Ask HN: How to self-study physics?

Re:Ask HN: How to self-study physics? by mindcrime on Thursday March 26, 2020 @03:20PM (#22696916)

Let's imagine physics=boxing. No amount of reading boxing books, or watching boxing videos is going to teach you any boxing. To learn boxing you have to throw 10,000 punches. To learn physics, you need to solve 1000s of questions.

I'm not sure that this is a very good analogy. You can buy a heavy bag, and go out in your garage and throw 10000 punches - with no instruction - and still not know how to throw a proper punch. OTOH, you can watch a few videos, learn some technique, and then go refine it by throwing the 10000 punches in the gym, and be a lot better off. Of course, it still won't be as good as hands-on training from a proper trainer, but my point is that you need both in the boxing case.

For physics... eh, I dunno. My original plan for college was to major in physics, and then I discovered computers, and physics went (mostly) out the door and in the rear-view mirror.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: How to self-study physics? by abdullahkhalids on Thursday March 26, 2020 @04:58PM (#22697923)

> learn some technique,

Exactly. Feynman lectures tell you what the laws are, and why they make intuitive sense. They don't tell you how to apply the laws to a wide variety of scenarios, even those not discussed in the book. Physics textbooks like Haliday & Resnick do exactly this; briefly state the law and then teach you how to apply the law.

But merely reading those textbooks won't help you either. You still have to turn to the exercises and solve a bunch of questions correctly to actually learn.

[ Parent | on HN ]