(Part 3) Top products from r/AskPhysics

For math you're going to need to know calculus, differential equations (partial and ordinary), and linear algebra.

For calculus, you're going to start with learning about differentiating and limits and whatnot. Then you're going to learn about integrating and series. Series is going to seem a little useless at first, but make sure you don't just skim it, because it becomes very important for physics. Once you learn integration, and integration techniques, you're going to want to go learn multi-variable calculus and vector calculus. Personally, this was the hardest thing for me to learn and I still have problems with it.

While you're learning calculus you can do some lower level physics. I personally liked Halliday, Resnik, and Walker, but I've also heard Giancoli is good. These will give you the basic, idealized world physics understandings, and not too much calculus is involved. You will go through mechanics, electromagnetism, thermodynamics, and "modern physics". You're going to go through these subjects again, but don't skip this part of the process, as you will need the grounding for later.

So, now you have the first two years of a physics degree done, it's time for the big boy stuff (that is the thing that separates the physicists from the engineers). You could get a differential equations and linear algebra books, and I highly suggest you do, but you could skip that and learn it from a physics reference book. Boaz will teach you the linear and the diffe q's you will need to know, along with almost every other post-calculus class math concept you will need for physics. I've also heard that Arfken, Weber, and Harris is a good reference book, but I have personally never used it, and I dont' know if it teaches linear and diffe q's. These are pretty much must-haves though, as they go through things like fourier series and calculus of variations (and a lot of other techniques), which are extremely important to know for what is about to come to you in the next paragraph.

Now that you have a solid mathematical basis, you can get deeper into what you learned in Halliday, Resnik, and Walker, or Giancoli, or whatever you used to get you basis down. You're going to do mechanics, E&M, Thermodynamis/Statistical Analysis, and quantum mechanics again! (yippee). These books will go way deeper into theses subjects, and need a lot more rigorous math. They take that you already know the lower-division stuff for granted, so they don't really teach those all that much. They're tough, very tough. Obvioulsy there are other texts you can go to, but these are the one I am most familiar with.

A few notes. These are just the core classes, anybody going through a physics program will also do labs, research, programming, astro, chemistry, biology, engineering, advanced math, and/or a variety of different things to supplement their degree. There a very few physicists that I know who took the exact same route/class.

These books all have practice problems. Do them. You don't learn physics by reading, you learn by doing. You don't have to do every problem, but you should do a fair amount. This means the theory questions and the math heavy questions. Your theory means nothing without the math to back it up.

Lastly, physics is very demanding. In my experience, most physics students have to pretty much dedicate almost all their time to the craft. This is with instructors, ta's, and tutors helping us along the way. When I say all their time, I mean up until at least midnight (often later) studying/doing work. I commend you on wanting to self-teach yourself, but if you want to learn physics, get into a classroom at your local junior college and start there (I think you'll need a half year of calculus though before you can start doing physics). Some of the concepts are hard (very hard) to understand properly, and the internet stops being very useful very quickly. Having an expert to guide you helps a lot.

Good luck on your journey!

My understanding of music theory is rudimentary but that a huge chunk of it is expressed in terms of ratios/intervals. It tends to stay within the musical scale, but since you can directly map that to frequencies it's all ultimately frequency ratios.

I'm not sure how much music theory you could derive from the direction of physics however, as a lot of it seems to depend on what we perceive as harmonious or dissonant. Why we like certain specific ratios and whether that's determined by something fundamentally physical is a super interesting question imo. I hope someone else can reply and shed light.

If you'd like a book on acoustics, that covers the physics of how speakers/instruments rooms and perception interact, Dr Floyd Toole wrote a great one: https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Reproduction-Psychoacoustics-Loudspeakers-Engineering/dp/0240520092

What level E&M? If it is intro physics 2 then look for AP physics B/C stuff in addition to what you would normally look for since that's the same level.

If it is an upper division E&M class then I will recommend a book you can probably find in most of your professors offices somewhere: Div, Grad, Curl, and All That. Older editions are much cheaper even and archive.org has a PDf of the 3rd edition. I have no idea what the differences are, but I have the 4th and it is just great.

I have yet to find an E&M textbook I like. Griffiths is alright and when paired with Div, Grad, Curl and maybe a Schaum's outline on E&M it forms what I think should just be one textbook.

As for online resources I think The Mechanical Universe about Maxwell does a great job at covering Maxwell's laws, especially the bit starting around 15 minutes in

I've never used this site but it looks like it has a bunch of solved problems as well.

The website provides materials, but I often find the best way to learn is to do problems. You can try finding some on the internet, but the "safe" way is to start with textbooks.


My high school used Conceptual Physics and [University Physics] (http://www.amazon.com/University-Physics-Modern-MasteringPhysics-Package/dp/0321675460/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1371325629). Texts are REALLY expensive though, so the best option is to look up which university you're hoping to go to, and just buy whatever textbook they use for first year. At least that way you have a chance of not having to buy double.


University Physics requires at minimum precalculus, and would probably be much more understandable with some grasp of calculus, so if that is a problem, you should pick up calculus first. Or at least, understand calculus on a conceptual level.


