Reddit mentions of Feynman's Tips on Physics: Reflections, Advice, Insights, Practice - A Problem-Solving Supplement to the Feynman Lectures on Physics

I'm 2 years into a part time physics degree, I'm in my 40s, dropped out of schooling earlier in life.

As I'm doing this for fun whilst I also have a full time job, I thought I would list what I'm did to supplement my study preparation.

I started working through these videos - Essence of Calculus as a start over the summer study whilst I had some down time. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZHQObOWTQDMsr9K-rj53DwVRMYO3t5Yr

Ive bought the following books in preparation for my journey and to start working through some of these during the summer prior to start

Elements of Style - A nice small cheap reference to improve my writing skills
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/020530902X/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The Humongous Book of Trigonometry Problems https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1615641823/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Calculus: An Intuitive and Physical Approach
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0486404536/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Trigonometry Essentials Practice Workbook
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1477497781/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Systems of Equations: Substitution, Simultaneous, Cramer's Rule
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1941691048/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Feynman's Tips on Physics
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0465027970/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Exercises for the Feynman Lectures on Physics
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0465060714/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Calculus for the Practical Man
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1406756725/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The Feynman Lectures on Physics (all volumes)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0465024939/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I found PatrickJMT helpful, more so than Khan academy, not saying is better, just that you have to find the person and resource that best suits the way your brain works.

Now I'm deep in calculus and quantum mechanics, I would say the important things are:

Algebra - practice practice practice, get good, make it smooth.

Trig - again, practice practice practice.

Try not to learn by rote, try understand the why, play with things, draw triangles and get to know the unit circle well.

Good luck, it's going to cause frustrating moments, times of doubt, long nights and early mornings, confusion, sweat and tears, but power through, keep on trucking, and you will start to see that calculus and trig are some of the most beautiful things in the world.

This is a great idea. In my second year as a graduate student, a friend of mine would meet up every morning to do a Feynman Lecture for an hour. We eventually had to stop because it took up a little too much of our time/energy, but here are some thoughts I had:

• Feynman Lectures are best when you already know the core concepts. I would not use the lectures as a tool to learn physics for the first time, but rather to gain insight into how a great physicist thinks of elementary physics principles. For this reason, some of the very elementary chapters (vectors, work/potential energy, etc) are pretty boring, and I would recommend skipping them. One of my favorite lectures, on the other hand, is Chapter 7, the Theory of Gravitation, where he really extends a simple idea into a exquisitely beautiful description of nature. Discussion of these special chapters are truly fantastic and in my opinion, the only time-worthy ones.
  
  
• I enjoy doing Feynman Lectures along with the audio of them. I don't know how to get them conveniently except for torrenting - here is a link I just found. http://torrentz.eu/6db29ff23486160b61fb5fff048333639b3ec4aa. What you realize when following on the audio is that even though each lecture only lasts 1 hour, it takes about ~3 hours to truly understand each lecture, and it involves a lot of pausing and discussing. I wouldn't have liked to be a freshman in those lectures for the first time, I think it would have gone too fast for me.
  
  
• The Feynman Lectures do not offer very much insight into solving physics problems. In fact, there is a related book, Tips on Physics (http://www.amazon.com/Feynmans-Tips-Physics-Reflections-Problem-Solving/dp/0465027970) whose preface discussed how students would sit in lecture, love the content, but fail to be able to solve any problems afterward. I read this book and don't think this book was very good at helping students solve problems either. So for this subreddit, I would suggest not confusing it with how to solve physics problems, for which I think a subreddit does exist.
  
  
• Some of the more conversational/philosophical chapters (the ones that went into Six Easy Pieces) are wonderful but I'm not sure how 'discussion-worthy' they are, because while they explore his views on the world, they don't really demonstrate the 'genius physics intuition' of his other chapters. I'm less interested in these than the others, but that's up to the subreddit, of course.
  
  Good luck, I will for sure participate in the subreddit.

It's from Feynman's Tips on Physics. It's not a very interesting book and it's just a series of side lectures given to struggling students but it does have a very interesting introduction section about struggling in class.

You may wish to take a look at page 36 of Amazon's preview of this book starting at "Caltech from the bottom". There is a good chance you'll find it relatable and maybe even comforting - if so, the book is a worthy read. If not, maybe someone else will find it so :)