Teach Yourself Physics: a travel companion

by Jakob Schwichtenberg

This is a handbook containing all the advice and recommendations about learning physics I wished someone had told me when I was younger. It is neither a career guide nor a comprehensive textbook.

What’s inside?

Understand why self-learning is an effective strategy. Learn why most university students never develop a deep understanding and what alternatives are possible.Grasp the internal structure of physics. Learn how the fundamental theories of physics are connected and why physics works at all.Develop an understanding of the landscape. Read bird's eye overviews that give a first taste of what the various theories of physics are all about.Everything you need to get started. Read detailed reading and learning recommendations that allow you to carve out a personal learning path.

Genres: Physics, Science, Nonfiction, Education

251 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 12, 2020

Reviews

[Yumeko (blushes) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jakob's really very sweet and motivating, not to mention practical. Much of his advice can be generalized unless it's very specifically about physics. He also makes sure to point to a plethora of resources after an introduction to some topic. It can be guessed from the length of the book, and because this isn't a textbook, that there is no in depth discussion about any specific area of physics.
I don't really share his views on mathematics; the view that it's worth can be judged from it's applicability to some science, physics in this case.

[Mostafa Alkady · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is exactly the book I've wanted to write. A must read for all physics students!

[Sanar Othman · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are not many books which can make it to the full stars category, not only books but this also implies to my lists of movies, documentaries, songs and lastly human beings too. and that might be because of the idea of uniqueness and if I ever give full stars to something it means that it is unique which I hardly do and sometimes I regret (There is always room for a change.) but this book delicately deserves to be rated full stars and I am not exaggerating. I might hold to this book until the end of my career and path of physics because it is a companion and not just a simple book. on the contrary, it is a guide through the path and place in which you want to proceed in, and in this case, it is physics. I can come back to this book whenever I feel stuck or do not know where to go after accomplishing or finishing one step of the journey. I have always been frustrated and nervous by not knowing what to do and where to go in the field of physics after I finish college and since I always say that I won't be obliged to any system and derive my own path in the field, this book was a kinda like lightness at the end of the tunnel. I love how the author has honestly and rationally constructed this book. I can't be exaggerating if I say that it is helpful and almost answers all of the questions which might make one nervous about the field of physics or make you feel bummed at the vague path when one tries to see from afar, sure working on quantum gravity, gauge symmetry, General relativity, and Quantum field theory is nice or even thinking about doing some innovative breakthrough discoveries is breathtaking and all but it takes a lot of ups and downs to get to that level, a lot of effort and time, a lot more than I ever thought of. and I got to the conclusion that it all boils down to your ability to see the big picture which is somehow in contrast with what is being done under the educational systems generally and particularly in college. it also doesn't mean to go all rebellious and not care about anything else than the flaws that you see in the big picture. There are more factors and parameters in the equation which have major influences on one that wants to pursue knowledge. Besides knowledge-ism, there is also career-ism. in order to do what you really intend to do (which in this case we'll assume that you want to have an antifragile knowledge of physics and see the flaws in the big picture and want to somehow fill the holes or connect the fields.) if you want to have a good salary and a good position in the field then you are a careerist and if it is vice versa and you are a someone who does science to satisfy your curiosity then your career cannot be the only thing that you care about but also you cannot totally ignore it. overall this book isn't a one-time read and I will come back to it whenever I see the need to. it is the treasure I have been needing and wanting to find for a long time.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the main theses of this book is summed up in this sentence:

Physics is never really complicated, only badly explained.

The author is convinced, and tries to convince the reader, that anyone can learn as much physics as they'd like. He explores why a lot of people unnecessarily think they "could never learn physics", how a lot of gate keeping is going on in physics (as invariably happens in any community that confers status), how a lot of textbooks are not primarily written with the intent to be easily understood (and how those still get recommended because recommending an "easy" book doesn't confer as much status), and other forces at play that make learning physics seem a daunting if not impossible task for most people.

I applaud the sentiment, even though I think it might be a bit over-optimistic. But if it helps getting more people (like me) to try to dip their toes into the grand waters of physics, then the slightly rose-tinted motivational speech is probably warranted.

The book contains a lot of pointers to good (as per the author's opinion) books on the main subjects of physics, from classical mechanics to quantum field theory, as well as general tips on how to approach the task of learning. Some chapters are very short, there are some redundancies, but all in all, it got me motivated to explore further, which is the aim of the book, so: Well done, mission accomplished.

[Walter Cavinaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

I couldn't have wished for a better book, over the past year I have been looking for reading lists on physics to start from scratch again and learn the basics. Jakob lays out an incredible map of the field along with comments and advice for how best to tackle learning and suggestions for books and order. It was eye-opening to hear him talk about the feeling of not really understanding what your learning in a university setting. Reading about his experience should be motivation enough for everyone to give physics another shot.

