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My first book on physics
vanity | 07/10/2008 | Free Me

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!!


TOPICS: Books/Literature; Education; Science
KEYWORDS: physics
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To: LeGrande
They are all relative motion, but have nothing to do with the Theory of Relativity : )

Well, we could rephrase the question. What if the car was traveling at .75c and the fly had a wrist watch? LOL

41 posted on 07/10/2008 7:28:33 PM PDT by chaos_5
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To: free me

physics is the study of?


42 posted on 07/10/2008 7:28:54 PM PDT by mdittmar (May God watch over those who serve,and have served,to keep us free)
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To: chaos_5

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!


43 posted on 07/10/2008 7:29:40 PM PDT by free me
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To: free me

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!


44 posted on 07/10/2008 7:30:21 PM PDT by camerakid400 (Oy Gevalt)
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To: mdittmar

Now now, we all know what Physics is.


45 posted on 07/10/2008 7:31:12 PM PDT by free me
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To: free me

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.


46 posted on 07/10/2008 7:33:38 PM PDT by Kirkwood
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To: free me

The Tao of Physics.

The Matter Myth

Super Strings and the Theory of Everything

A Brief History of Time

Cosmos


47 posted on 07/10/2008 7:34:44 PM PDT by Soliton (Investigate, study, learn, then express an opinion)
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To: autumnraine
How can an insect fly around inside a car that is going 75 miles an hour? Or something dropped inside the car goes straight down. How is the outside the moving vehicle the only thing that is affected?

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.

48 posted on 07/10/2008 7:36:22 PM PDT by iowamark
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To: free me

The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene.
In Search of Schrödinger’s Cat by John Gribbon.


49 posted on 07/10/2008 7:36:58 PM PDT by kellyrae
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To: free me

I flunked out of a computer repair class in the 80’s,darn zenor diods.


50 posted on 07/10/2008 7:37:16 PM PDT by mdittmar (May God watch over those who serve,and have served,to keep us free)
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To: Farmer Dean; free me
Look, I understand physics and didn't particulary care for Einstein's Relativity

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.

51 posted on 07/10/2008 7:37:32 PM PDT by Lonesome in Massachussets (Hillary to Obama: Arkancide happens.)
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To: free me
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/10773

Ancient and Modern Physics by Thomas E. Willson

Free ebook.

52 posted on 07/10/2008 7:43:43 PM PDT by HuntsvilleTxVeteran (Remember the Alamo, Goliad and WACO, It is Time for a new San Jacinto!)
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To: free me
Go here: Lightandmatter.com

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

53 posted on 07/10/2008 7:44:12 PM PDT by ZGuy
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To: chaos_5
Well, we could rephrase the question. What if the car was traveling at .75c and the fly had a wrist watch? LOL

Would that be a digital or analog wrist watch? : )

54 posted on 07/10/2008 7:46:03 PM PDT by LeGrande
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To: free me

I would start with Richard Feyneman’s 6 Easy Pieces...

He also has other books.


55 posted on 07/10/2008 7:52:52 PM PDT by donmeaker (You may not be interested in War but War is interested in you.)
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To: free me
It depends on what her goal is. Does she want to get an idea of some particular issues in modern physics, for example, a popular text with almost no math? Such a book would not teach you physics, per se, but instead resemble the sort of content you could find in the science media. Something like Hawking's Brief History of Time or Greene's Elegant Universe?

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.

56 posted on 07/10/2008 7:54:08 PM PDT by M203M4 (True Universal Suffrage: Pets of dead illegal-immigrant felons voting Democrat (twice))
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To: free me

Yes,thanks,now I have to figure out what Physics is.


57 posted on 07/10/2008 7:57:00 PM PDT by mdittmar (May God watch over those who serve,and have served,to keep us free)
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To: 50cal Smokepole

I agree, I have this book and it is easy to follow for those not being forced to read a textbook.


58 posted on 07/10/2008 8:05:22 PM PDT by Boiling point (If God had wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates.)
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To: All

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!


59 posted on 07/10/2008 8:05:56 PM PDT by rlmorel (Clinging bitterly to Guns and God in Massachusetts...:)
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To: mdittmar

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.


60 posted on 07/10/2008 8:07:58 PM PDT by Caramelgal (Just a lump of organized protoplasm - braying at the stars :),)
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