Nearly six years ago, I sat down at my desk and typed up a detailed guide for anyone who wanted to learn physics on their own. At the time, I had no idea how many people would read it and use it — my only goal was to put the information out there in a clear and straightforward way so that anyone who wanted to learn physics would have the self-study curriculum they needed. Since then, over six hundred thousand people have turned to this guide to study physics.
The success of this guide is, I believe, a testament to two things.
First, that one of the most impactful things you can do is to share what you know with others, even if it doesn’t seem like a lot. I wasn’t able to become a professional physicist, but I was able to use my knowledge of undergraduate and graduate-level physics to type up a comprehensive and accessible curriculum that has helped hundreds of thousands of people learn physics. That’s pretty remarkable. If you are wondering what you have to offer the world, I hope you will think of this guide and consider what you might know that you can share with others.
Second, that there are so many people in the world who want to understand physics but are unable to study it formally in a university setting for any number of reasons. These same people are very serious about learning physics, and not for any career purposes but simply because they want to understand the universe, and they are and have been dreadfully underserved and underestimated by the academic physics community (who do not take them seriously because they aren’t studying at colleges and universities) and by the authors of contemporary and popular physics books and the publishers of those same books (who mostly just sell them books that assume most readers can never and will never really understand physics). When I wrote the first edition of this guide, I was pretty sure there were a lot more people out there who really wanted to learn physics — real physics — than academic physicists and publishers believed, and those were the people I wanted to help. As it turns out, there were even more of you than I could ever have imagined!
Well, after almost six years and lots of reader feedback, I decided that it was finally time to make a (lightly) updated version of this guide. I went back through the emails and comments I’ve received over the years, and then made a list of the most popular requests. I skimmed through all the books in the curriculum and a few new ones as well. I updated textbook editions, added more undergraduate-level electives, added a section of graduate-level electives, and made a few other small changes — all in the hope that this new version will be even more useful than the first.
As I wrote in the first edition: “Remember that anyone can learn physics…Whether you turn it into a hobby or a career, the pure joy of understanding the universe around us is one of the most beautiful experiences you can ever have in life.”
Godspeed!
You can still find the first edition here, on my old website:
Introduction to the First Edition
Over the past few years, ever since writing a blog post called “If Susan Can Learn Physics, So Can You,” I've been contacted by people from all backgrounds who are inspired and want to learn physics, but don't know where to start, what to learn, what to read, and how to structure their studies. I've spoken with single mothers who want to go back to school and study physics, tenured philosophy professors who want to learn physics so that they can make significant and informed contributions to philosophy of physics, high school students who want to know what they should read to prepare for an undergraduate education in physics, and people in dozens of various careers who want to really, really learn and understand physics simply for the joy of it.
This post is a condensed version of what I've sent to people who have contacted me over the years, outlining what everyone needs to learn in order to really understand physics.
The general physics education given in U.S. universities is divided into what is learned at the undergraduate level and what is covered in graduate courses, and I've divided my list in a similar way. Because each subject is built upon the previous subjects and the mathematics becomes more complex and difficult, it's important to learn each topic in the order presented below.
If you work through the all of the textbooks in the Undergraduate Physics list of this post, and master each of the topics, you'll have gained the knowledge equivalent of a Bachelor's Degree in Physics (and will be able to score well on the Physics GRE). If you work through the graduate core of the Graduate Physics textbooks, you'll have the equivalent knowledge of obtaining a Master's Degree in Physics. A PhD in Physics requires the graduate coursework as well as several years of research and a thesis, and the experience involved in a PhD isn't something that can be gained independently of a PhD program.
Remember that anyone can learn physics. It's no different from learning programming, from learning a musical instrument, from reading great literature. Whether you turn it into a hobby or a career, the pure joy of understanding the universe around us is one of the most beautiful experiences you can ever have in life.
by Susan Rigetti | Read more:
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