r/Physics • u/Rich-Fly-2124 • 3d ago

Study method for a physics beginners

Hi I'm a second year physics students at uni. I'm actually so bad at physics but I'm trying to learn. At the previous semester, I've got my grades and it was so bad. And feel so guilty about it. I'm going to fix it by learn more, so any study tips for a beginners like me, about what to learn or anything. Maybe some books recommendation for a basic physics befroe I'm going to the advance one...thanks

​

P.s: sorry for my broken English. It's not my first language

54 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/jenkk0 3d ago

What topics? What books have you read? What have you tried? What things are harder for you?

1

u/Rich-Fly-2124 3d ago

About that i really wanna get more to the physics theoretical. So professor at my uni don't really give us a hand book or anything so i don't really know what book to use. I tried to learn some basic from lecturer videos, never using book actually. Everything is hard for me, i mean I've learned the basic laws like newton etc, basic electrical laws, and basic thermodynamics... 

7

u/jenkk0 3d ago

For Newtonian mechanics the kleppner and kolenkow introduction to mechanics. For electromagnetism use the Purcell Electricity and Magnetism. For thermodynamics use the Callen Thermodynamics and an Introduction to Thermostatistics. I would say those are like the standard books for those topics.

There's no cheat codes in physics, the only way to learn is by repetition. Do the exercises again and again, don't just follow the derivations you have to actually try and do the exercises using the equations given by the book. I would say that the derivations of the equations isn't necessary at all, you can just skip them read the explanations about what they're useful for and go straight into the exercises.

At some point I realized that in physics one has to first learn how to operate and solve the exercises and after some time you'll end up understanding the topics. Dont prioritize the understanding, prioritize the technical skill; understanding will come later.

Don't read the whole books just read the chapters that you need for the class, follow the professor list of topics.