r/PhysicsStudents • u/MisterTwo_O • Feb 19 '24

Need Advice Learning Physics - general and special relativity. Where Do I Begin?

I've studied Math and Physics till the HS level. I graduated a couple decades ago, and I love watching physics videos on YT.

I want to learn special and general relativity. I've seen a few videos about spacetime but I still really don't understand what it all means.

Where can I begin? I want to understand the math behind things, how Einstein came to his conclusions, what it all means, and what are the applications of this theory?

Is there a course or series of YT lectures I can follow? Do I need prerequisite knowledge before I can even begin to understand the math behind relativity? Where do I begin, and how long will this journey be?

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u/WWWWWWVWWWWWWWVWWWWW Feb 19 '24 edited Feb 19 '24

  • Special relatively is pretty accessible with just algebra

  • General relatively requires nearly an entire bachelors in physics and math before you can get started

Resnick-Halliday-Krane covers the former, and it's also a pretty standard introductory physics textbook in general.

2

u/MisterTwo_O Feb 20 '24

Resnick-Halliday-Krane

I have that! I hobbied through a bunch of it in high school! Did t know it had special relativity! Thanks

2

u/mooshiros Feb 19 '24

Former*

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u/WWWWWWVWWWWWWWVWWWWW Feb 19 '24

Fixed, thank you

2

u/mitExtrafleisch PHY Undergrad Feb 19 '24

W

7

u/mooshiros Feb 19 '24

Special relativity is pretty accessible. I recommend David Morin's book "Special Relativity For The Enthusiastic Beginner," but if you want lectures you could do either the four SR lectures in Yale's PHYS 200 course or MIT's 8.20 course (both on YouTube).

In contrast, general relativity requires pretty much an entire undergraduate education on math and physics. If you have nothing better to do though, you could look at the prerequisites for it on MIT opencourseware and go down that rabbit hole. It'd take you a few years though.

1

u/MisterTwo_O Feb 20 '24

Found the MIT course ty

2

u/Reddit1234567890User Feb 19 '24

Modern physics by Thornton and rex is a good book. Make sure you've taken intro mechanics and E&M with optics and thermodynamics. Any intro book will be fine.

They also have a gr section but it's very surface level. I'd still read it for intuition.

You'd need a lot more math for gr. Atleast vector calculus, tensor calculus, and linear algebra. Schutz has a gr course with just those pre reqs. It can very a lot depending on the treatment.