
The free physics textbook - zkz
http://www.motionmountain.net/
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Tichy
Flipping through it the book seems a bit lacking in substance? It is more like
a picture book or encyclopedia, like "look, there all sorts of strange
phenomena in physics", without being very helpful for understanding. For
example, the chapter "classical mechanics" is a mere 16 pages, and contains
sections like "free will".

If I find the time to read 1600 pages of a physics book, I think I'll rather
approach the Feynman Lectures again. On the other hand, they also seem quite
verbose at times - maybe some better physics book can be suggested?

Edit: the Feynman lectures are great, of course, a great joy to read. But they
are a _lot_ of text, too.

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slackenerny
This is a self-study book, the crux of it is that text is interweaved with
hundreds of qualitative problems. I know of no other modern conceptual physics
book I could recommend for interested 14 year old.

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Tichy
I don't know, it just seems more like a management summary than a real
textbook. Maybe that is just the thing to tip a teen's interest, but I remain
skeptic.

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carterschonwald
Question for all here, if one has a strong pure math / CS background, whats a
good collection of texts for building up to a solid understanding of modern
theoretical physics?

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Maro
If you have a 'strong pure math background', chances are you won't like
theoretical physics. Physics is all about positive thinking, results and
moving forward. As a result the 'theories' aren't theories in the mathematical
sense, to a mathematician they're just a bunch of equations thrown together.
(My point is, once something 'works', physicists aren't interested in making
it mathematically rigorous.) There are no definitions, clearly stated theorems
and proofs, instead we have 'physical insight'. They always say the language
of physics is mathematics. My take is that physics borrows the syntax of
mathematics, but not the semantics. That may not be an exact statement, but
hey, I'm a physicist myself =)

You will never ever be able to have a 'solid understanding' of modern
theoretical physics in the sense you have a solid understanding of complex
analysis, noone does. (A notable exception is Relativity.)

Nevertheless, some books. Feynman lectures on physics (3 volumes): to learn
the 'physical insight' part. Really really good. Landau (many volumes): I
personally don't like Landau, but it's pretty standard and comprehensive.

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kunqiana
Has anyone read the structure and interpretation of classical mechanics? Is it
good? It's free as well. I only studied first year physics. Sharing any
experience reading that would be appreciated. :)

