Physics: where to start?

Hi /sci/,

I'm a math nerd but of late have become exasperated with how little my field seems to apply to reality.  Plus what I've seen and heard about theoretical physics (NOVA specials lol) is interesting as fuck.

My background is limited: 2 semesters of shitty "general physics" (collegiate plug and chug) and I've read Einstein's "Relativity: The Special & General Theory". 

So my question is, where do I start?  Are there any good, comprehensive sources for actually learning physics?  Any books suitable for self-study (if this is even possible) but still hard science?  I want to learn more about a lot of this stuff - QM, E&M, astrophysics, classical mechanics - but I don't want a Stephen Hawking-esque "Oh lol I understand physics" feeling, I want to understand the motivation for the theory and how and why the experimental data supports it.  I feel like an emphasis on the math would be helpful for me, too.

So yeah, if anyone can help a brother out, I'd appreciate it.  Thanks in advance.

Not sure, I wanted to learn more physics too. Pretty much in the same position as you. I'm just going all around the board on electrodynamics, thermodynamics, mechanics, I even got Newton's Principia to get a historic and philosophic feel for it.

>>1
Start with a general Physics text (Calculus based, natch!).  It's as good as any.  If you're past your collegiate semesters in it, it's still a good idea to get such a book again and then familiarize yourself with the basics of what the mainstreamers claim is "Physics".

Once you are solid on those basics, get this book:

"Music, Physics and Engineering" by Harry Olson

In this fantastic book, Olson draws the correct correlations between electrical, mechanical and musical "circuits".  They all resonate and radiate.  They are all described by the SAME formulae in Physics.  That realization after the stark demonstration will help you sense much more strongly how Physics is universal and useful.

I'm sure a few engineering books would help that process along.  I found ancient engineering efforts fascinating myself, as well as the history of measurement (where did we come up with all those units of measure?), so I read quite a bit in those directions.

Once you get a sense of putting all Physics together into a more cohesive whole, then you're ready for the Grand Master, Feynman.  Get his "Lectures on Physics", and things like "The Nature of Physical Law".  They Lectures are a pricey set of books, but well worth it if you want to be a truly knowledgeable practitioner of the physical art of natural philosophy.

>>3
True, I actually started reading engineering texts before I got into physics. Grasping dependencies of matter upon one another in a material form gets you to thinking about forces and reactions. (not op)

>>1
What's your math background? May seem redundant, but pure and applied math majors can have totally different areas of knowledge.
 
Agreed with the review of basic physics though. Then, if your interests are as outlined, you should grab a modern physics text and/or a sophomore/junior level mechanics or E&M book from the library or something. If you're really interested in the experimental side, see if you can find some lab manuals or something. You probably won't be able to do the experiments on your own, but whatever.

>>5
Math:  Stopped just before real analysis.

Doing experiments on your own should actually be fairly illustrative of science itself.  You'd have to successfully construct experimental apparatuses and do so without introducing wild sources of error.  That sort of challenge can beat skills right into you.

OP here, thanks for all of your suggestions so far.

>>5 My math background: 4 semesters of calc (multivariable and ODEs), 2 of real analysis (up to differentials & integration in Rn, a little measure theory), a taste of complex analysis, some algebra (abstract & linear, up to JC form and spectral mappings), probability (some combinatorics; independent RVs, up to central limit thm), logic, set theory, and topology.  This is all undergrad, but I'll be taking graduate real analysis & algebra this fall.

Something I certainly wouldn't mind starting with (after a review of basics, of course) is QM; I've heard that the book by Griffiths is a classic but honestly don't know if I'm ready to just jump in.

>>3 Would Young & Freeman's "University Physics" be such a text?  Part of my problem is not knowing which basic physics texts have broad coverage without needlessly abstaining from using calculus and thus descending into bullshit.

>>7
Yeah, you're probably good for math for now. If you want to try Griffiths now, you can probably handle it, but you might want to brush up on PDEs/separation of variables first. There isn't too much on experiments in there though.

ETHEREAL

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If you want basic calculus-based stuff, I hear the book by Gasiorowicz is quite good.  For modern physics, I'm not sure which is the best but I used the book by Tipler.  These books will have a lot simpler math (though still at least calculus) than upper-division texts like Griffiths, but they will introduce concepts from a more experimental point of view, which you seem to want.