As someone on Twitter mentioned, it also has some serious Feynman vibes. I am very excited to see what Jakob produces going forward and can't wait to get started re-learning physics, properly this time.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not a physics student, but this book was recommended to me because it contains nuggets of wisdom. If you are at the start of a new research project, and you don’t know how to go about it, take the time to read this book. I’m sure you won’t be disappointed!

[Shuby Deshpande · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review

I just finished a first pass through reading this book —

This book tells it like it is :)

I think as a society we’re still coming to grasps with the full implications of the Internet. No longer do we have to spend time banging our heads trying to decipher abstruse texts (note: the abstruse nature could be inherent or due to us not being equipped /w the “right” prerequisites). Instead we’re now just a couple of searches away from connecting with passionate teachers who’ve created material for learners with different learning styles and backgrounds.

The beauty of the Internet is that it allows seasoned practitioners to operate “direct to consumer” (which otherwise would have been really difficult, save for maybe finding a tutor). Reading this book felt like connecting with a guide much further along the process of exploring Physics than myself. The conversational tone was apt; it felt like conversing with a friend as opposed to feeling puzzled trying to interpret what an “author” meant.

For those of you who often find yourselves venturing beyond the standard university curricula to “grok” concepts, I would highly recommend reading this book. Even if you don’t really end up pursuing Physics, it’s well worth the read, since what the book really embodies is a concrete instantiation of how to pursue self directed learning in the age of the Internet.

[Muhsin Burhan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed every single paragraph of this book. I wish I could have read it at the beginning of my undergraduate studies. Excellent job by Jakob Schwichtenberg!

[Leonardo Maia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is more of a "map" to help guide yourself if you want to get deeper into physics. You definitely need to have some prior background in STEM or something to get a good grasp of what he's talking about. The title is a bit misleading. Someone who only had physics in high school, but has an interest in learning more, might have trouble following this book.

[Neo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Offers a unique insight into how physics is organised and how to learn physics.

[Joshua Sandeman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helpful service

Jakob's No-nonsense series is a great service to people trying to find their way through the vast and rugged territory of physics. Had this series not also been a journey for Jakob, the Teach Yourself Physics book might have been the first one he wrote, for as the title implies, it is an attempt to give those soon to embark the overview and practical advice they need to navigate with some wisdom and get a good start on what resources will be most helpful. There are quite a few typological mistakes, but the clarity is unharmed. Even if you're not just beginning a journey into physics, I recommend you take a pause and carefully study this book.

[Harshad · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderful book. Studying physics is an arduous journey. You need a good guide-map with you. The book is unique in that sense. Creating such maps for studying involved topics is a rare genre, in fact I've not seen any other book that does this. His point about beginner can be better taught by someone who was beginner recently is also spot on.

I look forward to read this authors other books (especially physics from finance and the one on symmetry) in future.

[Maxim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Teach Yourself Physics - If that is even remotely something you want to do, this book is a great place to start. It provides a “mindmap” of the different areas of physics and how they are related has recommendations for the best books in each area but most importantly is full of good advice HOW to learn, which is applicable for many other fields beyond physics as well!

5/5

[Goodfella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting book, many references and a lot of insights from the authors, particularly the chapter in which he details how he learns.

[Frances Rebollido · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm writing this review without having read Part III yet (just skimmed it), only because I intend to revisit it (and I feel it was meant to be read) when I have started studying/reviewing the subjects themselves. The main agenda of the book though is found in the chapters before and after it (which I finished in one afternoon, as I found the book was an easy read and for me an enjoyable one). I am reading this as a former physics major who dropped out in the middle of the bachelors program 11 years ago and now wish to pursue it again.

The book could very well be called "How the Study of Physics Ought to Be".

Not only does the author attempt to democratize physics with non-elitist language, he also bravely exposes the futility, in some ways, of conventional routes of education, something you are inevitably subjected to by pursuing a university degree. Furthermore, he provides some insider information from the scientific field.

In no way does he discourage university, but he does offer a roadmap for anybody who wishes to study physics not only in pursuit of a career "trophy" but also to help expand what is currently illuminated in the field. The latter not necessarily as an alternative but also as a supplement to the former.

In some parts I felt the author is suggesting that the alternative route outside of the former could help you achieve the latter, but here we have the paradox that actually putting a place for your own findings is near impossible without the credentials of university.

Also in some chapters a lot of what he wants to teach you are in external resources, offered through direct URLs provided in the margins. Sociology was one chapter where he does a better job at teaching the reader without making eternal references, because here he teaches his own methods and describes his own experience with specific examples.

A reader with zero background in the subject might also find themselves lost in chapters such as The Structure of Physics where some jargon is suddenly thrown at you, but don't let this discourage you from perusing the rest of the book.

