I need some advice regarding physics and chemistry..

Juustin

Muse
Juustin
Joined
Dec 19, 2006
Messages
501
Hi everyone.

Next semester I'm going back to college part time. I will need to take some physics and chemistry classes. It's a long story, but I never took either in high school, which was 10 years ago anyhow.

Can anyone recommend any books that are good for taking someone from square 1 in either subject? I like reading about science (though usually it's biology), and I understand some of the concepts of both subjects, but I really want to pretend like I know absolutely nothing, and start learning from the bottom up, so I know I'm properly prepared.

Any recommendations would be super. I'm not as much looking for "popular science", but books geared at building a solid knowledge foundation.
 
Try thumbing through SAT prep books and such at your local B&N or Bordes, the subject specific ones might be a good place to start, or somthing like Physics/Chem for dummies.
 
Juustin said:
Hi everyone.

Next semester I'm going back to college part time. I will need to take some physics and chemistry classes. It's a long story, but I never took either in high school, which was 10 years ago anyhow.

Can anyone recommend any books that are good for taking someone from square 1 in either subject? I like reading about science (though usually it's biology), and I understand some of the concepts of both subjects, but I really want to pretend like I know absolutely nothing, and start learning from the bottom up, so I know I'm properly prepared.
Click to expand...

Are you serious about physics and chemistry? Are you actually interested in them?

If these are first-year classes, you should be able to go ask the professors which textbooks they will be using. First year texts will usually start right from the beginning. In fact, the first chapter will often be something like a discussion on units. The difference between a first-year college text and a high school text is that it will move faster and farther. Read the words you don't understand multiple times and do problems from the end of the chapter. That's essentially what you'll be doing in class, anyway (and where the bulk of the learning will come from).

OTOH, if you're just trying to survive them, I'm not sure what to recommend...
 
Thanks.

I'm definitely trying to do more than just survive them. I really am trying to go for Biology, but I need to take physics and chemistry as well. I haven't delved a ton into either, though I understand what I've read so far. In fairness, most of what I've read dealing with chemistry is in the context of biology. I like both, I just tend to spend my time with biology/genetics type books rather than chemistry and physics.

That was the long answer. Short answer is yes, I am interested and am looking past just "surviving" the courses.
 
Jimbo07 said:
Are you serious about physics and chemistry? Are you actually interested in them?

If these are first-year classes, you should be able to go ask the professors which textbooks they will be using. First year texts will usually start right from the beginning. In fact, the first chapter will often be something like a discussion on units. The difference between a first-year college text and a high school text is that it will move faster and farther. Read the words you don't understand multiple times and do problems from the end of the chapter. That's essentially what you'll be doing in class, anyway (and where the bulk of the learning will come from).

OTOH, if you're just trying to survive them, I'm not sure what to recommend...
Click to expand...
First year texts are, however boring and from time to time error-prone/misleading (not enough time-space to explain why in detail. For both, Gonick and idiots - plus the Shramm problem guides - will help a lot regardless of your text. Also, if you can get your hands on Paul Hewitt's Conceptual Physics, it will be great for getting the concepts (without the math - why? you ask - because some teachers actually don't worry about the concept but just push the math. Knowing the concepts will often let you easily spot your errors in the math and/or your interpretation of it.) {I say that, having earned the respect of students when I was assigned to teach an Honors Physics course - that was done pure math. Because I do not use a calculator or do math at that level, they assumed I would be useless as a teacher. After about three weeks, the brighter ones began to realize there was something wrong with that concept because I was spotting their errors easily - even though I wasn't using a calculator - or indeed even doing calculations. After the first nine-weeks (quarter) the problem vanished.
 
If you can get hold of "Conceptual Physics" by Hewitt, it would really help with explainations of how things work in the world. You can read the book and understand the concepts associated with basic physics. Hewitt is the best of the best when it comes to teaching physics concepts. (obviously, my opine)

glenn
 
I second Hindmost's emotion: Paul G. Hewitt's Conceptual Physics is as good as it gets for conceptual textbooks. College Physics often gets mired down in sophisticated mathematics; the ability to solve number puzzles is taken as mastery of the content. Math is great, but has meaning only after you know the concepts that the math is dealing with. Too often, the cart is put before the horse.

If you want something more along the lines of a mass-market, "good read," try Isaac Asimov's Understanding Physics (it was portioned out in three volumes so he could claim authorship of a greater number of books).

For more fun, check out www.phyz.org.
 
For physics, I know of no better resource than The Mechanical Universe on video. Check your library or local universities.

