How to learn physics from scratch
And how far to go with it.
Physics is a difficult thing to study. Not just because it requires a lot of mathematics, but also because it requires a lot of patience, dedication and time. Most people only learn physics in high school, and never touch on the subject again, perhaps they don’t need it, or they go into a profession which doesn’t require any knowledge of physics. Whichever the case may be, there are certainly wrong and right approaches to learning physics. In this short article, I will explain how to get the most out of your learning. This comes after almost 9 years of learning physics at university, from doing a Bachelor’s degree with honours research, to my most recent PhD in theoretical physics. I have made many mistakes in my own learning, but I have also learned many valuable lessons. Here is a summary of the right approach.
1. Set clear expectations from the start
If you want to learn and understand physics to the level of someone who learned it at university, or at least enough to understand what is going on in physics research at the moment and follow most research papers, you will need to dedicate at least 3 years of your time to studying this. It may not be pretty, but it’s important to set the right expectations before you begin. Having said that, here is the key thing: you don’t need to…
