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Comment by wcarss | Hacker News Reader

off-topic a bit: does anyone have suggestions for paths for the layperson toward being able to reason and intuit about this stuff at one level beyond pop physics claptrap?

I have heard "the theoretical minimum" suggested in the past, but I haven't heard from anyone who has actually used it to go from zero to say, general relativity, only people who think it sounds good. It also seems like a steep investment -- I just want to have a decent enough grasp to separate sense from nonsense and hold a picture in my mind.

One related thing I have wished existed was a good place to ask questions about and discuss topics like this while learning them, but it seems like in theoretical physics, everyone (including myself) has an infinite number of different stupid questions and misconceptions, to the point that we drown each other out, and answers to our questions often have little cross-applicability.

So, would love ideas for either!

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Feynman's lectures of physics are good for layman explanations, however they quickly feel lacking without the maths background, which you can fill in with The Theoretical Minimum. There's actually a video lecture series of the Theoretical Minimum series that you might find more approachable, that is if you haven't heard of it: https://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=189C0DCE90CB6D81 (Here for the general relativity playlist: https://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=6C8BDEEBA6BDC78D, and here for the full list of playlists: http://theoreticalminimum.com/courses/archive)

You say you haven't heard from anyone who has used it to go from zero to say, general relativity. You might want to look into the adult alumni of the class.

EDIT: You might also find another HN post interesting, it's currently at the top of HN classic: "Learning classical mechanics through Haskell", here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16453192

(And a direct link to "Classical Mechanics via Scheme", https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/content/...)

A small note. The "Theoretical Minimum" is not just a book, it's also a website with video lectures for the complete material.

See: http://theoreticalminimum.com/courses

I... I already linked to that?

Feynman's lectures were delivered to an audience of graduates and faculty who had signed up for an introductory course because Feynman was teaching it. Reading the Feynman lectures without the math background will end up confusing you horribly - I know this because I've found them not-exactly-light reading even though I already (supposedly) know what they're about!

The introductory physics course for which Feynman lectured in 1961-63 is part of Caltech's core curriculum, required of all undergraduate students. It was taken by the entire freshman class in 1961-62, and the same people, then sophomores, in 1962-63. The course consists of 3 parts: lectures, recitation sections, and labs. The recitation sections and labs are mandatory, but the lectures are not, and many Caltech students - particularly those who do not understand English well - choose not to attend all the lectures. Attrition in Feynman's lectures was typical for this course: an average of about 10%-20% of the students did not attend any given lecture. However, I would like to inform the poster that graduate students and faculty do not "sign up" for this course - that is not possible. Some graduate students and a few faculty members sometimes attended Feynman's lectures, almost all of whom were leading recitation sections or working in the course's labs. The ratio of undergraduate students to others who attended Feynman's lectures was very large, as you can see for yourself in this photo taken during a typical lecture (the ones with ties are faculty): http://www.feynmanlectures.info/FLP%20Classroom.JPG . For more information please see http://www.feynmanlectures.info/popular_misconceptions_about... . Michael A. Gottlieb, Editor, The Feynman Lectures on Physics New Millennium Edition

The only well-traveled path to understanding physics starts at "highschooler with a lot of confidence in their math skills," and it takes four years minimum. Anything else is going to be a long shot, just by virtue of the fact that nobody's doing it (for the most part).

Nobody has ever discovered a way to truthfully map physics concepts into English sentences that you can understand without having to have explored the entire definition tree.

Can we talk about how real the perceived mismatch between other "social", "humanitarian" sciences and the "natural" sciences is?

Concurrently, every attempt to map physics concepts into English is met by a barrage of "well, actually".

That's because the mappings always fail - not so much a concurrent thing as a consequence. (For comparison, you can say everything about Roman troop organization in English, because that's native to how the information exists in the first place. You won't get any "well, actually" about the size of a legion, because it involves words and concepts that everyone already knows.)

Start with YouTube -- "Crash Course Astronomy" and then "PBS space time". Both programs are very well done, and give fairly rigorous yet entertaining overviews to cosmology and the related physics (PBS space time is the more rigorous one). Crash course is great because it touches on almost all major cosmological phenomena. For some of the videos, you may want to rewatch certain parts for understanding, or supplement with some brief research via google.

This route provides a gentle, productive ramp as you make sure you really want to dive deep.

I've done that and, ideally, I'd like to now buy some college physics books. However, I may have to delay this next step for quite a while due to some other higher priority goals... We will see if I get back to it. There is too much interesting shit and important things to do in the world, heh.

Thinking Physics: https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Physics-Understandable-Pract...

It's a little bit like The Little Schemer in that it often asks you a question and expects you to try to answer it before turning the page (or turning it upside down). The problems tend to go like "if you did this, would that (A) increase (B) decrease (C) stay the same" or "(A) increase by one (B) double (C) quadruple" -- to minimize technical machinery while still engaging you with genuine problems, not vague analogies.

The same author has a book on relativity which looked very good from the first couple of chapters I read.

> has an infinite number of different stupid questions

I think teachers often welcome any question. On coursera for instance teachers are usually available to answer students (via a mail-like interface though, don't expect to chat with them via Skype or anything). There are several courses on general relativity.

There are for-hire physicist you could pay for consultations:

https://aeon.co/ideas/what-i-learned-as-a-hired-consultant-f...

This was referenced recently here on HN: https://physicstravelguide.com/start

It's incomplete but there's some good stuff there.

Honestly, the best place to do so is an astrophysics undergrad followed by an astrophysics grad program with a good PI. It'll get you there faster and better than any library or self-taught schedule. If you need to choose the self-taught route, look at a course catalog and then research the books they use.

For Example: http://astro.cornell.edu/undergraduate-studies.html

Www.physicsforums.com has a ton of resources you may find useful.

I've not read this yet, but have paged though it a bit at a bookstore, and it looks like it has potential: "The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe" by Roger Penrose [1].

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Road-Reality-Complete-Guide-Universe/...

Can anyone explain why this is getting down voted? As far as I can tell from examining it quite a bit at the bookstore, and from several reviews, it looks like it satisfied the request.

Is there something about it that I have missed?

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