Tangentially related request: I’m frequently very impressed with how many HN users seem to have a pretty solid grasp of physics (or maybe the right term is quantum mechanics?) and I’d love to be able to follow along but my science education more or else ended with high school. Could anyone recommend a good resource for someone with zero knowledge of this space to get very basic foundation?
It's not easy and you'd need to find problems to work, but http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu is one source some people swear by. Others say it's too hard for a beginner text. I think both have a point, but it's free to see for yourself.
It's about gravity, not quantum field theory, but it's still very sound, very intuitive and explains the principles of the LIGO gravity wave detector. Also contains a bit of speculation about the culture and psychology of scientific creativity which I thought was great.
If you find a similar book on quantum phenomena, please post it!
Understanding Physics by Isaac Asimov is a great book that discusses Newtonian mechanics, thermodynamics, electromagnetism, and atomic physics. It presents it by discussing the history of the discoveries and experiments that advanced our understanding of the physics. The book is from 1966, so there have been numerous advances since, but it does go into a lot of detail of subatomic particles and radioactive decay. It is written to be understood by lay people and doesn't go very deep into the mathematics, which helps make it easier to understand.
The more I read about quantum mechanics the less i understand, and I'm absolutely unable to get into a proper learning path because it requires mathematics beyond my level and for which I'm not able to develop a taste on my own.
Of course I'm not interested in doing calculations but to appreciate quantum physics you have to know what the formalism behind are about and physicists are unable to explain it in simple terms for reasons I think I make out but can't properly formulate.
As an alternative path, Quantum Models of Cognition and Decision [1], may offer a less steep learning curve for the fact "you are the quantum system" and as such get to have actual experience with phenomena discussed in this book. To clear up the new-age vibe introduced in the last sentence, I think studying the maths through a phenomenon whose ambiguity is not questioned as a metaphysical abyss but is accepted as just being here in its mundane simplicity (semantic ambiguity in daily language use, that kind of thing) alleviates a lot of trouble in grasping what the maths mean in a physics course. Also the book is written for people coming from the fields related to psychology so it's a lot more approachable.
The math behind Quantum Mechanics is surprisingly simple, mostly just the linear algebra you learned in High School with some fun Greek symbols thrown in. (I'm convinced mathematicians just can't help themselves with tossing in more Greek letters just so the papers look more impressive)
In any event check out "The Mathematics of Quantum Mechanics" by Martin Laforest [1]. Free PDF online, totally readable and easy to follow with typical High School math background.
From that link: “But what about when we want to describe physical quantities that have continuous values, such as the position of a particle along a line? In this case, we need a vector space of infinite and continuous dimension. Turns out that it’s possible to define a Hilbert space on the set of continuous functions, e.g., f (x) = x3 + 2x + 1. This is referred to as “wave mechanics” and we won’t cover it in this book.”
I just finished "Now: The Physics of Time" by Robert Muller. I have mixed feelings about the book, especially the chapters devoted to the author's interpretation of philosophy. I did enjoy hearing a history/overview of modern physics from someone in the field though, and it was a very approachable book. He was very clear about the open questions in quantum mechanics instead of hand-waving them away, which I appreciated.
I'm sure other books like Stephen Hawking's "A Brief history of Time" would be a good starting place too, but I can't speak to that one personally yet.
I wrote a comment one level above where I recommended "Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution: The Search for What Lies Beyond the Quantum" by Lee Smolin, and I thought I'd toss that in the ring here.
MIT OCW used to host their undergrad introduction to Physics lectures by Prof Walter Lewin which are pretty great. It was pulled down in 2014 but you'd definitely be able to find copies on Youtube.
