Physics Math Equations for Beginners

Hello, can anyone point me in the direction to a source which will serve as an introduction to the equations used in classical physics and quantum mechanics?

Something like this but more extensive, this only has a few.

I am using various books, the Kahn Academy and Brilliant.org but feel I need to start at the very bottom to understand the equations that frequently appear.

This Wikipedia page is great but there are no examples of when the equation is applied.

It might be what I'm looking for doesn't exist and I'll just have to keep going over the Wikipedia link.

a reply to: and14263

A Comprehensive List of All the Physics Formulas

a reply to: and14263

Ride a time machine back to the 1800's.
Quantum theory can probably be thought of as fundamental nodal interactions with stable resonance.
So many ways to slice and dice, physicists 5000 BC realized in might be all analog resonance.
And of course they cool matter down till it super-conducts to remove entropy.


www.britannica.com...

openstax has textbooks for free

openstax.org...

a reply to: and14263

a reply to: and14263

Writing as someone who has gone through a 4 year curriculum in Physics, I must ask this question: Is your goal to understand Physics, or is it to memorize a bunch of mathematical formulas?

If your goal is to gain some understanding of Physics, by far the best way to organize that effort is the way it is typically organized in colleges and universities, which is more or less in its chronological order of development.

The first modern Physicist is generally considered to be Issac Newton. He taught us all the tricks of the trade we still use to this day. First, he chose a problem to solve for which there was empirical data expressed in a quantitative form (i.e., measurements). In his most famous case, this was explaining celestial motion as described by Kepler's laws. He then created a set of hypotheses to explain celestial motion that included his famous laws of motion and the idea of universal gravitation between masses and expressed those hypotheses as mathematical equations. He threw into the mix the invention of differential and integral calculus which he then used to write down and then solve the differential equations describing gravitationally bound motion and showed that it explained Kepler's laws. All scientists who came after him apply this same basic approach and is why Calculus is a prerequisite for a Physics curriculum.

This is why a modern college Physics curriculum usually starts with the study of mechanics, which includes but is not limited to, Newton's laws of motion and his law of universal gravitation. After that, it usually progresses to the study of wave motion, including acoustics and resonance principles. Thermodynamics usually follows that, followed by electricity and magnetism, light and optics, and then modern Physics which includes relativity, quantum mechanics, atomic and nuclear Physics, etc. Most undergraduate Physics textbooks are organized along these lines. My suggestion is to find a good undergraduate textbook and go through the chapters in order.

At each step of the way, you learn the equations that are necessary to describe the phenomena you are trying to understand. This is much more useful than memorizing random equations.

a reply to: and14263

By far the most comprehensive site that teaches physics is the Richard Feynman lecture series found here:

Richard Feynman Lectures

a reply to: 1947boomer

By far the best answer here. Nice to meet another person who studied physics on this site.

a reply to: and14263

Start looking into the SI system and work yourself from there if it's the equations that you find hard to understand.

Then you will understand any equations by yourself as you map out the domain of units, provided you are good in math and that you can visualize the connections.

For conceptual understanding you do not need to learn equations. Only if you understood the concepts you can really understand to connect the equation to these concepts and you won't have to memorize most of them, as it's then just logical to you how you put them together. Most variables in equations have another equation on the backside of things. I like to think of equations like tree branches. The simple ones at least like Newton's laws should be pretty obvious then.

Example for gravitational acceleration without drag or buoyancy and gravity constant derivations on Earth.
F= G*((m1*m2)/r²)

m1 and m2 are the two masses, r is the distance. G is the gravitational constant, for Earth it's 9.80665 m/s².

With the above formula, you can calculate the attractive force. If you are fit with Gauss' law, you can now integrate:

g = - ((G*M)/r²) * ^r

M is the field source, the greater mass, ^r is the unit vector that extends from the field source towards the smaller mass, namely gravitation. Then of course, since you want to get the gravitational pull, you have to negate the whole equation. That's why it's negative as you want the attraction, not the extention of the field, as you multiply it with the unit vector.

Notice how in the first equation, all units are base units, while G is a constant made out of two other units, time squared and distance.

a reply to: 1947boomer

Goal is to understand not memorise. I aren't preparing for exams, just learning.

a reply to: TDDAgain

Thanks. This is the sort of understanding I am aiming for.

a reply to: 1947boomer

originally posted by: Avardan
a reply to: and14263

By far the most comprehensive site that teaches physics is the Richard Feynman lecture series found here:

Richard Feynman Lectures

Yes the Feynman lectures are a great way to read if reading texts is your preferred learning method. They even made them free to read online some years ago!

