🧵 Teaching general
Anonymous at Tue, 18 Mar 2025, 03:25:02 GMT No. 16622182
Any teachers? Which textbooks do you like to use for people who just wanna learn physics/math out of curiosity?
In my experience they are the flakiest, lowest discipline mfers who drop out as soon as it gets hard to any degree.
That said I don't feel like going by something like Feynmann's lectures, it's too compressed and midwit oriented.
What are your go to calc/stats/abstract algebra/physics textbooks for this case?
Anonymous at Tue, 18 Mar 2025, 03:38:51 GMT No. 16622190
>>16622182
Physics should be taught starting from the principle of least action in a very general form, then used to derive the laws that lesser books present as the word of God. Landau is good for this approach, but there are other good and perhaps better ones.
Anonymous at Tue, 18 Mar 2025, 03:39:52 GMT No. 16622191
>>16622190
Side note: you need to be good with calculus, linear algebra, and tensors before you hop into landau, especially if you are reading classical theory of fields
Anonymous at Tue, 18 Mar 2025, 03:44:19 GMT No. 16622193
>>16622190
Yeah I don't know that that's pedagogically sound. I think there's a reason teaching is done from specific to general and not the other way around.
You can definitely mention where all the laws come from but to actually derive it all starting with action yeah idk
Anonymous at Tue, 18 Mar 2025, 03:45:27 GMT No. 16622194
>>16622191
I heard that's he's overrated, outdated and not that good as a textbook? Admittedly I heard it here so I don't put that much stock in it but still
An austist in me wants to complete le epic 10 volume course by a single author but I don't if it's actually the best way to go about it
Anonymous at Tue, 18 Mar 2025, 03:47:21 GMT No. 16622196
>>16622182
As far as babby's intermediate level physics nothing beats The Fundamentals of physics by Halliday and Resnick. Very interesting, only requires basic calculus and great problems with references to practical situations and stories.
Truly based.
For my money it beats Feynmann every day
Anonymous at Tue, 18 Mar 2025, 15:11:08 GMT No. 16622425
>>16622182
Currently reading "babby" Rudin but it's a bit too rigorous and in depth I feel like for somebody curious in just physics
Anonymous at Tue, 18 Mar 2025, 18:21:37 GMT No. 16622543
>>16622182
Best thread on sci right now
(and would like to know as well)
Anonymous at Wed, 19 Mar 2025, 14:52:18 GMT No. 16623673
>>16623671
> math sorcerer
Literally a book fetishist
Anonymous at Wed, 19 Mar 2025, 19:54:43 GMT No. 16623850
>>16623671
>Tooker above Sabine
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Anonymous at Wed, 19 Mar 2025, 23:03:01 GMT No. 16623984
>>16623850
puttin minute physics in cringe and below 0 education is devil's work
Anonymous at Thu, 20 Mar 2025, 12:18:08 GMT No. 16624222
>>16622182
>Which textbooks do you like to use for people who just wanna learn physics/math out of curiosity?
>In my experience they are the flakiest, lowest discipline mfers who drop out as soon as it gets hard to any degree.
>What are your go to calc/stats/abstract algebra/physics textbooks for this case?
Try:
>Precalculus_ Mathematics in a Nutshell - George F. Simmons
>Calculus Made Easy - Silvanus P. Thompson
>Calculus: An Intuitive and Physical Approach - Morris Kline
>Introduction to Concepts and Theories in Physical Science - Gerald Holton, Stephen G. Brush
>Foundations of Modern Physical Science - Gerald Holton, Duane H. D. Roller
>Statistics in plain English - Timothy C. Urdan
>A Book of Abstract Algebra - Charles C. Pinter
On the other hand.
>Feynman is for midwits.
Why do you think so?
Anonymous at Fri, 21 Mar 2025, 15:56:32 GMT No. 16625093
>>16624734
Much appreciated
Anonymous at Sat, 22 Mar 2025, 01:12:16 GMT No. 16625493
>>16622182
What's your prerequisite knowledge? I would go for Historical Development of the Calculus, by CH Edwards. It has just the right amount of rigor and motivation you need to learn calc 1 and 2, without being a formula textbook for the AP test like Stewart, or being a cringe tryhard book like Spivak
Anonymous at Sat, 22 Mar 2025, 02:27:12 GMT No. 16625532
>>16625493
they usually more or less have up to and including high school level knowledge
Anonymous at Sun, 23 Mar 2025, 17:26:16 GMT No. 16626757
>>16625493
What are your thoughts on Apostol's
Anonymous at Sun, 23 Mar 2025, 18:26:29 GMT No. 16626791
>>16622182
>for people who just wanna learn physics/math out of curiosity?
Flakes don't read. Textbooks are a waste of time.
Show them some lectures on youtube instead. Look for "crash course" and playlists under 4 hours
Anonymous at Sun, 23 Mar 2025, 18:50:59 GMT No. 16626810
>>16626791
Yeah I figured
🗑️ Anonymous at Sun, 23 Mar 2025, 19:29:35 GMT No. 16626835
>>16622190
Word of god has no place in science, any godfaggots must be removed. Physics is physics, and product of the superior understanding of man as a species.
Anonymous at Sun, 23 Mar 2025, 19:57:43 GMT No. 16626867
>>16622191
>tensors
Is there a good intuitive resource for learning about tensors? Ideally a little mathy because one will need to see how the intuition maps to the math. I majored in math but never encountered tensors in school and haven't found a comprehensible explanation anywhere. I literally just want to know what the fuck a tensor is. Nothing more. But in a comfortable sense, not in a merely pure math definition that has no relationship to any problem or anything I've seen before.
Anonymous at Sun, 23 Mar 2025, 19:58:49 GMT No. 16626868
>>16622190
>there are other good and perhaps better ones.
Like what?
Anonymous at Sun, 23 Mar 2025, 20:43:02 GMT No. 16626909
>>16626867
Historically, they were used to describe "tension" on a unit volume, i.e. the cauchy stress tensor. Tensors perpendicular to the face of a unit cube described the pressure/tension on the cube, and parallel to the face described the shear stresses.
Over time, they were genericized to describing a map from one vector field to another. This playlist describes it pretty well
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=P
Basically, a set of "inputs" (velocity of a charged particle) can be mapped to a set of "outputs" (the force they experience under a magnetic field), for a total description of the Lorenz force
Anonymous at Sun, 23 Mar 2025, 23:44:37 GMT No. 16627017
>>16626909
Thanks, anon.