So you want to learn physics (2021)

Introduction to the Second Edition

April 20th, 2021

Nearly six years ago, I sat down at my desk and typed up a detailed guide for anyone who wanted to learn physics on their own. At the time, I had no idea how many people would read it and use it — my only goal was to put the information out there in a clear and straightforward way so that anyone who wanted to learn physics would have the self-study curriculum they needed. Since then, over six hundred thousand people have turned to this guide to study physics.

According to the emails I’ve received from readers, many of you have gone on to get undergraduate degrees in physics after following the curriculum in this guide (some of you are even now in graduate programs!), but the majority of those who have bookmarked and followed this guide — even all the way to the end! — have done so out of pure curiosity and for the sheer joy of understanding the incredible universe we inhabit.

The success of this guide is, I believe, a testament to two things.

First, that one of the most impactful things you can do is to share what you know with others, even if it doesn’t seem like a lot. I wasn’t able to become a professional physicist, but I was able to use my knowledge of undergraduate and graduate-level physics to type up a comprehensive and accessible curriculum that has helped hundreds of thousands of people learn physics. That’s pretty remarkable. If you are wondering what you have to offer the world, I hope you will think of this guide and consider what you might know that you can share with others.

Second, that there are so many people in the world who want to understand physics but are unable to study it formally in a university setting for any number of reasons. These same people are very serious about learning physics, and not for any career purposes but simply because they want to understand the universe, and they are and have been dreadfully underserved and underestimated by the academic physics community (who do not take them seriously because they aren’t studying at colleges and universities) and by the authors of contemporary and popular physics books and the publishers of those same books (who mostly just sell them books that assume most readers can never and will never really understand physics). When I wrote the first edition of this guide, I was pretty sure there were a lot more people out there who really wanted to learn physics — real physics — than academic physicists and publishers believed, and those were the people I wanted to help. As it turns out, there were even more of you than I could ever have imagined!

Well, after almost six years and lots of reader feedback, I decided that it was finally time to make a (lightly) updated version of this guide. I went back through the emails and comments I’ve received over the years, and then made a list of the most popular requests. I skimmed through all the books in the curriculum and a few new ones as well. I updated textbook editions, added more undergraduate-level electives, added a section of graduate-level electives, and made a few other small changes — all in the hope that this new version will be even more useful than the first.

As I wrote in the first edition: “Remember that anyone can learn physics…Whether you turn it into a hobby or a career, the pure joy of understanding the universe around us is one of the most beautiful experiences you can ever have in life.”

Godspeed!

You can still find the first edition here, on my old website: https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2016/8/13/so-you-want-to-learn-physics.