A more economical way is to just use MIT OpenCourseWare. I don't have experience with this since I learn everything from my own university now but I heard it is really good. For example:

• Mechanics
  
• Electromagnetism
  
  If you manage to understand everything in those, you should be able to apply for AP on your own, drive there, and confidently ace it. Also, I tried really hard to find links with less textbook references, so you won't need to buy the textbook if you don't want to! But in the end, a good textbook is probably only second to paying attention in class, and sometimes better if you have a terrible lecturer. Also, the courseware links are rather difficult from a High School perspective, especially the one on Electromagnetism. In fact, for that one, you need a rather strong background in calculus.

Brian Cox writes some good books like this. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Why does E=MC2

But following the links of related titles will probably help you a lot.

The elegant universe is also a really good book... somebody else mentioned it, just want to say that I support that thought. :)

I'm not sure what you mean by a "field study". If you mean experiments, then yes, there are likely hundreds or thousands, as this is well-established theory that predicts numerous results in condensed matter physics; e.g. electronic properties of metals, superconductivity, superfluidity, etc.

This topic can be found in any of the standard texts on many-body physics, a subject also often referred to as condensed-matter quantum field theory. My favorites are "AGD" (i.e. the guys who invented this technique), Mahan, and Coleman (which is the most pedagogical of the three).

If you're looking for something to Google, you might want to try "finite temperature field theory" and "Matsubara formalism".

I'm not sure what your level is, but this is pretty technical stuff; I literally never heard of these concepts (other than randomly hearing the phrase "imaginary time") until taking a graduate course on many-body theory. I honestly don't know of any popular books that discuss finite temperature QFT in detail (not that I'm particularly well-versed in the popular literature, but it doesn't seem like the kind of thing that usually makes its way into the usual "multiverse/wormhole/strings/black holes" books). If you want to know more in detail, but don't know what a time evolution operator is, you'll need to learn basic nonrelativistic quantum mechanics; R. Shankar's book is a good way to learn about that, though Griffiths is a bit more accessible.

I've only skimmed through this book, but it seems to do a pretty nice job explaining the mathematical and physical basis of music/sounds.

https://www.amazon.com/Musimathics-Mathematical-Foundations-Music-Press/dp/0262516551/ref=asc_df_0262516551/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312128059570&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=5390734458225666237&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9001910&hvtargid=pla-457218252634&psc=1

Griffiths Electrodynamics would be a good thing to look at. It's surprisingly readable, and it could possibly wind up being your E&M textbook. In my undergrad, E&M was the "weed out" course, where those who weren't up to scratch lost interest in the physics degree, so it's good to get a head start. I wish I had started on it sooner. Maybe I'd have gotten more out of E&M as an undergrad and then Jackson in grad school wouldn't have been so hard.

The textbooks recommended in the intro Astronomy class here are An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics by Carroll & Ostlie and Foundations of Astrophysics. I've never read through either, but apparently the first one is much more detailed.

The older edition of Modern Astrophysics is significantly cheaper and will fit your purposes just as well: 1st Edition Carroll

So it's alright to have such a large number of monomers? I remember reading somewhere that the longest polymer chain is only around 1,000,000 units, is this wrong or am I remembering?

Also is this book good for someone with basic chemistry background?

https://www.amazon.com/Polymer-Physics-Chemistry-M-Rubinstein/dp/019852059X

My background is in a different field (mechanical engineering) so I never really dealt with chemistry topics like this (besides in general chemistry)

You should probably start by cracking open a copy of a good E&M book, like this one, and learning the science, rather than relying on Einstein quotations.

Of course, that assumes you've already learned integral and differential calculus (which any 19-year-old science or engineering student has).

Definitely echo the recommendation for "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid"

Would also recommend Roger Penrose, e.g. The Emperor's New Mind

and Hermann Weyl: "The objective world simply is, it does not happen. Only to the gaze of my consciousness, crawling upward along the life line of my body, does a section of this world come to life as a fleeting image in space which continuously changes in time."

and of course Henri Poincare's Science and Hypothesis is a classic.

Re screwing the cap down - to get a good pressure - yes I'd have said so.

Re the gauge something like this https://www.amazon.com/Yellow-Jacket-69044-Vacuum-Gauge/dp/B003AK8LG2

Walter Smith's Waves and Oscillations: An prelude to quantum mechanics is ideal if you are looking for something at the undergraduate level.

Schaum's Outlines!


I checked out the physical copy at my Uni library in addition to using their (free) digital access to the pdf.
I got an A in the course using this for problems, I highly recommend it (also available for many other subjects, too!)

edit: formatting

This book helped me to understand the whys of calculus not just the hows.

http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Made-Easy-Silvanus-Thompson/dp/0312185480/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1398376498&sr=8-8&keywords=calculus

Well I already have the TI-84 I mentioned, which is not CAS capable. If necessary, I can fall back on that.

Just to be certain, you are referring to this bad boy, right?

> https://www.amazon.com/Yellow-Jacket-69044-Vacuum-Gauge/dp/B003AK8LG2

That gauge isn't going to do anything for me. I already have that gauge, it stops being useful because I'm at 3 torr, and that gauge has a minimal step resolution of 10 torr.

My BMP183 can read down to 300 pascal (2.25 torr) which is where I'm at. The leak gives me final pressure of 1000 pascal (~7 torr). Both of those are solidly in the lowest pressure (the black bar on the gauge).