Self-Teaching Physics and Calculus?

[Doppler]

Hello scienceforums.net,

This is my first time posting on this website, for I have only discovered it today.

I am 16 years old, and I wish to teach myself Physics and understand the basic principles, along with more complex theories and such in the near future. Due to the fact that my school doesn't teach Physics until senior year, and that I want to be ahead of the game because I'm genuinely fascinated by science, I've ordered a "Holt Physics" textbook. I plan on reading and studying out of it, but because I'm completely new to studying Physics, I don't know which actual topics will be paramount to learn if I wish to delve into the deeper areas of Physics such as Quantum Mechanics and String Theory. I understand that I have to learn Calculus, but I don't know how I'll be able to learn that on my own. Any ideas to where I can start hopefully learning Calculus with ease? I'm pretty sure I could handle it if given the right tools to excel.

 

To summarize, I would love it if you guys helped me by enumerating any helpful formulas, topics, books, websites, etc. to aid me in getting a head-start on Physics and Calculus(I know this isn't a Calculus forum but I decided to add it in there because I presume Physics and Calculus go hand-and-hand)

 

Thanks!

[SpeedFreek]

Hi, and welcome!

 

I can't think of a better place to start than here:

 

How to become a good theoretical physicist - Gerard 't Hooft

[Schrödinger's hat]

Also:

http://www.khanacademy.org/

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/hframe.html

[Steve Hulowski]

Hey there, and welcome to the site. This is actually my first post as well.

 

You sound very like how I was back in high school (I'm 28 now). I was absolutely fascinated by science, and would read books on advanced topics like Relativity and Quantum Mechanics all the time. Most of these books were written for "the lamend", but it got to the point where that just wasn't enough for me. I wanted a deep, comprehensive understanding of some of these subjects, so I embarked on a quest to self teach myself physics. This quest lasted about five minutes. I signed out some textbooks to study over the summer (college level), and was immediately overwhelmed and frustrated by my inability to quickly make sense of the complexity of the equations that lay in front of me. This caused me to loose some of my motivation and interest in science altogether - for some time. In hindsight, I wish I had just continued to read "general overview" type books and allowing the finer details to be filled in as I progressed through my studies at school.

 

It's nearly impossible to attain a deep understanding of the intricies of Calculus without having the foundational Algebra skills you learn in your senior year of High School first. That doesn't mean you can't read about and understand Calculus in concept. The same applies to Relativity, String Theory, Quantum Mechanics, ect. You won't be able to understand the advanced math in these subjects until you've mastered Calculus, but you can still learn about them in concept. Having that general concept of a subject layed out in your mind gives you an excellent framework in which to understand those finer details when you do learn them. The details also become easier to remember in the long term because you'll have been able to put it all into greater context. Afterall, our memories work by associating new things we learn to things we already know.

 

 

So if you want to get "ahead of the game", I would recommend that you keep learning everything you can about the subjects that interest you, but focus on your higher level of understanding for the time being. Leave the details for later. If your goal is to be able to solve Calculus equations before your senior year, you should work adhead through the math curriculum on your own, but do it in sequence. Once you have that foundational framework of Algebra to build upon, you'll be a position to learn Calculus "with ease". If you set your sights too high intially, you could risk feeling deflated and suffer from a total loss of motivation and interest like I did. Of course, I'm back to loving physics and science again! Just make sure that you're enjoying what you're doing.

 

 

Good Luck!

[Guest Brian Nyagol]

Hi Doppler...you are very welcome to the forum. Just like Steve has observed, you can do anything u wanna do provided you have the morale to do it and really wanna know what it entails. Good luck in your exploration and live to discover more.....@STEVE..i am really impressed by your comment and I have actually learnt a lot..I too was a physics and science enthusiast from my childhood and i really wanted to be an engineer in the future. I tried and worked hard to this dream. I am in my mid First year at the university studying Electronic engineering and I hope to leave here a better man and a full grown engineer. With this anticipation and the excitation i got from science forums, I created my own blog to talk about science recently and I have some information posted in it. I am really loving my scientific exploration. I wish you a good evening and thanks for your encouraging and eye opening comment.