Though I don't find this as eloquent/poetic a read as other democratizing texts (such as those by Rovelli), all in all it was a pleasant read, and I will definitely check out his other, subject-specific books.

[Hayden Powers · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't really know what I was expecting with this, but I do know that I have taken three semesters of calculus and linear algebra, but absolutely no physics. As a student in computer science, some schools say physics is necessary while others say not, but the truth is I have always felt crippled by my lack of knowledge in this domain -- so I picked up this book.

Physics always scared me as a young person due to the math involved. I didnt think I was good at math. That whole idea changed a couple of years ago and now I find math enjoyable and understandable. However, it was too late to take physics and I was accepted into a school that didnt require it.

So here I am now, with this little book, completely oblivious thinking it would teach me "the basics of physics." This isnt that kind of book. This book is basically a reference guide while you seek other books to teach you specific topics in physics. The book contains loads of book recommendations and lots of reassurance that many physics textbooks in school are written in a manner that is supposed to be confusing.

I liked his reassuring nature, but I will say I have a few problems with the book. For one, it just seems lazy. There are a ton of grammatical errors, the layout of the actual text is so close to the middle/binding region of the book you really have to bend it open to read it, and the "diagrams" and pictures look like he did them real quickly on an iPad and just inserted them as jpgs.

Recommendations: get an artist to do the diagrams/drawings, because most of them made no visual sense and the ones that did just looked sloppy. I assume the book was proofread, hire a new proofreader cause I caught at least a dozen typos. I understand the layout was supposed to resemble a textbook with a large margin for asides, but there needs to be a gap in the crease of the book because it's too close to the center.

Other than that, I really appreciate a book like this. It clears up a lot of fear regarding this field. I certainly wouldnt recommend it to people who havent taken at least calculus 1, because none of the equations will make any sense. Having a bit of background in physics before reading it would also be helpful.

[Rick Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Book is a basic description of Physics.

This work is more, "What is happening in Physics?"

Title could be changed as, "Physics--and fields within Physics, where do they fit in?"

I'd say, you want this as an overview of Physics, and what textbooks to read.
Perhaps, "We can find out, How things fit together?

A Quote, that I appreciate,

"Reading is easy. Thinking is hard"

1. So, What is Physics?

In a nutshell, physics can be summarized as follows.

We take a chunk of reality that we want to understand and translate it into mathematics.
More specifically, this means that we encode our findings in the form of equations.
Using these equations, we can make predictions and test our ideas

2. What do we do?

A model consists of formulas that relate the mathematical objects representing our degrees of freedom.

Both Experimentalists & Theorists need each other
Experiments -> Models -> Theory -> Models -> Prediction -> Results

So, What do Physicists study?

General Relativity to describe Extremely Heavy Objects
Special Relativity to describe Extremely Fast Objects
Classical Mechanics to describe Everyday Objects
Statistical Mechanics to describe Many Atoms
Quantum Mechanics to describe Atoms
Quantum Field Theory to describe Elementary Particles



3. So, Why read this?

I wondered, Where do I use this?

Perhaps, just a basic undergrad education might be helpful in,

a) "applied-products"
b) "applied-research"

Actually, I was expecting fundamental level basics.

What I sense is perhaps, People lose track of unified view of knowledge. Most of the time, fields became specialized and branched off.

Deus Vult,
Gottfried

[__void__ · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a pretty nice book.

I am a senior engineering student who was always interested in physics and this gave me a nice overview. It put all of it in perspective for me. The reasons and motivations behind studying physics became clearer.

Physics is the main root of science responsible for all the development in technology today. Studying and improving this massive field, even if only by a little, will serve to inexorably contribute to the future.

It also made me understand the work it takes to become one and the type of people we need to make the progress we so badly need. It taught me what I already learnt the boring way from the school system, that we aren't taught how to create things but only grind problem sets without understanding to get enough grades to go into the next stage. We need more Feynmans, valley crossers who forge their own path, understand everything holistically, and forge something new.

It made me understand that there are still problems in Physics to be solved, ranging from quantum gravity to

Made me understand that:
-> the universe is lazy through Lagrangians and The Principle of Least Action.
-> Just as we have spacetime coupled together, electromagnetism is one field that can be thought of as a tensor. This need arises when observing fields at different speeds because relative motion of a charge yields different configurations.
-> particle accelerators and Feynman diagrams are for studying Quantum Field Theory
-> Thermodynamics is a really solid field with unmatched resilience.
-> Meta skills and belief in oneself are more than enough to do something new in Physics.
-> Understanding things deeply from first principles is where all the insights and new ideas in Physics are

As I am more into computers, this made me think of the George Hotz's, Linus Torvalds' and Vitalik Buterin's of the world and what it takes to become one of them.

This book also helped give me a quick refresher on Maxwells laws.

