nik_fatw said:
I'm 53 and know very little about Physics and want to start to learn from the very basics.
That's where everybody starts. Most physics students are younger than you, but none of them were born knowing how to do math and physics, and you're just as capable of learning it as they are. With all the video lectures available for free on the internet (be sure to visit the MIT OCW website if you haven't already), and if you are willing to do the work, there's no reason you can't get the equivalent of a BS at home.
So the place to start is with a basic algebra text. Then geometry and trig. Then precalculus. Then calculus. You want to take the full three semesters of calculus (i.e., the whole of one of those gigantic texts by Stewart or Thomas or Anton or Larsen), but you only need one semester before you start reading a calculus-based physics text. If you keep your calculus a semester ahead of the physics, then you shouldn't run into any math you haven't seen.
Depending on how many hours a day you can devote to it, it might take you five years or more to finish those gigantic three-semester calculus and physics texts. But you will be learning something useful every day, so the rewards will be immediate. God only knows what learning tools will be available by then, if you want to continue all the way to a BS equivalent.
As I always say when self-studiers want text recommendations, get them all. For freshman calculus and physics, a text 40 years old is just as good as a new one, so go on Amazon or Ebay and spend $10 each on used editions of 2 or 3 of the above calculus texts, and 2 or 3 of Serway, Young and Freedman, Giancoli, Knight, or Halliday and Resnick for physics. That way you get more examples, and alternative explanations when something is confusing. And be sure to watch the free lectures from MIT's Walter Lewin
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-01-physics-i-classical-mechanics-fall-1999/
which usually contain interesting demos. In fact, you can watch them for the demos right away, and come back to them when you're ready to understand the math involved.
If that is more work than you wanted to do, a more modest goal would be to just do the basic algebra and trig, and then read an algebra-based physics book, like Hewitt's "Conceptual Physics," or the online books by Ben Crowell. That should only take a couple years if you give it an hour a day or so. You will still know more about physics than 90% of people, but you will have to accept things on faith, rather than really understanding them from the ground up, as calculus allows you to do.
Best of luck to you.
