First Year Physics Survey

Our goal here is to get a first exposure to a broad swath of calculus-based physics.

Yale PHYS 200/201 FUNDAMENTALS OF PHYSICS I and II

Open Yales Physics Lectures by Professor R. Shankar. These include video lectures, assignments and exams all with solutions. Professor Shankar has a great sense of humour and seems to be very pragmatic in his approach. As a bonus, it turns out that he is the author of one of the more popular Quantum Mechanics textbooks used in universities today. So if you like his style here, it’s a good bet that his approach to quantum mechanics will appeal to you as well.

Lecture Videos and Assignments

Textbooks

  • Fundamentals of Physics Extended, Halliday and Resnick.
    • Extended edition covers topics such as an intro quantum mechanics and nuclear physics
    • Huge, very friendly and commonly used intro to physics
    • Contains a large number of worked out examples, a student solutions manual is available and it’s easy to find even more solutions to problems online
    • An additional, book for fun that is designed to integrate with the main text is this: The Flying Circus of Physics, Jearl Walker, 2006

The following books are a good supplement. I consider them to be a supplement because they follow the video lecture material so closely that its good to have Halliday/Resnick as a different viewpoint for those times you get stuck.

Improving Physical Intuition

Feynman’s Tips on Physics, Richard P. Feynman

“With characteristic flair, insight, and humor, Feynman discusses topics physics students often struggle with and offers valuable tips on addressing them. Included here are three lectures on problem-solving and a lecture on inertial guidance omitted from The Feynman Lectures on Physics.” - Amazon description

Thinking Physics: Practical Lessons in Critical Thinking by Lewis Carroll Epstein

Epstein’s fun to read book is a great way to hone your intuitive understanding of physics. It is structured in a problem/answer format that covers topics ranging from Newton’s laws all the way to thermodynamics and special relativity. Each question is posed in a manner that requires no mathematics to solve, just an understanding of the physical principles involved. Answers are often counter intuitive but are presented in an easy to understand way. Questions include things like:

  • “If you are holding a jar of flies (with the lid on it, so they don’t fly away), at which point is it heavier: when they are all flying around or when they all land at the bottom?”
  • “Which collision has more force: a car driving 100 mph into a wall or 2 cars, each going 100 mph in a head on collision?”

Professor Povey’s Perplexing Problems: Pre-university Physics and Maths Puzzles with Solutions, Thomas Povey, 2015

How to Get Questions Answered?

www.physicsforums.com These forums cover just about every conceivable topic in physics, covering everything from non-technical, layman’s questions and going all the way to grad school topics and beyond.

physics.stackexchange.com The physics stack exchange is another great place to find answers to questions.

Common Misunderstandings and Mistakes

The physicsforums offer the following tutorials which provide a great deal of insight into common misunderstandings and mistakes:

Frequently Made Errors in Mechanics

Frequently Made Errors in Equation Handling
What is “energy”?