If you prefer a professor explaining things to you, you can find MIT opencourseware youtube videos on a variety of subjects related to physics. I've watched most of the quantum Physics I lectures, here is the first one:

www.youtube.com...

In the beginning of that lecture, the professor explains that doing the problem sets is the best way to learn. It's applying the equations. That probably goes for all of physics. You can find other free courses at the main link for opencourseware:

ocw.mit.edu...

a reply to: and14263

Approaching QM and Classical Physics from the bottom you're going to have to start with calculus and derivatives... you might like the Teaching Company

www.thegreatcourses.com...

You can find a lot of these courses around the web but if you're familiar with torrents (of educational material which is perfectly legal) head on over to forums.mvgroup.org... and register.

It should be noted though that Physics and Mathematics are two separate practices... math is a tool used in Physics which dips much further into the experimental aspect of Classical Mechanics.

QM on the other hand is basically all math, none of it can be tested let alone and presented via repeated experiment. QM breaks current math, it's a huge waste of time... they just keep going in circles with their math and then try to get philosophical about it and there's nothing worse than a Quantum Theoretical Physicist (a mathematician) trying to explain the meaning of life and reality to you, that's not the realm of science.

QM is mainly concerned with creating elementary particles that they claim they're discovering.

Here is a fairly decent debate which begins at approx the 23 minute mark you might enjoy.

a reply to: iamthevirus

The actor who made sense of the Korean war in MASH clarifies quantum physics?
My attention span is good for 10 minutes but that is a long time to wait for the "shut up and calculate" explanation of the physicist that gets to play with quantum physics for atomic clocks.
Atomic clocks keep time even after you shut down the observation apparatus, there is some kind of real perpetual wave resonance there.
When I was abducted as a child they showed me calculations for a Mercury ion quadrupole moment that were a total troll.
Just a modern riddle of the Sphinx.

Exactly... shut up and calculate, I love how that comment comes from the only actual scientist on the stage and who happens to be the only person on the stage who has the Nobel prize in physics.

There's nothong worse than a mathematician (someone who doesn't actually practice science) waxing all philosophical on the listeners... It's always the pencil pushers not the actual doers. (Theoretical physicists Vs Experimental physicists)

The pencil pushers always proclaim just like towards the end of the debate that in 100 years from now yadda ya... well it's been 100 years already and they're still dividing by zero! Meanwhile our collective intellect has basically tripled since General Relativity and Einstein.

I knew I recognized that moderator from somewhere lol he doesn't try to explain Physics he's just the moderator.

a reply to: fromunclexcommunicate

Hey everybody pop the champagne because we "discovered" the Higgs...

Just kidding hehe, we actually had to "create it" to discover it @@

For QM you're going to want to learn conversion of cartesian co-ordianates to spherical polar co-ordinates, partial differentiation, matrix operations (focusing of Markov Chains) scalar, vector, tensors equations (focusing on eigen vectors/values)----------it's not that hard from a maths perspective but requires years of intense study, it's incredibly boring and impossible to truly understand what the results mean for everyday life as it goes againt all human concepts, language, comprehension, everyday experience etc...

Newtonian Physics is a lot more fun, easier to understand and applicable to everyday life.
Cousera.org usually has free degree courses from the world's top Uni's. (can't see a relevant course on there atm but they may run them in terms/semesters as they used to be on there with free tuition)

There's free lectures and course material from MIT here for classical mechanics:


(should link to complete program of 35 lectures) linkk here if it doesn't come up: MIT Physics: Classical Mechanics lecture series

Textbooks help but Physics is really a subject it helps to be taught in person by an eccentric to bring it to life.

EDIT:

Not sure how US works but in the UK/EU there's always free public lecture series held by Universities that IMHO as an Applied Maths graduate and Physics nerd are well worth attending (got to see the world's first 3D holographic recreation of the Hubble deep field zoom presented by two profs who lead NASA/ESA - they're required by constitution to be free and open to the general public plus Physicists in general have a '# the rules' mentality and want info to be free, fun and easy to understand so make lectures/courses available for free online.

On second thought the only useful real world application of QM maths I can think of is vetting BS claims of products/headlines/papers that claim to have mystery, woo Quantum healing capabilities.

Real QM always has partial differentiation, while 99.9% of products claiming to have proven QM propeties feature no partial differential equations whatsoever, let alone anything leading to a proof.

You don't need to understand PDE inside out to detect the BS., just recognise the form and symbols the proper form takes: mathworld.wolfram.com...

Wolfram.com and mathworld are also great base resources.

We don't trust anything State or Government when it comes to education in the States...

Thanks to you guys

a reply to: bastion

This is what happens when Government gets involved with education , they politicize it...

Math is Racist

www.washingtonpost.com...

a reply to: bastion