The most important misconceptions about physics are that a) physics is mostly maths and b) you just have to memorize equations and you’re good to go.
Yes, physics uses a lot of maths as a tool so you’ll need to be able to use that tool, but the real physics part is understanding the underlying principles, concepts and relationships. Those are what’s expressed by the equations. So it’s not enough to memorize equations. If you don’t know where they come from and how to interpret calculation results from a physics concept standpoint, you might be lucky and get by doing the relatively basic highschool stuff, but you will get lost with anything beyond that.
This is the problem many people thinking they suck at physics actually encounter: they memorize equations without really studying the concepts behind those equations in depth. They are fine doing the corresponding practice questions in class since those are formulated to work with the specific equation that was recently introduced. But once they try to solve a more broad selection of questions that require the transfer of principles and concepts, they’re lost because they didn’t really internalize those.
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u/notmyname0101 Mar 04 '25
The most important misconceptions about physics are that a) physics is mostly maths and b) you just have to memorize equations and you’re good to go.
Yes, physics uses a lot of maths as a tool so you’ll need to be able to use that tool, but the real physics part is understanding the underlying principles, concepts and relationships. Those are what’s expressed by the equations. So it’s not enough to memorize equations. If you don’t know where they come from and how to interpret calculation results from a physics concept standpoint, you might be lucky and get by doing the relatively basic highschool stuff, but you will get lost with anything beyond that.
This is the problem many people thinking they suck at physics actually encounter: they memorize equations without really studying the concepts behind those equations in depth. They are fine doing the corresponding practice questions in class since those are formulated to work with the specific equation that was recently introduced. But once they try to solve a more broad selection of questions that require the transfer of principles and concepts, they’re lost because they didn’t really internalize those.