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Linda A Cicero/Stanford News Service A
physicsworld.com
Reviews
Lowry Kirkby
physics primer, with equations
Thirst for physics
Leonard Susskind’s
popular series of
lectures for the
general public have
been compiled in
this book.
The Theoretical
Minimum: What You
Need to Know to
Start Doing Physics
Leonard Susskind
and George
Hrabovsky
2013 Basic Books
£20.00/$26.99hb
256pp
The mantra for popular-science
books is to minimize the use of
equations. In The Theoretical Minimum:
What You Need to Know to
Start Doing Physics, authors Leonard
Susskind and George Hrabovsky
have taken the opposite approach by
producing a physics book for the educated
general public that emphasizes
the mathematics needed to solve
physics problems.
When I first heard about the premise
of the book, I was intrigued. Is
there a group of people who want to
solve physics and mathematics problems,
and not simply read about the
gee-whiz physics that is the standard
fare of most popular-science books?
To my surprise, apparently there is.
The Theoretical Minimum is the product
of a series of lectures that Susskind
presented for the general public
in the Stanford area – all of which
can be found video-recorded on the
Web – and these lectures attracted a
large following of people who were,
in Susskind’s words “hungry to learn
physics”. Indeed, Hrabovsky himself
was one of those people. Now president
of the Madison Area Science
and Technology organization, which
is devoted to research and education,
Hrabovsky has no formal scientific
training but taught himself physics
and mathematics – presumably
through courses and books similar
to The Theoretical Minimum.
This thirst for academic learning
outside of a conventional university
degree reminded me of the
recent and rapid growth of so-called
massive open online courses, or
MOOCs: open-access (i.e. free) university
courses that give people of
any age or background the chance
to learn about a subject that inter-
ests them, at their own pace (see p9).
Like MOOCs, The Theoretical Minimum
allows knowledge-lovers to get
their teeth into the kind of physics
and mathematics problems that one
would normally face during a university
degree. As Susskind puts it,
it is intended for “people who once
wanted to study physics, but life got
in the way”.
The book is written in the form
of 11 short lectures that cover classical
mechanics, plus a final chapter
on electromagnetism. Though
replete with equations, it remains
very readable. Abstract concepts are
well explained, usually in a couple
of different ways to give the reader
a good conceptual overview of the
principle at hand. For example, one
does not need to understand every
detail of a given equation in order
to comprehend its power and its use,
since these are explained in the text.
In addition, each lecture includes
several exercises, allowing readers
to put their problem-solving skills
into practice. (Solutions to the exercises
are posted on the Web.) The
first three chapters include mathematical
interludes on trigonometry,
vector notation, differentiation and
integration. These discussions are
complete, and would serve as a good
reminder for someone who is already
familiar with calculus; however, they
are also rather terse, and would likely
be too advanced for someone who
wishes to learn it for the first time.
Is this really just the minimum
you need to know to start doing
physics? To me, the answer is an
emphatic “no”: this book covers far
more than the minimum. The first
five chapters cover the core classical
mechanics principles of motion and
dynamics, including conservation of
energy and momentum, while the
material covered in the second half
of the book (chapters 6–12) is usually
considered “advanced classical
mechanics”. This material – which
includes Lagrangian and Hamiltonian
mechanics and their applications
to electric and magnetic forces
– is often not taught at undergradu-
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