Overview
A world-class physicist and a citizen scientist combine forces to teach Physics 101—the DIY way
The Theoretical Minimum is a book for anyone who has ever regretted not taking physics in college—or who simply wants to know how to think like a physicist. In this unconventional introduction, physicist Leonard Susskind and hacker-scientist George Hrabovsky offer a first course in physics and associated math for the ardent amateur. Unlike most popular physics books—which give readers a taste of what physicists know but shy away from equations or math—Susskind and Hrabovsky actually teach the skills you need to do physics, beginning with classical mechanics, yourself. Based on Susskind’s enormously popular Stanford University-based (and YouTube-featured) continuing-education course, the authors cover the minimum—the theoretical minimum of the title—that readers need to master to study more advanced topics.
An alternative to the conventional go-to-college method, The Theoretical Minimum provides a tool kit for amateur scientists to learn physics at their own pace.
Synopsis
A Wall Street Journal Best Book of 2013A world-class physicist and a citizen scientist combine forces to teach Physics 101the DIY way
The Theoretical Minimum is a book for anyone who has ever regretted not taking physics in collegeor who simply wants to know how to think like a physicist. In this unconventional introduction, physicist Leonard Susskind and hacker-scientist George Hrabovsky offer a first course in physics and associated math for the ardent amateur. Unlike most popular physics bookswhich give readers a taste of what physicists know but shy away from equations or mathSusskind and Hrabovsky actually teach the skills you need to do physics, beginning with classical mechanics, yourself. Based on Susskind's enormously popular Stanford University-based (and YouTube-featured) continuing-education course, the authors cover the minimumthe theoretical minimum of the titlethat readers need to master to study more advanced topics.
An alternative to the conventional go-to-college method, The Theoretical Minimum provides a tool kit for amateur scientists to learn physics at their own pace.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly
Readers ready to embrace their inner applied mathematician will enjoy this brisk, bare-bones introduction to classical mechanics drawn from Stanford University’s “Continuing Studies” program. Although physicist Susskind (The Black Hole War) and science advocate Hrabovsky touch briefly on electricity and magnetism, the book is primarily about mechanics and the motion of particles. The authors open with a look at closed and open systems and the reversibility of physical laws, a concept central to the field. Next are rigorous chapters on trigonometry and vectors, and a no-nonsense intro to differential and integral calculus, and how these tools are used to calculate the motion of objects through space. Not for the faint of heart, successive chapters introduce Newton’s law of motion, the complex mathematics of “systems” of particles, phase space, conservation of momentum, and the Principle of Least Action, which allows scientists to “package” a system’s velocity, mass, direction, and forces into a single function. The authors intend this book as a toolkit for determined readers who want to teach themselves basic mechanics. Although their discussions are clear enough, even the hardiest reader will want to bring a basic calculus text along for the journey. 62 line drawings. Agent: Katinka Matson, Brockman, Inc. (Feb.)From the Publisher
Wall Street Journal“So what do you do if you enjoyed science at school or college but ended up with a different career and are still wondering what makes the universe tick?.... Leonard Susskind and George Hrabovsky’s The Theoretical Minimum is the book for you. In this neat little book the authors aim to provide the minimum amount of knowledge you need about classical physics to gain some real understanding of the world . They do so with great success . Along the way you get beautifully clear explanations of famously ‘difficult’ things like differential and integral calculus, conservation laws and what physicists mean by symmetries . Messrs. Susskind and Hrabovsky’s book is a powerful exposition of why science is ‘real’ and a counter to the kind of wishful thinking employed by people who, for whatever reason, reject the scientific worldview.”
Science Blogs: Built on Facts
“[A] charming and erudite instance of a genre with very few members a pop-physics book with partial differential equations on a good fraction of the pages
. More impressive still is that the book entirely resists the temptation to skip to the good stuff quantum mechanics and so on. This is a book which is purely about classical mechanics
. [S]ucceeds admirably in its goal. It presents classical mechanics in all its glory, from forces to Hamiltonians to symmetry and conservation laws, in a casual but detailed style.”
Physics World
“Very readable. Abstract concepts are well explained
.[The Theoretical Minimum] provide[s] a clear description of advanced classical physics concepts, and gives readers who want a challenge the opportunity to exercise their brain in new ways.”
Not Even Wrong
“[Q]uite good
. The style is breezy and colloquial, with lots of nice explanations of some of the basic concepts of physics. It’s wonderful to see Poisson brackets appearing and nicely explained in a popular book destined to be displayed at bookstores everywhere.”
Sean Carroll, physicist, California Institute of Technology, and author of The Particle at the End of the Universe
“What a wonderful and unique resource. For anyone who is determined to learn physics for real, looking beyond conventional popularizations, this is the ideal place to start. It gets directly to the important points, with nuggets of deep insight scattered along the way. I'm going to be recommending this book right and left.”