Steve Spangler is a bestselling author, STEM educator and Emmy award-winning television personality with more than 2,100 television appearances to his credit. Steve appeared as a regular guest on the Ellen DeGeneres Show from 2007-2022. Learn more about Steve at https://stevespangler.com/about-steve-spangler/
Even if you don’t, watch anyway. Maybe I’ll convince you. And if not, maybe I’ll impart some important skills or perspectives upon you. A lot of what I say can be applied not only to physics, but to other academic disciplines as well.
Here are some resources for learning physics (in order of increasing difficulty)
Amateur (little to no math)
A Briefer History of Time by Stephen Hawking
The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow
The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene
Cosmos by Carl Sagan
Fearful Symmetry by Anthony Zee
Recruit (some calculus, maybe a DiffEQ here or there)
University Physics by Roger Freedman
Physics (Vol 1 and 2) by Resnick, Halliday, and Krane
Regular (know calculus cold, and have a good handle on DiffEQs)
An Introduction to Mechanics by Kleppner and Kolenkow
Electricity and Magnetism by Purcell
Classical and Statistical Thermodynamics by Ashley Carter
Hardened (all of the “baby maths” should be second nature to you)
Classical Mechanics by Taylor
Introduction to Electrodynamics by Griffiths
Introduction to Quantum Mechanics by Griffiths
Introduction to Elementary Particles by Griffiths
Veteran (you will not survive)
A Modern Approach to Quantum Mechanics by Townsend
Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell by Anthony Zee
Studies indicating that studying in pairs is ideal:
Hake, R. R. (1998). Interactive-engagement versus traditional methods: A six-thousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory physics courses. American journal of Physics, 66, 64.
