No, not at all.hellinida said:Is it completely insane for a 36 year old high school graduate to start studying physics?
Cool. Those are good reasons.hellinida said:Not for professional purposes but just out of need to get answers on personal questions. Always liked physics.
It's not crazy at all.hellinida said:Please someone an opinion here i think i am going crasy for wanting to do that.
Cosmobrain said:Study physics just like me. There is an entire world on the internet. Just google whatever you want to know and start from there. Watch youtube videos, browse wikipedia, ask stuff on this forum. You can definitely learn by yourself.
cb
micromass said:Please do not do this. If you're interesting in truly understanding physics, then watching videos, browsing wikipedia is not enough. You need to get an actual textbook, think and suffer while doing the problems, ponder on the material etc. Resources like youtube are ok as secondary resources, but do not think they will allow you to understand the physics in a decent manner.
Of course, if you're just interested in pop sci, then go ahead and watch youtube. But it won't give you a real and deep understanding.
Cosmobrain said:I can't speak for OP, but I personally enjoy the theoretical part of physics. I don't like math, I just want to understand how the world works.
From my experience, the internet can be as useful as textbooks if the source is reliable (of course).
Once I read a book about modern physics in the library in my college and it was pretty much the same thing I had seen online. It didn't add much to my knowledge
There are awesome youtube channels with accurate information, like the khan academy. This video is one example there are a lot more in the related videos.
Cosmobrain said:I can't speak for OP, but I personally enjoy the theoretical part of physics. I don't like math, I just want to understand how the world works. From my experience, the internet can be as useful as textbooks if the source is reliable (of course). Once I read a book about modern physics in the library in my college and it was pretty much the same thing I had seen online. It didn't add much to my knowledge
There are awesome youtube channels with accurate information, like the khan academy. This video is one example there are a lot more in the related videos.
cb
Cosmobrain said:I can't speak for OP, but I personally enjoy the theoretical part of physics. I don't like math, I just want to understand how the world works. From my experience, the internet can be as useful as textbooks if the source is reliable (of course). Once I read a book about modern physics in the library in my college and it was pretty much the same thing I had seen online. It didn't add much to my knowledge
There are awesome youtube channels with accurate information, like the khan academy. This video is one example there are a lot more in the related videos.
cb
leroyjenkens said:It depends on what you want to learn about physics. You can learn some physics without math. I think there's a sort of elitist attitude with a lot of people acting like physics is nothing without math, as if getting good at math first is some hazing process to be "one of us". There's a lot of conceptual things you can learn about without any math. And there's tons of stuff that's just basic algebra that everyone should know. No one should have to study math any further to do special relativity calculations, for example.
leroyjenkens said:It depends on what you want to learn about physics. You can learn some physics without math. I think there's a sort of elitist attitude with a lot of people acting like physics is nothing without math, as if getting good at math first is some hazing process to be "one of us". There's a lot of conceptual things you can learn about without any math. And there's tons of stuff that's just basic algebra that everyone should know. No one should have to study math any further to do special relativity calculations, for example.
I can think of plenty of calculations in physics that only require basic algebra. For instance half life, Schwartzchild radius, kinetic energy, wavelength, F=ma, the inverse square law, the Stefan Boltzmann law, Newton's law of gravitation, blackbody radiation, doppler shift, Kepler's laws, escape velocity, etc. There may be calculus versions of some of these, but that doesn't negate every other version. If all of these, plus a lot more, represent such a small part of physics that you can comfortably call it nothing, then I guess you're right.Anyway, it's certainly not an elitist attitude or some kind of hazing ritual at all. Math is an absolute necessity for physics. Sure, you mention SR, but I doubt you can mention much more than that. Even if you go into classical mechanics, you'll need calculus very quickly. You just can't do much without calculus!
I'd say actual physics started with Newton, and he had to invent calculus for it. So I don't see why you think you don't need to know calculus in order to understand physics.
You can learn, for example, Newton's 1st and 3rd laws of motion without needing any math. There may be calculations associated with them, but knowing how objects behave is important and not contingent on math. If someone learns that an object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an external force, then just having that idea and understanding what that means with everyday objects is physics. If someone learns that, and what they learned is physics, then how are they not learning physics? After having learned that, they could easily construct an experiment to show other people how it works. They could put something on top of their car, go straight and then take a sudden right turn and show that the object continues forward. If you can do all that, I'd say you've learned physics, even if you can't make calculations. And I'd say that person has about as good of a chance of explaining what will happen in a situation like that as much as you do (such as how far the object will travel after the right turn is made, or what orientation it will end up positioned in, etc), even though you know the math and they don't.I think you are confusing "learning about physics" with "learning physics".
