Posted on 07/10/2008 6:51:50 PM PDT by free me
My wife just took up an interest in physics. What would be a good book for her to start with?
I've never posted a vanity thread before, but I'm sure there is no better people to ask than my fine freeper friends.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!!
Well, we could rephrase the question. What if the car was traveling at .75c and the fly had a wrist watch? LOL
physics is the study of?
hmmmm, The Mrs. is a telecommunications professional. Perhaps Newtonian is the way to start,
I’ll be showing her this thread tommorow,we’ll see what happens.
Thanks for the input!
I am a college student studying physics and mathematics.
I am not going to recommend a book, but instead some very excellent videos.
One of the best physics “teaching” professors in the world was featured in the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/19/education/19physics.html
His video lectures are available for free from the MIT here:
Physics I:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Physics/8-01Physics-IFall1999/VideoLectures/index.htm
Physics II:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Physics/8-02Electricity-and-MagnetismSpring2002/VideoAndCaptions/index.htm
These lectures are the first year of college physics. The demonstrations in these videos are very entertaining as well. Good luck!
Now now, we all know what Physics is.
I recall a pretty good physics book that was gentle on the math side called “Physics for the Life Sciences” by Alan Cromer. As the name implies, it was written for someone with a biomedical interest, but who doesn’t need the heavy math going into the calculus, differential equations, and such. It should be out of print by now, but you might be able to pick it up used.
The Tao of Physics.
The Matter Myth
Super Strings and the Theory of Everything
A Brief History of Time
Cosmos
Everything inside the car, including the air molecules, are all traveling at 75mph.
The air, and the insect, are not even aware that they are moving as they are not experiencing any friction with the road or the outside air.
On the other hand, the car tires and windshield are experiencing considerable friction with the unmoving roadway and outside air.
The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene.
In Search of Schrödinger’s Cat by John Gribbon.
I flunked out of a computer repair class in the 80’s,darn zenor diods.
It's more his style than the difficulty. Also relativity theory is one of the last topics an aspiring physicist should study.
You haven't indicated your wife's level of education, nor did you say much about her personality. Is she obsessive or is this a passing whim?
If she knows high school physics and passed a course in calculus, a good college textbook (Resnick and Haliday is excellent) is the *perfect* place to start.
If she's a little less sophisticated, pick up a high school textbook.
She might benefit from reading periodicals, like The Physics Teacher which is aimed at high school physics teachers. The articles are stimulating, relatively (that word again!) straightforward, and a beginner can usually follow the gist. The important thing is to maintain one's interest.
The Light and Matter series of introductory physics textbooks is designed for the type of one-year survey course taken by biology majors and they are FREE to download. The books aavailable are:
Newtonian Physics
Conservation Laws
Vibrations and Waves
Electricity and Magnetism
Optics
The Modern Revolution in Physics
Simple Nature - engineering physics
Conceptual Physics
Calculus
Would that be a digital or analog wrist watch? : )
I would start with Richard Feyneman’s 6 Easy Pieces...
He also has other books.
If your wife wants to approach physics in the way that a post-secondary student would learn it, I would agree with the previous recommendations of Feynman's lectures: Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics Explained by Its Most Brilliant Teacher, ONLY if she is comfortable with math. Feynman's treatment is accessible, but NOT skimpy.
Something in between those two starting points would be to look at a book like Kuhn's Basic Physics: A Self-Teaching Guide, which is available fairly cheap (around $12). This flavor of book is written for learning physics (a broad selection of topics) with the minimal amount of math necessary. SOME modern general freshman physics texts are also worthwhile looking at, but here I would go with whatever you can find at the library - new course texts will set you back $150 to $200 typically. The drawback to this sort of textbook route is that the material may not be captivating enough to hold someone's attention - it is the "crawl before you can walk" stuff.
Yes,thanks,now I have to figure out what Physics is.
I agree, I have this book and it is easy to follow for those not being forced to read a textbook.
It’s a little off subject, but in his excellent (and funny) book “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!” he talks about idealistically getting involved the the textbook acquisition process for the local school system where he lived.
He said he wanted to review each book, and they looked at him like he had three heads, but sent him a huge crate of physics books, which he then laboriously marked up and categorized...all of them.
As I recall, when he tried to give his opinions, it turned out the choice had already been made, and none of the evaluators had even looked at the books at all...
Hehe, he was unaware there was a textbook racket...he was a major lib, but boy, was he funny!
phys•ics – noun (used with a singular verb) the science that deals with matter, energy, motion, and force.
Physics is the science of matter and its motion, as well as space and time. It uses concepts such as energy, force, mass, and charge. Physics is an experimental science, creating theories that are tested against observations. Broadly, it is the general scientific analysis of nature, with a goal of understanding how the universe behaves.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.