Physics tutorial websites

Post » Sun May 13, 2012 7:06 pm

I am in an intro physics course at my college and it is not intro at all to me. I have asked the instructor for help but he makes people feel dumb when talking to him and basically goes so fast, even when asked to slow down, that he may as well just give the answer and skip all the work. I asked for alternate material since the book he wrote/assembled and required for our course is poor at best. It has general discussions which have nothing to do with the topic at hand and last a paragraph or two and then a formula with more random text and then an example that doesn't even really use the formula.

I asked for the title of another book or website to check out to teach the stuff to myself since I am normally able to do that, at least with topics regarding all my computer and server courses or anything server related I have done on my own, but this I cannot wrap my head around and he gave me no leads other than "any general textbook" which is not helpful. I even went on Khan Acadamy but the way our problems and exams are worded I can't apply it.

Anyone have some good resources to learn introductory physics that are easy to follow (or as easy as possible)?
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Heather beauchamp
 
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Post » Sun May 13, 2012 8:08 pm

http://thenewboston.org/list.php?cat=35 has 9 physics tutorials. Haven't watched them, personally, but it's thenewboston so they're probably great. :D
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Dan Stevens
 
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Post » Sun May 13, 2012 11:56 pm

http://thenewboston.org/list.php?cat=35 has 9 physics tutorials. Haven't watched them, personally, but it's thenewboston so they're probably great. :biggrin:
Significant figures isn't an issue though it is the rest of the conceptsthat get me. Such as tension, momentum, etc and now we started rotational motion which is the same previous stuff but with new terms so I am still lost.
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FoReVeR_Me_N
 
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Post » Mon May 14, 2012 1:11 am

HowStuffWorks is pretty useful.

For example, http://science.howstuffworks.com/momentum-info.htm.
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Louise Dennis
 
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Post » Mon May 14, 2012 2:59 am

try the khan academy website. http://www.khanacademy.org/#physics here.

edit:
oops, you've already tried that! er... you can try and look up some notes/examples from other schools. i'm not sure beyond that.
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Dorian Cozens
 
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Post » Sun May 13, 2012 9:54 pm

http://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Physics-David-Halliday/dp/0471216437/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1330479286&sr=8-2 by Halliday, Resnick, and Walker is what I used to study the basics for the Physics GRE, and I would highly recommend it if your textbook svcks. The 2005 edition goes for like $20 on Amazon (there is no reason to get the latest edition - basic Physics hasn't changed in the past 7 years).

I haven't used it, but http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/ has all the materials and lectures from a lot of their classes available online, so that might be worth checking out.

Also, http://www.learner.org/resources/series42.html?pop=yes&pid=549# is a series of half hour videos featuring lectures from Caltech along with animations and historical background. I'll warn you that you'll spend more time than you ever wanted to watching footage of actors in period costume playing famous physicists writing furiously at their desks. However, the lectures give a good conceptual and historical background (not much math though), and are a good resource when you have no idea what the hell is going on.

Good luck. Physics is hell at first, but not so bad once you start to get a sense for it.
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kevin ball
 
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