Intro Physics High School Physics and Math books for self-studying?

[krish0ck]

I have had around 2 year gap after finishing high school. The last 2 years of high school (11th and 12th grade where calculus, coordinate geometry, straight lines, circles, vectors, functions, quadratics, polynomials, probability, permutation etc. are taught here) , I barely studied and some how passed the exams through memorization. I have started to go to a university which is pretty much meant for those who could not get into a good university and it's almost the same like high school. Things are being taught via rote memorization and such. Can I get some book recommendations for learning the math/physics of high school to be able to understand the ocw courses online. As I said, I barely have any basic knowledge now of the previous math I studied since mostly I memorized. My dream is to get into robotics. I do not know if I am posting on the right forum and if this post is wrong in any way, please do tell me what was wrong.

Regards

 

[fresh_42]

Before you buy something, I would have a look at this site: https://openstax.org/subjects
which at least can help you to understand where you're at.

 

[krish0ck]

Thank you for the response. Should I finish the books on this website?

 

[fresh_42]

Thank you for the response. Should I finish the books on this website?

This depends on what you want to study and where you currently stand. There are better books than these, but those are free and you can download them and see yourself what you already know and what not. Ideally you already know a lot of what's in there. In my opinion they mainly bridge the gap between school and university, i.e. they try to achieve a common basis among students, independent from which school they came. IIRC then they have a lot of exercises, so try a few and see.

 

[krish0ck]

Okay.

 

[MailCourier]

Just high school math? You can probably just use Khan Academy for that. They have a full course on integral calculus, last I checked. Be sure that you learn actively (don't just watch the videos) and do lots of practice problems. Good luck to you.

 

[MidgetDwarf]

Serge Lang Basic Mathematics ( Pre-Cal)

Gelfand Trigonometry + any run of the mill trig textbook

Thomas Calculus With Analytical Geometry 3rd ed ( Get this specific edition)

Moise/Downs Geometry.

There is the Calculus book by Moise. But since you had trouble in high school I would caution with buying it.

 

[krish0ck]

Thanks for the responses. I will try to check out the resources that you guys mentioned.

 

[Madtasmo]

I would highly recommend shaum's outlines on calculus and differential equations, it's very begginer friendly, lots and lots of examples and exercises to test your understanding, accompanied with their solutions.

 

[Wrichik Basu]

I am not seeing anything on physics, so I'll tell you a bit on physics.

Two standard books in basic Physics are The Feynman Lectures in Physics (3 volumes) and Fundamentals of Physics by Resnick and Halliday. Both are great books. The former is also available on the net for free. I have another good book, but I don't know if it is available outside my country, so I am not naming it here.

In addition, there are some lectures courses that you should have a look at:

1. Mechanics, Oscillations, Heat and Waves by Prof. V. Balakrishnan. The lectures are generally for students in grade 11.

2. Fundamentals of Physics Part 1 and Part 2 by Prof. Ramamurti Shankar.

Basically, Prof. Balakrishnan's course doesn't cover Relativity, but the topics that are present have been covered in quire some depth, so I recommend that one over Prof. Shankar's course Part 1. However, I haven't got any good alternative to Prof. Shankar's course Part 2.

Keep in mind that all these courses assume that you have done some basic maths, especially basic calculus. But you can check them out to see if you can follow them now.

 

[smodak]

I have had around 2 year gap after finishing high school. The last 2 years of high school (11th and 12th grade where calculus, coordinate geometry, straight lines, circles, vectors, functions, quadratics, polynomials, probability, permutation etc. are taught here) , I barely studied and some how passed the exams through memorization. I have started to go to a university which is pretty much meant for those who could not get into a good university and it's almost the same like high school. Things are being taught via rote memorization and such. Can I get some book recommendations for learning the math/physics of high school to be able to understand the ocw courses online. As I said, I barely have any basic knowledge now of the previous math I studied since mostly I memorized. My dream is to get into robotics. I do not know if I am posting on the right forum and if this post is wrong in any way, please do tell me what was wrong.

Regards

No bullshit guide to math and physics by Ivan Savov

A more elaborate preview here

 

[TurboDiesel]

I have had around 2 year gap after finishing high school. The last 2 years of high school (11th and 12th grade where calculus, coordinate geometry, straight lines, circles, vectors, functions, quadratics, polynomials, probability, permutation etc. are taught here) , I barely studied and some how passed the exams through memorization . . . Can I get some book recommendations for learning the math/physics of high school to be able to understand the ocw courses online.
Regards

Hi krish0ck,
You are definitely in the right place. There are more references on this forum than others I've seen.

What books you should read really depends on what you need and how much time you are willing to work at it (for example, six months instead of one). Also on how much money you have to put toward this. I say everyone can do this. I previously put a lot of thought into this and researched an insane numbers of books. Curiously, (or not) most of the books I settled on as "good" ones have been referenced in multiple places on this site.

Roadrunner route:
In parallel . .

• Jenny Olive's "Maths: A Student's Survival Guide"
• MITx's edX three course sequence, Calculus 1A, Calculus 1B, and Calculus 1C. These three are an equivalent to university "Calculus I and II," also known as, "Single Variable Calculus." They take more time building up your understanding than ocw but parallel the end result.

I can also suggest a Wile E. Coyote route or an "anyone can do this" route to university math.

For initial physics, pick one (or more) of:

• Eugene Hecht's "Physics: Calculus" (The calculus one, specifically.)
• Young and Freedman’s "University Physics with Modern Physics"
  
• HC Verma's "Concepts of Physics: volumes 1&2"

Supplement with Epstein's "Thinking Physics" if you can find a copy for a few bucks.

After finishing, you:

1. Are ready for a standard course of university math and physics.
2. Or you should go back over the Wile E. Coyote or "anyone can do this" math routes.

Challenging initial university physics sequence:

• Kleppner and Kolenkow’s "An Introduction to Mechanics"
• EM Purcell’s "Electricity & Magnetism," followed by, Dugdale’s "Essentials of Electromagnetism"
• Crawford’s "Waves"

Challenging calculus book:

• Apostol's "Calculus: Volume I"