Teach Yourself Physics: a travel companion

Book Preface

This is neither a career guide nor an attempt to explain ev-erything you need to know about physics in a single book. There are many excellent career guides out there and if your goal is to improve your chances of securing a permanent academic position, you should pick one of those.1 More-over, after reading this book you will still have to learn more about physics using other resources like textbooks or lec-tures.
Instead, this book is a handbook containing all the advice and recommendations about learning physics I wished someone had told me when I was younger.
My goal is to encourage more people to think deeply about nature by using the appropriate tools. If a larger number of people understand the fundamentals of physics, our chances are much higher that someone comes up with a good solution to our present obstacles. And I’m convinced that anyone can contribute something meaningful to the world of physics.
Of course, it’s equally possible to simply enjoy learning about physics without the explicit goal to contribute some-thing yourself. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a full-time student of physics or someone who wants to understand more about nature in your spare time. Understanding physics is a goal within everyone’s reach.
This book is the result of discovering how few longtime students of physics have developed a truly deep under-standing. During the past few years, I’ve talked to hundreds of students from all corners of the world. What I learned is that, even after many years of studying, many students weren’t making the kind of progress they should have. The sincerity of their aspirations and the amount of time they spent on learning were definitely not the problem. Instead, what they lacked was a clear understanding of the most basic objects, of how physics really works, why it works the way it does, and how the various parts of physics are connected.
Put another way, what they needed but didn’t have was a clear map.
This book is my modest attempt to improve the situation and I hope it offers a portal anyone can use to get access to the amazing world that we call physics. Think of this book as a traveler’s guide, providing you with maps of the territory and detailed directions for getting where you want to go. By using it as your travel companion you will always know where you’re at, and where you need to head next. I’m convinced that this will help to make your journey more enjoyable.
With that said, I have to admit that I was quite hesitant to write this book because I felt it was presumptuous of me to tell others what and how to learn. I certainly don’t have all the answers.2 But what finally convinced me was the realization that no such travel companion currently exists and I would have loved if a book like this had existed when I started studying physics. I also realized that I don’t need to write the ultimate authoritative reference to provide something useful. Instead, I will simply share everything
I wished I had known earlier and each reader can make of that whatever he or she wants.
So while this book is certainly not perfect, at least it’s a start. In fact, I think it would be fantastic if someone reads this book, disagrees with most of my recommendations and then writes a much better travel companion for physics. Furthermore, I believe that this book is only successful if it sparks new ideas. So please don’t take anything in this book at face value and don’t blindly follow my advice. Question everything and try to find better alternatives. If enough people do this and share their thoughts, it will become easier and easier for everyone to understand how nature works. After all, the goal is not to spread my ideas but to make it easier for subsequent generations to learn physics. I’m just trying to provide an initial spark.
In any case, I’m glad to have you aboard, fellow voyager!Hopefully, you’ll enjoy reading this book as much as I have enjoyed writing it.