Introduction to Special Relativity for a twelve year old

[sarsonlarson5]

Hello!

I think that micromass may have a point. When I study from textbooks and research papers, I often make a few mistakes, and I don't even realize them until a while. (For example, I used to use one moment of inertia for all rotational mechanics problems until I figured out why I was getting many of the problems wrong). However, I think reading Einstein's original paper can work out, because I can ask my physics teacher if I don't understand something, or I am getting something wrong.

Thank You.

 

[Cbray]

I don't know what you mean by reading 'Einstein's original paper'? Okay sure, you make a really stupid mistake by being careless of what you're reading. Does that imply that the information in the book isn't good enough for your standards?

Sure, you need to ask a few questions you're curious about, hire a tutor every 2 weeks. You think Richard Feynman asked a teacher at school about a careless mistake? NO! Because he didn't make careless mistakes, he spent years ripping his hair out throughout mathematics and physics to make sure he understood the true meaning of something, and found huge pleasure of doing so using textbooks and became one of the greatest physicists of all time. Maybe it isn't the quickest root to building a cyclotron or studying quantum mechanics, but he was brilliant at everything by the end. As I said earlier, since not everyone is Richard Feynman, hire a tutor every once and a while. I don't know the reasoning behind the doubt that textbooks 'don't work' and there is a 'BIG PROBLEM' with self studying, so I'd have to disagree with micromass.

 

[sarsonlarson5]

Hello

Throughout the forums, people stated that the best way to learn special relativity is to read Einstein's original paper. So I was just saying that I will take their advice and start reading the paper. There's no harm in trying to figure out something on my own - it is fun to do anyway. Like Cbray said, if I make a mistake, I'll just take time to try and figure it out on my own. Only if I'm really stuck and I don't know what to do after lots of time spent on figuring it out, I'll ask for help. I guess I should probably stop posting on what I should do, and get around to doing it itself. :)

Thank You for your help.