Reviewing The Theoretical Minimum - An Update on Teaching Myself A Physics Degree

A while ago I posted about my idea to try and teach myself a Physics degree. Since then, although progress has been slow, progress has been made.

I have completed the Classical Mechanics, Quantum Mechanics and Special Relativity & Classical Field Theory courses from Leonard Susskind’s The Theoretical Minimum and I am now deep into MIT’s OCW Linear Algebra Course (I decided to do this because I realised that I have the textbook and would actually like to finish the course); as well as working my way through University Physics and Mathematical Methods For Physics And Engineering.

Now, that I’ve made some progress I wanted to do a quick review of the Theoretical Minimum courses.

Summary

They’re really fast-paced but informative courses that cover a lot of content which plenty of maths. They’re great if you already know some maths and physics and you want a survey of some of deeper topics. However, I would not recommend them as someone’s first exposure to physics.

The pros

• Cover the Material in lots of depth - for example, the Classical Mechanics course includes Lagrangian & Hamiltonian Mechanics. These are topics not usually covered until the second year of university which gives you an idea of how much content these courses.
• Really clear, intuitive explanations - Professor Susskind has an amazing way of explaining very complex topics in a succinct, easy to understand way

The cons

• Uses a lot of maths - this isn’t so much of a con as a warning. The courses make use of a decent chunk of maths, including multivariable calculus and linear algebra which if you haven’t seen before it can be a bit of shock - you do have to pick it up quickly or be left behind. That being said the books published alongside the courses do include mathematical interludes which depending on your background might be enough.