaotic dynamics towards the end, too. Another option
here is Classical Mechanics by Goldstein.

8\. Introduction to Electrodynamics by Griffiths. More advanced E&M than
Purcell. If you want to go further, then there's always Classical
Electrodynamics by Jackson.

9\. Principles of Quantum Mechanics by Shankar. This spends more time on the
mathematical foundations of QM than Griffiths does and goes into the path
integral formalism and touches on relativistic QM towards the end of the book.

10\. A First Course in General Relativity by Schutz. There are arbitrarily
advanced texts on GR, but I'd recommend starting off with something friendly
like Schutz.

11\. An Introduction to Elementary Particles by Griffiths. Not super advanced
mathematically, but it's a good thing to read over to prepare you for more
advanced QFT texts. The first chapter is especially good as a history of the
development of particle physics.

12\. Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell by Zee.

13\. Modern Classical Physics by Thorne & Blandford. This is a tour de force.
It's an enormous book but it really touches on everything that is left out by
the above books. It covers optics, fluid dynamics, statistical physics, plasma
physics, and more. (I'm currently reading through it and have only gotten
through 6 chapters, but it's really an incredible textbook.)

14\. Statistical Mechanics: Entropy, Order Parameters, and Complexity by
Sethna. This is a really fun book, but almost all the material is in the
problems.

Finally, and most importantly --- remember that physics is not a spectator
sport! You _must_ do problems. A _lot_ of them --- and hard ones, too!

~~~
selimthegrim
I was going to say I thought I recognized these books! Just a note that the
first edition of Kittel (part of the Berkeley physics series too) is arguably
_better_ than K&K. The latter has one or two slightly more zeitgeisty
problems.

------
fyp
Your link is already a great resource, thanks for that! I didn't know Susan
Fowler was a physics major at UPenn.

The tl;dr; seems to be get "University Physics with Modern Physics" and go
from there?

------
weeboid
step 1. study math

------
lidHanteyk
Everybody recommending Feynman would do well to remember his attitude towards
women. Instead, here's a few hours of Susskind on general relativity [0],
string theory [1], and quantum mechanics [2].

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD9DDFBDC338226CA](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD9DDFBDC338226CA)

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA2FDCCBC7956448F](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA2FDCCBC7956448F)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA27CEA1B8B27EB67](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA27CEA1B8B27EB67)

~~~
fsloth
Please stop demanding dead people to be absolute saints and please cherish
their good qualities.

Most of the top scientists I can name were very failed humans in other ways.
If you demand absolute totalitarian compliance with modern ethical dogma you
will not find many people, I'm afraid.

Feynman was also obviously socially very insecure given his double jeopardy
background (blue collar parents and a jew). Rampant antisemitism was very much
a thing in Feynmans day. I think this affected his obvious need to pose as the
cool rebel and the alpha intellectual. But he was also ruthlessly honest. And
loved physics and _loved_ explaining things.

Please remember him for the things he loved. Not for his failures.

