- #1
Feynstein100
- 162
- 16
I'm a layperson who loves physics. Unfortunately studying it in a university is not an option for me right now. So I've decided to study it myself. My knowledge so far is upto high school physics. I do know some special relativity but mostly in a conceptual manner, not a rigorous mathematical one. After a lot of searching online (especially on Quora), I was able to determine that it's not possible to go from high school physics to QM and GR directly. The mathematical gap is just too high. As such, getting familiar with classical mechanics is the first step to take. So I looked for classical mechanics textbooks and found that the one by Goldstein et al is quite popular in the physics community. Thus I decided to buy it. But when I tried studying it, I didn't understand anything. I was stumped in the first chapter. The math was really difficult and there were no worked out examples to give a feel of the topic. So my question to you is, are there some good introductory textbooks for classical mechanics? Ones that are easy to understand and contain plenty of examples? I've heard that Taylor is a good one but I want to make sure that it would be suitable for someone like me before buying it. These books are quite expensive. Any suggestions? And while we're on the topic, what about the next step? Once I've mastered classical mechanics, should I try GR first or QM? Or perhaps both at the same time? And what about the textbooks for them? Is there a sort of path made of books that would help me perhaps?