Classical Mechanics, MIT 8.01 -- Useful learning resource?

[Eleni_]

Hello all. This is my first post. I am very passionate with physics even if i did not study them at university. I studied administation and another degree in economics and politics. However, i love physics so much and i decided to learn more about this subject. So, i searched MIT's undegraduate modules and the first cource is "classical mechanics 8.01". So, i started from there. There are free lessons in the following page;
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-01-classical-mechanics-fall-2016/index.htm

I have already watched week's 1 lesson 1. So far so good for someone with rusted math skills :p I hope i will continue that way. Anyone alse with similar experience?

 

[QuantumQuest]

Hello all. This is my first post. I am very passionate with physics even if i did not study them at university. I studied administation and another degree in economics and politics. However, i love physics so much and i decided to learn more about this subject. So, i searched MIT's undegraduate modules and the first cource is "classical mechanics 8.01". So, i started from there. There are free lessons in the following page;
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-01-classical-mechanics-fall-2016/index.htm

I have already watched week's 1 lesson 1. So far so good for someone with rusted math skills :p I hope i will continue that way. Anyone alse with similar experience?

MIT Opencourseware has really excellent material to watch / study. I have experience mainly with some math and CS courses that I took as refreshers in the past. I would recommend to enrich your math knowledge / skills as you go along with some parallel course(s) / study, as this is something utterly important in order to go further in Physics. Also, you can take a look at Leonard Susskind's lectures later (after you finish some basic introductory courses).

 

[Eleni_]

Hey QuantumQuest. But do you think i can keep up? :D :D it is important to me to hear it from people who know this subject far better than me! Do you believe i can enrich my math skills simultaneously?

 

[QuantumQuest]

Hey QuantumQuest. But do you think i can keep up? :D :D it is important to me to hear it from people who know this subject far better than me! Do you believe i can enrich my math skills simultaneously?

Yes, provided that you have the time and (even more importantly) the will , to do it. There can be no serious study of Physics without having already sufficiently grasped the relevant math. If you leave math outside your study, you'll get only some qualitative sense that won't help much and even this will gradually fade away as you proceed in more difficult topics.

 

[Eleni_]

those lectures you proposed, are ok to start with?

 

[QuantumQuest]

those lectures you proposed, are ok to start with?

It's best to start with some introductory undergrad things so it's good in my opinion to start the way you did. If you find it difficult to continue you may want to take a look at Walter Lewin's lectures first (Classical Mechanics 8.01). Start from here and follow the trail of videos or if you already know / remember the first basic things by then, go to whichever lecture has things you want to learn about. It's best in my opinion to go for Leonard Susskind's lectures after grasping the basics of Classical Mechanics. The same holds true for his other lectures covering other fields of Physics.

 

[Eleni_]

ok, i will check on them. Thanks so much for your help. I guess we will talk here again soon! :)

 

[StoneTemplePython]

Hello all. This is my first post. I am very passionate with physics even if i did not study them at university. I studied administation and another degree in economics and politics. However, i love physics so much and i decided to learn more about this subject. So, i searched MIT's undegraduate modules and the first cource is "classical mechanics 8.01". So, i started from there. There are free lessons in the following page;
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-01-classical-mechanics-fall-2016/index.htm

I have already watched week's 1 lesson 1. So far so good for someone with rusted math skills :p I hope i will continue that way. Anyone alse with similar experience?

Let me just ad that if you are looking at 8.01, consider 8.01x on edx:

https://www.edx.org/course/mechanics-kinematics-dynamics-mitx-8-01-1x-0

it starts next month.

I have done several math and CS courses from MIT on edx and some on OCW, though no physics... the edx courses are about the same content but have more of an active community feel and almost always have support from a grad student on campus at MIT to answer questions on the forums... which is quite valuable when you get confused and also for motivation.

 

[Eleni_]

oh my Gosh! That's actually amazing. I will enroll. Thanks so much! You gave me motivation my friend :)

 

[QuantumQuest]

Also, as the discussion got into platforms like EdX, I would recommend taking also a look at Coursera that is also very worthy - I have personally taken a lot of courses there in the past.

 

[ErnestS]

Can anyone post the solutions for the problem sets? I want to verify with my solutions.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Can anyone post the solutions for the problem sets?

No.

That's not what PF does.

 

[nucl34rgg]

I have watched many OCW lectures. Barton Zwiebach has excellent lectures on quantum mechanics. Walter Lewin's lectures are unrivaled for elementary physics. I think MIT OCW is an excellent resource. They usually hve solutions and problems on the site.