/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.5599706]

Hello!

I am a web designer, but have always been interested in physics and the universe. I find the best way to learn is either working hands on or by reading.

I have been trying to assemble a good list of books that give some broad explanations of physics and the universe, but do not explain them in such a way that you need to already be a physicist.

Does this list look ok? Anything you would add or remove?

A Brief History of Time --Stephen Hawking
Black Holes and Baby Universes and other Essays -- Stephen Hawking
The Universe in a Nutshell -- Stephen Hawking
The Future of Spacetime -- Stephen Hawking, Kip Thorne, Igor Novikov, Alan Lightman
The Nature of Space and Time -- Stephen Hawking and Roge Penrose
The First Three Minutes -- Steven Weinberg
The Discovery of Sub-atomic Particles -- Steven Weinberg
Dreams of a Final Theory -- Steven Weinberg
The Character of Physical Law -- Richard Feynman
QED -- Richard Feynman
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out -- Richard Feynman
The Meaning of it All -- Richard Feynman
The Quark and the Jaguar -- Murray Gell-Mann
Beyond Star Trek -- Lawrence Kraus
Space, Time and Gravity -- Robert Wald
The Trouble with Physics -- Lee Smolin
The Emperor's New Mind -- Roger Penrose
The Road to Reality, A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe -- Roger Penrose
The God Particle -- Leon Lederman
Conversations on the Dark Side of Physics -- Edward Teller
Superstrings -- edited by Paul Davies and J. Brown
The Inflationary Universe -- Alan Guth
The Elegant Universe -- Brian Greene
The Fabric of the Cosmos -- Brian Greene
Relativity, the Special and General Theory -- Albert Eiinstein

[Anonymous No.5599724]

Add The road to reality by Roger Penrose

[Anonymous No.5599730]

Sorry, what exactly are you looking to do again? Learn physics, you say? Seems more like you want to be a pop-sci spewing normalfag who says stuff that trolls /sci/ on a daily basis.

Go to wikipedia and search 'physics' and browse all of the hyperlinks you can find if you want to actually learn something.

[Anonymous No.5599744]

>>5599706
... but probably learn calculus first.

seriously if you want to fucking learn physics try just learning physics?

[Anonymous No.5599772]

1. remove all of those
2. add an old edition of halliday and resnick
3. add whatever you need to learn calculus, then a mathematical methods book might suffice for your basic undergrad curriculum

[Anonymous No.5599798]

>>5599730
The road to reality is hardly pop-sci

[Anonymous No.5599802]

>>5599730

Ah, ok. /sci/ appears to be just like every other board. A bunch of people who don't really know what they are talking about, but love to shit on anybody who is actually interested in the thing they are posting about.

Shame on me for trying to learn something.

[Anonymous No.5599826]

>>5599802
>>5599706
No. He may have been a little harsh, but all of the titles you've suggested above are just that: pop-sci. Diluted, pre-digested, interpreted storybook physics.

You want to learn physics? You want to DO physics? You want to UNDERSTAND physics? You have to learn math. Lots of math.

That's the difference between liberal arts and hard science. You don't just read and think a little bit and write an essay. You have to understand and apply mathematics - that's how all of these concepts that these books cover came to be understood. They were interpreted from mathematics. And you will never be a physicist if you do not understand mathematics.

[Anonymous No.5599830]

>>5599802

literally all of those books are written for the laymen. you might get some of the ideas that led to the development of the field, but beyond that, you won't learn anything.

if you actually want to learn, learn the math, and equations and how to apply them

[Anonymous No.5599833]

>>5599802
>dear diary: today i was told off on the internet and it made me sad :( i geuss this means that i should never think of physics ever again since people weren't nice to me about my passing interest

[Anonymous No.5599837]

>>5599802
No one is shitting on you. You've actually had two people give you good advice.

I know you're a lazy cunt that has never done anything hard seeing how you are a web designer, but you learn physics by reading serious books and doing lots of problems. (Alright, I just shit on you)

[Anonymous No.5599838]

>>5599706
Read a bunch of books by Gamow if you want to 'ease in' to physics. Provides illustrations more accessible to beta-geeks.

Then read Feynman.

Then read everything else on your list.

Maybe audit a graduate course in physics. Don't expect to learn anything, except how not like the way you think you need to think.

[Anonymous No.5599839]

>>5599826
Now, don't get me wrong, you'll have some vague idea as to the current state of physics.

But your ideas will be about as accurate and as useful as, say, watching a car drive down the road to understand how an engine works.

Learning physics is not a walk in the park, and to be completely honest, a very, VERY small percentage of human beings have the innate interest and ability to sit through all of it.

I encourage you to give it a shot, but chances are if you're like 99.99% of the rest of us, you'll realize it's not cake and get tired of it quickly.

This is coming from someone with a physics degree. However I consider myself a poor physicist, because I have no patience for math-heavy literature and work.

[Anonymous No.5600636]

I never understood threads like these. For pretty much anything, just look up the syllabus for a good university and read their required texts for each class. If you get stuck on a specific concept, look up worked examples on youtube. Still stuck, ask the internet.