
How to Study Physics (1949) - jemo
https://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/chapman.htm
======
empath75
[http://theoreticalminimum.com/courses](http://theoreticalminimum.com/courses)

If you really want to study physics, and you don't want to get a degree, this
is about as good as it gets.

~~~
madhadron
Or you could go tackle the Landau & Lifshitz texts for the original
theoretical minimum.

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konschubert
EDIT: After finally reading the text, I realized that my little rant below has
little to do with the topic.

\----------------------------------------------------

The first thing I learned in my Physics undergraduate studies was Maths.
Calculus. Scalar fields and vector fields, their derivatives and integrals,
and differential equations of all kinds and flavours. Non-cartesian coordinate
systems, transformations between them, fourier transformations. And a nice
toolbox for beating the not-so friendly integrals.

Even for classical mechanics, that's the foundation.

If you want to talk about Quantum Physics you also need linear algebra, in
particular Hilbert spaces and operators. And distributions.

If you don't understand the Maths, you are left with talking about
interpretations. Especially in Quantum Physics, that means you are left with
basically nothing.

Without Maths, you are not doing Physics. You are doing Metaphysics.

~~~
byproxy
I almost feel that math ought to be learned through physics. At least, I
remember my physics instructor explaining math concepts in a mich more terse
and understandable way than my math professors.

~~~
jeffwass
I have a PhD in physics, and this is exactly how I learned the material. I
mean, really learned it. I did fine in plain math classes, but never quite
connected with the material.

Calculus and linear algebra both really only 'clicked' when applying them in
my physics classes.

Physics is like the "word problems" we'd have in elementary sho, but for
advanced math.

~~~
j9461701
With no offense intended to mathematicians, a lot of the higher level material
in my pure math courses tends to be of the "How many angels can dance on the
head of a pin?" type. Debating the finer points of details that are mostly
irrelevant minutia, yet which are given just as much text space as serious
results that actually do things.

Physics' real-world origin prevents a lot of that sort of thing, and places
emphasis on a practicality I find deeply appealing. Cauchy-Riemann equations
are important, here's where they come from, here's what they do, bam done.

~~~
nsomaru
Although, there have been many cases where results from Pure Mathematics have
found to elegantly describe phenomena in Physics, often years after the
initial result which might have been regarded as the equivalent of "angels
dancing on a pinhead" by physicists of the time.

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denzil_correa
The "Feynman Lectures on Physics" are a great resource.

[http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu](http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu)

~~~
huntie
Can anyone who's read the Feynman Lectures comment on how good they are? I
started reading them, but after a few chapters I didn't feel that I was
actually learning physics. I get the feeling that the Feynman Lectures are
like Knuth's Art of Computer Programming: few people have read it, but it's
widely known as being amazing. I'd be interested in hearing if this is
correct.

~~~
CamperBob2
The material in the Feynman lectures is deceptively deep. When he originally
gave the lectures at Caltech, they were not all that well received. They were
aimed at undergraduates, but the undergraduates -- some of the brightest in
the country -- would end up stumbling out of the lecture hall looking like
they'd been hit by a bus.

On the other hand, the lectures were quite popular among grad students and
faculty members, if that tells you anything.

~~~
abecedarius
This stumbling out of the hall sounds like folklore. There are contradictory
claims about how well the students took the lectures. (I attended Feynman's
last lecture for Caltech freshmen, in the 80s -- a reprise of the volume 1
lecture on general relativity -- and saw nobody reacting like that. Admittedly
we weren't going to get tested on it.)

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JadeNB
> Physicists and physics students are referred to as 'he' not out of sexist
> motivation, but is a reflection of the plain fact that at that period of
> history almost all physicists and physics majors were male.

If all the students in my class but one are male, and I say "if any student in
my class wants to pass, then he should come to office hours", then it seems to
me that I am being sexist. In fact, I'd go so far as to guess that sexist
language about a group is more, not less, harmful when there are fewer women
in the group.

I don't think sexism in '50's-era work means that it should be shunned or
ignored, but this kind of apologia seems both unnecessary and unjustified.
(Why not just "I have not edited the pronouns in the original"?)

~~~
Jun8
The interesting thing is that in languages with more explicit gender marking
than English, and with no less claim to feminism than the US, this does not
seem to be an issue. For example, in French, to use your example, if there
were 50 female students and one male student in the class you would still
refer to them using the _male_ plural pronoun
([http://www.cafebabel.co.uk/society/article/sexist-grammar-
th...](http://www.cafebabel.co.uk/society/article/sexist-grammar-the-french-
and-german-cases.html)).

~~~
sulam
I don't speak French, and am curious about this example.

If you have 50 women in a room, do you use the female plural pronoun?

In other words, are you saying that all it takes is one man in the room to
make it male plural? Honestly (and I'm no gender theorist) this seems fairly
sexist too. It's essentially saying psychologically that the man in the room
takes precedence over any number of women.

~~~
feborges
Yes, in Portuguese (my native language) it is the same.

For instance, "amigos" means "friends" with at least one male (the example of
50 women in a room and 1 man). "amigas" would be "friends" with only
women/females.

There is in Brazilian Portuguese (probably in other pt speaking countries as
well) a movement of people pushing for the usage of letter-tokens to turn
gender-specific words into gender-neutral. In this case, they would use
"amigxs" or "amig@s".

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adenadel
This might be another useful resource for someone interested in learning
physics

[http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~gadda001/goodtheorist/index....](http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~gadda001/goodtheorist/index.html)

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nsomaru
> As a check on his aptitude, a serious-minded student will take courses in
> several different departments to find out in what field he can do the best
> work. This is quite distinct from finding out where he can get the best
> grades...

edit: wording

Interesting, "[...] in what field he can do the best work" is given as the
prime criterion, and not "in what field he can earn the most money" which is
given a lot of value today.

Arguably, doing the "best work" leads to financial reward, but focus on the
latter inevitably sabotages the former. What a strange paradox!