Sure, you can learn about physics without knowing any math, but only in the sense that you can learn about sailing without ever having been in a boat.
leroyjenkens said:If you can do all that, I'd say you've learned physics, even if you can't make calculations. And I'd say that person has about as good of a chance of explaining what will happen in a situation like that as much as you do (such as how far the object will travel after the right turn is made, or what orientation it will end up positioned in, etc), even though you know the math and they don't.
So to know the trajectory a ball will take in order to catch it requires absolutely zero knowledge of physics?I caught a ball in motion today. Hooray I know physics! (P.S. that's not what Newton's 1st law actually entails)
If that's the only thing you have to say in response to all I've said, I'll just take that as a concession."I'd say" might be good enough authority to score points in a high school debating competition, but science isn't based on personal opinions.
leroyjenkens said:So to know the trajectory a ball will take requires absolutely zero knowledge in physics?
micromass said:Great, so my 5-year old nephew knows physics! If that's your criterium, then yes, you don't need to know math to know this kind of physics.
leroyjenkens said:He knows some physics. I'm not arguing he knows all physics, which you seem to be implying.
micromass said:Even my cat knows physics then.
I think we have a very different definition of what physics is.
leroyjenkens said:To an extent, your cat does know physics. That's one thing they're learning as kittens. You don't consider projectile motion part of physics? My physics books disagree.
micromass said:I doubt my cat can do projectile motion calculations, or can explain why her intuition is correct.
You're confusing physics with intuition and common sense. Obviously, intuition and common sense are necessary in order to do physics. But they are not physics on their own.
Claiming "what goes up must come down" is common sense, it's not physics. However, if you start calculating how fast it comes down or where it comes down, if you start explaining "why" the mass doesn't matter, etc., only then are you doing physics.
micromass said:I have never said that only "why" questions are physics. So don't twist my words. I was giving the specific example of "why mass doesn't matter". And of course, I realize that "why" questions are dangerous in physics. In this case, I was referring to giving some kind of explanation (either mathematics from Newtons axioms, or else) for why mass doesn't matter. Hence, that is why I put "why" between " ".
leroyjenkens said:You still haven't responded to the multitude of physics concepts I listed that only require basic arithmetic.
micromass said:Well, obviously those topics involve some equations that only require basic arithmetic. But they are pretty useless on their own. You can't do many deep things with the equation, you can't derive the equations, you can't "prove" the equations, you can't compute many consequences, you can't apply it on situations other than elementary ones. As such, the equation on its own is useless. What isn't useless is the interrelation with the rest of physics. For that, you need mathematics.
leroyjenkens said:So you're not doing physics if you're doing physics on elementary cases? Elementary cases are abundant, and they're essentially all you go through during an average undergraduate physics degree.
I'm not arguing that math isn't required to do graduate level physics or the physics that physicists do
What confounds me is that fans of physics will say physics is everything and ubiquitous, but when someone says they want to learn physics, suddenly it's esoteric.
Depends on the class. Personally, I needed little calculus in quite a few of my physics classes. It seemed like a lot of the time we were just finding ways to avoid having to do calculus.So you think calculus is not required for an undergrad physics degree because there are elementary cases enough to consider? Is this correct?
I'm not suggesting anything like that for someone who's studying for a degree in physics, or even just someone taking a single physics class as an elective. Getting a degree in physics is a far cry from someone who just wants to learn various physics principles, which is what I'm arguing either doesn't require math, or requires very little. Of course, you could learn the math and get a deeper understanding, but remember, my original point was that you're not excluded from learning physics without math. Everyone seemed to disagree, but no one seemed to want to provide counter-arguments to my arguments.Also, I would love to see you handle elementary things like "motion with constant acceleration" without calculus. How will you handle it? Just give out the formulas and let them memorize it. I know that happens in algebra-based physics, but it's horrible.
Basically all you are suggesting is that you give out some formulas with essentially no justification and let them memorize it.
It is when you consider all the people who are actually interested in physics to some degree (everyone that I know), in comparison to the people who know calculus (definitely not everyone I know).I wouldn't call calculus esoteric.
