Basic Physics: Introduction

I have done a few introductory physics posts in the past, but I have never been happy enough with them to continue them as a series. After writing my post yesterday on the problems with science communication, I have thought more deeply about why I wasn't happy with them. I've decided that I didn't like them because they weren't able to adequately explain what I wanted to convey. This is mostly my limitations, but also because I hadn't set in my mind who my audience was, and because I had never done posts that explained what I understood to be background material to the topics.

So, I am going to try again in a more cohesive manner. By which I mean that I am going to do a year-long series of blog posts that roughly coincide with what physics majors (and engineers, and other interested parties) learn in their first year, covering basic classical mechanics, electrostatics, magnetostatics and circuitry.

Why? Why would I do this? First of all, I think it will be good practice for when I (fingers crossed) become a professor. I have mostly been working off of the curricula and methods of other professors--I would like to find my own. Secondly, I want to show that physics isn't "hard". Nearly every time I mention that I do physics for a living, I hear the same story--the person I'm talking to either took it in high school and did miserably, thus putting them off the whole thing, or they never took it because they were never any good at that brainy stuff. I want to write a series that, even if it doesn't make physics converts, gives people the confidence that they understand key physics concepts, and maybe understand why physics geeks geek out over physics.

To that end, I am going to be writing for people who have never taken a physics class, but who have some basic math background. I am going to assume a high school level of education, though even that seems to be a somewhat variable standard anymore. I am not going to hold back on "vocabulary words" as my students put it, because it's a blog and you have instant access to a dictionary, but I will explain any technical terms or words that are used in a manner different from their colloquial usage.

To start out with, I am going to do a series of crash-course algebra, trig, vectors, and calculus, so that we have a common math starting point, and a kind of reference guide. Math is the language of physics and it is very hard to really understand what physics is without being able to speak about it using math. Otherwise you kind of end up with something more like Aristotle's physics than Newton's, simply because it is very difficult to describe it using just words.

Then there will be a longish series on basic classical mechanics, which is the one physics topic most people can grasp with at least a bit of intuition. We have all thrown balls, used a seesaw, and spun in an office chair. It will cover more or less the same material you would see in first semester physics class.

The last part will be on what I have taught for 5 semesters now--introductory electromagnetism, or Intro E&M. This will cover basic electrostatic forces/fields, currents, simple circuitry and basic magnetism.

I'm going to try to stick to a schedule of posting one a week, again, roughly like it would be in a classroom setting. This will also give me enough time (hopefully) to properly proof read them and weed out errors.

So, without further ado, on to Part 0, Section 0: Algebra!