Math and Physics.?

Question

I am a fan physics, and I want to learn and read books about it. My question is, is calculus a must, and if so, what kind of math should I learn in order to reach calculus?

Answer 1

I think one has to be very very good in Coordinate geometry for being reasonably good at physics. This equips you to think, digging out the abstracts, in 2-3 dimensions earlier and effectively. No doubt, Coordinate geometry will need good bit of Calculus as well. But target should be aimed higher.

Answer 2

Yes! I think calc is a must.

There are plenty of books about physics for non-scientists, and you don't need calculus to understand them. Many are even very good.

But there is something vaguely frustrating about reading them, no matter how well-written or easy-to-understand. They have to oversimplify and leave a lot of stuff out. In physics, the answer to "why does it work this way?" is often, "because these equations prove that it does."

I have no idea where you are in math. A standard progression is: geometry, algebra 2, trigonometry / precalculus, then calculus 1, 2, and 3. (You can usually take any of these in either high school or college.)

Then there is the best reason of all: if you like physics, you probably like marveling at how things work, in which case you will love calculus. It is very elegant. Have fun!

Answer 3

The more math you know, the easier time you will have understanding physics. You don't necessarily have to know calculus if all you want to do is read books/literature about physics, though. There are a lot of books written for a popular audience that would be fine.

In college, there were two different physics tracks (for non physics majors). One was an intro physics class for technical people (who were co-enrolled in calculus) and another set of classes for people who were not taking calculus. In general, the non-calculus courses were fun and interesting, but you didn't get much of the theory behind how things actually worked.

If you want to learn calculus, you need to get a strong grounding in algebra. It wouldn't hurt to also pick up trig and geometry, but algebra will be the most important.

Answer 4

You can get an intuitive understanding of physics without calculus, but at the university level you'd almost certainly need to know calculus (for a course that's for science majors), though it may not be a prerequisite depending on the school. If you want to specialize in physics you'd likely need 3 terms of calculus by your 2nd year plus some other math.

There may be a "precalculus" course at your high school (if you're a HS student) or some other course that's meant to precede it. But generally the background material includes adding/multiplying/factoring polynomials, solving linear/quadratic/rational equations, trigonometry, exponential and logarithmic functions, sequences and series, a bit about sets, and possibly conic sections, polar coordinates, basic vectors ..... it does depend on what is taught though. I've seen calculus textbooks that never touch any trig (though this was for arts majors) and did differentiation on just the other types of functions.