[William Schram · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first thing to know about Physics is that it is effective. It describes our world in remarkable detail and precision. Problems only arise when we try to combine scales. Black Holes and the Big Bang are the best examples I can think of off the top of my head.

Teach Yourself Physics is a study guide book written by Jakob Schwichtenberg. His goal was to provide the reader with a road map on their self-learning journey. To that end, Schwichtenberg discusses different textbooks to aid understanding. He goes through the fields of study for each and tells you what to read and why. Moreover, he tells you why the field is important to modern Physics as a whole.

The book is a treasure-trove of suggested reading. The one field that the author does not provide suggested reading for is Statistical Mechanics and Thermodynamics. Schwichtenberg does not pretend to know about these subjects and flat-out states that his suggestions wouldn't be too helpful.

Teach Yourself Physics does what it says on the cover. Thank you for reading my review and see you next time.

[Ahmed Mimon Ash-Shazlie · Rating 5 out of 5]

يقدم الكتاب خريطةً أكثر من رائعة لمن يريد دراسة الفيزياء. هذه الخريطة لا تُفيد من ينوي دراستها وحسب، بل إنها في غاية النفع لمن شرع بدراستها في الجامعة، وحتى لمن أنهى دراستها لكنه ما يزال يرغب في التعلم.

لا يكتفي الكاتب برسم الخريطة لدراسة الفيزياء بل إنه يقدم أدوات التعلم، وهو جانبٌ كثيرًا ما يغفل عنه المعلمون والمتعلمون.
وعندما تكون هذه التوليفة مشفوعةً بمقترحات للعديد من المصادر التي تناسب مختلف الاحتياجات في رحلة التعلم، مع تبرير سبب اختيارها يغدو الكتاب كنزًا لا غنى عنه لكل باحثٍ عن المعرفة في الفيزياء.

يُضاف إلى ما سبق احتواء الكتاب العديد من النصائح والأفكار التي عادةً ما تدور في خلد الطلاب، لكنهم لا يجرؤون على البوح بها ظنًا منهم أن هذا سيظهرهم بمظهر الجاهل أو الطالب البليد، لكن هذه المرة تصدر هذه الإقرارات عن فيزيائي له باعٌ فيها وقد ألَّف العديد من الكتب بعضها يتمتع بالرصانة التي تكفي لتنفي عنه شبهة الجهل أو قلة المعرفة.

خلاصة القول .. الكتاب نصيحة لكل قارئ يتعلم حتى وإن لم يكن دارسًا أو ينوي دراسة الفيزياء.

[Luca Sacchetto · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book more so covered the reasons we should all be our own teachers and the importance behind learning and exploring physics. I feel as if most of the advice in the book was fairly trivial, but I still found it to be an inspiring and easy read. I really liked how the middle chapters went into different fields of physics and why you may want to explore them. This included brief explanations on what Classical Mechanics, Electrodynamics, Special Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Quantum Field Theory, and General Relativity are.

[Mohamed Bakr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book for anyone who plans to study science in general; I believe the advice presented in the book works for all scientific fields. The language is simple and adds a special flow to the book.
The Physics parts were a bit hard to grasp for me; this is expected as they are not supposed to be teaching the subject but giving a "bird eye view".

Author's recommendations are great and versatile. I like the fact that the author had the courage to say "I don't know" as he advised in the book.

Overall a great experience, helped me develop a better mindset for studying Physics as I struggled with it for a long time.

[Sindre Abrahamsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect level for an engineer like me. It is 12 years since university, and I wish I did physics instead. Well now I have the spare time to learn myself. And Schwichtenberg is cheering for me! Very fun and easy reading. I went through the whole book in two days, almost on a high, staying up reading until 2 in the night. A lot of good, honest, unconventional, and relevant tips that I will implement right away.

[Shreyes · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a roadmap for people who want to learn Physics (not a textbook). It has lots and lots of book recommendations. And the author also addresses things like interpretation, sociology etc., surrounding the field of Physics. It was pretty delightful to read this since it motivated me to appreciate the Physics even more.

[Nattapon Chotsisuparat · Rating 5 out of 5]

In comparison to other books, this one is new. You can learn how to learn physics by reading this book. Your love for the physics is the first thing you need. This book also explains physics briefly.  For highly motivated physics students, this is a must have book.

[Jotaro · Rating 5 out of 5]

20/10 y god leelo para saber un poco de que va todo el rollo de la física, hacerte ciertas ideas claras de como estudiar y conseguir unas recomendaciones de futuras lecturas muy útiles

[Per Johannessen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read it in a couple of hours. The go to source when you really want to start learning physics

[Yuan Andrès · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book!! I just don't know how can I possibly formulate this.

[Waseem · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this entire book could just be blog post

I've heard good things about his other books, but on a safe felt like this could just be a blog post

[Rasmus Weibull · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book if your want a non-nonsense roadmap for self-teaching physics / engineering topics :)