As for chemistry, this is a tougher call. There are so many different approaches. Some schools don't go into too much depth, and some treat the subject with intensity. Personally, I though my college level chemstry book by Oxtoby was one of the best textbooks ever written on any subject (my only complaint is that his chapters on concentrations were hard to follow). If you can find an old edition of Oxtoby's "Chemistry: Science of Change" in your local library, you will have a very good reference.

If you've had calculus, it is more important to brush up on that than on physics or chemistry. Modern physics is especially calculus-intensive. (Technically, you don't need calculus to learn physics, but this is like saying that you don't need a motor vehicle to go cross-country.)
 
Man I feel for you. Chemistry is insanely hard when I took it back in the day in HS. Unfortunately I don't know of any books but I do recommend having a periodic table handy. Best of luck to you!
 
Brown said:
Technically, you don't need calculus to learn physics, but this is like saying that you don't need a motor vehicle to go cross-country.)
Click to expand...
Or it could be like saying you don't need a jackhammer to split an aspirin tablet in two...

There's a reason Baskin-Robbins makes 31 flavors. ;)
 
For chemistry, perhaps the most useful skill to practice is manipulation of units. If given a specific number of grams of sodium chloride (NaCl) in a sample, you should be able to figure out: (a) how many atoms of sodium there are in the sample; (b) the number of moles of NaCl in the sample; (c) the concentration that would result if this many grams of NaCl were completely dissolved in 10 liters of water.

Basically, the techniques for solving these problems involve manipulation of units. To practice manipulating units, practice computing the following:
  • Your fingernails grow at the rate of one millimeter per two weeks. How fast do they grow in units of miles per hour?
  • You bought 66 eggs. How many dozens of eggs did you buy?
  • Air pressure at a site is 14 pounds per square inch. How many ounces is that per square centimeter? Bonus: How many Pascals (the metric unit of pressure) is that?
  • Your car burns one gallon of gasoline and goes 24 miles. How many kilometers will it go on 100 liters of gasoline?
Knowing your units, and being able to convert from one unit of measurement to another, is essential to both physics and chemistry. And here's a tip: one way to check to see if your answer makes sense is to check to see whether the units work out.
 
Thanks for all the tips. I stopped by and spoke with the night advisor. She gave me the list of courses I need and the order they're supposed to be taken in. I have to take a year of chemistry first, then a year of physics. After reading the Physics First thread, I'm sort of surprised at that. I thought they did physics last in high school so an understand of math was in place first, but that doesn't make much sense for college.

The downside is they don't let you skip the prerequisite courses for most subjects, and I have a ton of non-credit courses I have to take before I can move on to my real courses. Fortunately I'll be alive another 50 years or so.
 
Remember: Education is not something that happens to you, it is something you do for yourself.

(I got that from someone here, but I cannot remember the name of the sage JREF-er.)
 
This may be a dumb question, but if I found a general chemistry textbook for dirt cheap, but it's from 2002, is it worth getting, or should I skip it? I'm just looking to brush up before I start the intro course I need next semester, but I realize a lot can change in science in 5 years.
 
Not much is going to change in general chemistry in 5 years.

The biggest thing that could happen is that the manner in which the course is taught could change in 5 years. If you are going to a course with a non-standard format for the course, the material will still likely be in the textbook, but you will have to find it.

OTOH, most gen chem texts aren't all that much different from what they were 40 years ago (hey, physics courses still teach Newtonian mechanics, so that material hasn't changed in hundreds of years), and most courses stick with the standard format.
 
Last edited:
My recommendation is STAN GIBILISO, PHYSICS DEMYSTIFIED:A SELF-TEACHING GUIDE (2002). I hadn't taken a real physics course since high school and this was a great jump starter with no outside explanation required. It was $20 from Borders. They There is also a chemistry book in the same series but I haven't gone through it so I can't give a personal recommendation.
 
Thanks again. I'm not talking about using the textbook specifically for the course. I just want to read a textbook before I start the course so that I have some background going in. Figure it's better to be prepared ahead of time so if I need to spend extra time making sure I really understand everything, I'll be able to.

I'll check out the Demystified series.
 
yairhol said:
I studied introductory physics from:
"Physics" by Hallidal, Resnick and Krane
http://www.amazon.com/Physics-1-David-Halliday/dp/0471320579/ref=pd_sim_b_1_img/102-6777007-8433706?ie=UTF8&qid=1190218589&sr=1-2

There is also:
"Fundamentals of Physics" by Halliday, Resnick, Walker.
http://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Physics-David-Halliday/dp/0471216437


Those are good basic books in physics. There is a volume for electricity and volume for Newtonian physics.

Regards,
Yair
Click to expand...

This has always bugged me whenever I think of buying one or both of those and I look them up on Amazon. Why are there two Halliday & Resnick & Someone Else books, with similar titles? Is one for high school and the other for university? If so, which is which?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom