[HN Gopher] The Theoretical Minimum (2013) ___________________________________________________________________ The Theoretical Minimum (2013) Author : c0r3dump3d1r Score : 62 points Date : 2022-01-17 18:18 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (theoreticalminimum.com) (TXT) w3m dump (theoreticalminimum.com) | MichaelRazum wrote: | To the physicist here, how much of "physics" you really get if | you go through all this "minimal" courses? | | To give it some context: I watched classical mechanics a bit. | Basically it's just math in the end, and to be honest after 50% | of the lectures I had the feeling that the "practical" side or | "intuition" is lacking. Especially in case of the conservation | law's. | | So maybe the question would be how much more do you get if you go | through a true physics bachelor progamm? | drran wrote: | If you want to understand physics, then you need to build | physical models and demonstrations, or perform experiments. If | you want to get correct answers and make predictions, or you | want to build a virtual model, then you need to study math a | lot. | petermcneeley wrote: | The answer to your question is Labs. In the Labs you reproduce | the results many of the 19-20th century experiments. | Isinlor wrote: | I went trough Quantum Mechanics course and it really helped me | understand Quantum Mechanics on mathematical level. I had my | head full of Quantum woo from popular science programs and I | barely could make heads or tails out of it. Knowing basic | mathematics behind it helped a lot. | macilacilove wrote: | I am not a physicist but I have gone through most of the | courses. It is aimed at preparing you to be able to read | theorethical phisics research papers. It is not supposed to be | practical and is ignoring engineering physics and history of | phsics for the most part. | | I think you can learn here the core concepts in theorethical | phisics even at the masters program level, but you will not go | through the same "math muscle training" that college students | go through, so you will have to supplement that from elsewhere. | MichaelRazum wrote: | Thanks a lot for the answer! Sounds good. Guess I would have | to combine it a bit with Engineering Physics (or at least | experimental physics) to get the most out of it, since had | really some difficulties to undestand, why core concepts, | like conservation of momentum for example are important. | jarvist wrote: | Physics is really a working knowledge, like computer | programming. You have to be able to solve problems. All the | 'practical' and 'intuitive' aspects of theoretical physics are | built by working on problem sheets. A lot of progress in | understanding (both personally and for the field!) is in | tackling apparent paradoxes. | | Susskind's courses are very much overviews / appreciations. For | each of these areas (GR, StatMech, Quantum etc.) you would | expect several 30-hr lecturer courses + problem sheets (or | equivalent working through a textbook) to gain a deep | knowledge. | squeaky-clean wrote: | The lectures are also available for download as podcasts (with | video!) so you don't need to watch them on youtube. At least in | the Apple podcast app, but I'd imagine any podcast app will have | them. | | I went through the two courses on relativity and enjoyed them. | They were super mathy, but I expected that going in. I had to | stop them for a while and actually strengthen my math skills. I'd | say my understanding is C+ at best, but like Isinlor's comment, | I'm pretty sure all the relativity woo is out of my head. | crdrost wrote: | The pop physics around relativity is particularly bad so I am | happy that helped! | | Relativity does not have to be super mathy, special relativity | is kind of just a postulation that maybe there's a different | sort of Doppler shift in the world. In the normal Doppler | shift, clocks moving towards you appear to tick fast and clocks | moving away from you appear to tick slow. Relativity adds a | universal effect where if you accelerate towards a clock, it | will also appear to tick faster, in proportion to both your | acceleration and its coordinate along that acceleration line. | So it's just an anomalous Doppler shift, to first order. (And | all higher-order behavior can be derived from that.) | | So like in the twin paradox, it is resolved because one of the | twins accelerates towards the other twin, and when that | acceleration is happening the other twin gets much much older | very quickly because they are far away and the twin is | accelerating towards them. | | Furthermore this makes it much easier to understand some | aspects of general relativity quite quickly. For example you | get gravitational time dilation without much effort, once you | postulate that the state of nature is freefall and we are | actually accelerating against that, in a constant acceleration | _g_ upwards, which is why things in the natural state of | freefall appear to accelerate downwards with acceleration _g_ , | you immediately predict that relativity will tell you that you | see clocks in the upper atmosphere tick faster than they do | down here. Furthermore you predict that if you could see | through the Earth, at some surface below you you would | hypothetically see clocks stand still, leading into a quick | intuition for black holes. | dang wrote: | Past related threads: | | _The Theoretical Minimum_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14467181 - June 2017 (37 | comments) | | _Modern Physics From Scratch_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5702985 - May 2013 (49 | comments) | taubek wrote: | I hope that I'll have time to go through this lectures. I didn't | have any physics classes after the high school. It would be nice | to refresh my knowledge and to learn something new :) | biophysboy wrote: | Physics PhD student here: stuff like this is awesome, but I also | highly recommend the "bottom up approach" as well. Pick a little | node in the vast physics network, something that interests you, | and start digging deeper into the cluster connected to that | curiosity. | petermcneeley wrote: | ViaScience has similar content on modern physics. | https://youtu.be/SCUnoxJ5pho?list=PL193BC0532FE7B02C | | I prefer this modern presentation (animations, simulations, | plots) over the antiquated chalkboard presentation. | james-redwood wrote: | The great thing about this is that it bridges the gap well | between pop science and actual academic physics: certainly ideal | for capable high school students. And it doesn't skip important | sections or neglect them either. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-01-17 23:00 UTC)