If you want to learn real physics, though, the books are generally written by theorists and don't contain much about experiments.  I would recommend Taylor's Classical Mechanics, Griffiths for E&M, and Shankar for Quantum.  The other fundamental subject you need is Statistical Mechanics, but I haven't taken that yet so I don't know what book to use (though, if you don't mind looking at a grad-level text, check out Pathria).

If you're into particle physics, Perkins wrote a book that talks a lot about experiment (since he's an experimentalist). You need the quantum background, though, especially Fermi's Golden Rule.  There's also a (supposedly better) particle book by Griffiths which has more theory.

If you have a little exposure to quantum mechanics and want to learn what it's really about (i.e., past all the phenomenology and approximations), there's a book on foundations of quantum mechanics by Asher Peres called "Quantum Theory: Concepts and Methods".  I was thinking of going into quantum information theory so this book was highly recommended to me.  I went ahead and bought it, and while I haven't really read it yet, I plan to read it and work through the problems over the coming summer.  The math isn't too intensive (linear algebra) but the physics is extremely profound.

Finally, about the math...You've probably had vector calculus, but just want to make sure since it's essential for E&M.  PDEs are equally important to understand before you get into the Schroedinger Equation (they don't come up as much in classical physics, except maybe the wave equation).  Complex analysis is also useful and comes up in random places.  That's really all you need at the undergrad level (that you don't already have, as far as I can tell).  Lie groups become important at the grad level, and you definitely need differential geometry for general relativity, but this is all generally taught in the relevant physics classes.  Of course, the higher you go (at least in fields like string theory), the more advanced math you'll run into.

>>10
Thanks VERY much for posting.  As of now I have pdfs of many of the books you mentioned.  So I think I've got enough reading to last me at least 4 years, lol.

>>10
This guy has good suggestions. Gasiorowicz is excellent for quantum mechanics and operator work.
Optics - Hecht, that'll give you all the aperture functions you need.
Blini and Blini have a good book on E&M.
Just look through some university course reading lists.

Bumping because I am in a similar position to OP, but I need to brush up on math in general first. 

Has anyone ever gone through any of Gravitation, co-authored by Kip Thorne?  Is it dated, or still useful in parts?

>>12
>>10 here.  Funny thing, I actually own Gasiorowicz QM and Hecht Optics as well.  The problem with Gasiorowicz is that it's too small, so you have to go online for a low of the stuff.  I thought the book was OK (could be better), but it's not very popular among other people I know.

Hecht is a pretty good book, especially for geometrical optics.  However, I wish it treated Fourier optics with more detail.  It gives good explanations, but few if any examples of fourier optics calculations.  Also, I think it might have the best cover design of any textbook I've seen.

I'd look at some of MIT's OpenCourseWare. Just started watching lectures from there myself.

1st, it should be noted that physics is just as useless as mathematics.  If you want something that can be applied to reality, you need chemistry or engineering.  Biology also works, but is light on math.

NOVA programs do a very superficial job on physics, but since you have a strong math background, you shouldn't have problems.

Unfortunately, most textbooks are light on motivation, especially at the introductory level.  The other problem is that almost all textbooks completely ignore the "experimental data" part.  For these 2 issues, I can't help you, except by continued correspondance on 4chan.

Caveats aside, I recommend "Fundamentals of Physics; extended, with modern physics" by Halliday, Resnick, and Walker.  I have the 4th edition.  It's a good introductory textbook that covers all current fields of physics except GR and the stuff that follows.  For E&M, the book by Griffiths is known by all, though his QM book is less esteemed.  As >>3 suggests, Feynman's books are legendary, though I have yet to read them.

If you want to try applied QM (quantum computing), you can try reading the pdfs at this link
http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs191/fa07/
It starts with an intro to QM before going into the details.

>>10
Isn't Shankar graduate level? lol
Oh gawd, Fermi's Golden Rule/perturbation theory... that stuff will haunt me for decades...

>>13
That giant black book by Wheeler, Misner, and Thorne?  It's pretty outdated, and most joke about it being used as a doorstop.  Nevertheless, I've heard that the contents are still useful.  For more modern books, try Wald or Sean Carroll.  At the undergraduate level, Hartle works fine.

>>14
Pedrotti, Pedrotti, and Pedrotti (3rd edition has 3 authors) does a decent job of Fourier optics, though I should double check to make sure it's better than Hecht by a lot.