u/GuardianOfDurandal

*Physics With Modern Physics for Scientists and Engineers* by Wolfson and Pasachoff Third Edition

Have pretty much no Physics background. If I remember I took a Physics course in high school.

I’m considering studying Physics at my local CC, and in fact checked this book out at the library.

What difficulty level, if you will, would you rate this book?

Does this cover all, most or just some of undergraduate level Physics concepts?

Thanks

Hawking’s North Pole analogy to describe the nonsensical nature of asking what was before the Big Bang is I think the most popular answer to the question.

I understand the nature of the analogy and what it is attempting to depict or affect.

However, when someone is walking north, they are just walking in a straight line ahead of them. Ok, so what?

At the North Pole, you can do the same thing and move in a straight line. Let’s suppose you use a spaceship though because you would need to lift off of the ground to move “north”. You start flying in a straight line off of the edge of the top of the globe. It’s not north but it never really was in the first place.

What do you guys think?

Assume you take a rocket ship to just outside the orbit of earth so you are in space with a clear view around you.

You look north. You see (hypothetically with your laser beam eyes) a galaxy 1 billion light years away. You think, ok well the universe is at least 1 billion years old.

Then you look south and see an object 13.8 billion light years away.

Then east, west, up and down. What do you see when you look down? Is the universe or edge of it even on all sides? Is there more universe on the west side? Where are we in relation to where things are expanding? Is there an object 11 billion light years to the east and another object 6 billion light years to the west? What does that mean for us and how old the universe is? Where is it expanding?

If the universe is expanding faster than c than it is infinite. But where is the edge? Expansion implies an edge because something is expanding into something. Does time not exists outside of the edge of the universe? If it was infinite, then how can it be expanding? The concept of expansion doesn’t make any sense within the realm of the infinite.

Not a troll post. Complete noob in the subject. Physics fascinates me and I’m beginning to look online and dig a little bit deeper to learn about it. I may consider taking some Physics courses at my local CC.

Watching MIT 8.01 classical mechanics on YT at the moment.

Another form of the question may be, what do we rely on Physics to realize/build or understand? So much, I imagine, but I would like to hear about how those specific applications are applied, and what that looks like.

Thanks

I’ve only taken a Physics course in High school. It’s just an area of interest and as I’ve begun to gain curiosity in the subject matter as of late, the math has been frustrating me.

I’ve been wondering why in the hell and how in the hell these symbols on a piece of paper represent the vast and powerful forces of nature throughout the universe.

Trying to understand math literally can feel frustrating and discouraging. In general, not understanding something can feel this way.

But I think I’m starting to understand the purpose of math.

It seems to be the only way we can simulate the processes and systems of the universe. Especially, in a controlled environment right at our fingertips.

How else would we be able to do it?

Math is more like a theoretical construction (that can prove to be accurate if done correctly). It is a language to hope to be able to explain the phenomena of the universe.

It’s not literal, it’s symbolic and representative of what cannot be explained otherwise.

I have no physics or maths background so please correct me or guide me if any of my statements, logic or understanding is not correct or misguided. I’d love to hear your thoughts about this.

If we can solve the mystery that is Dark Matter and Dark Energy, what do you suppose we can do with the information of that discovery?

It’s reasonable to assume there must be life in different galaxies. I think there is around 2 trillion galaxies based off of a quick search. I mean, we’re just a spec in the cosmos and we have a solar system that supports life.

However, on the contrary, things seem so perfect here on Earth. Could it be that in our case we are the product of over a trillion failed attempts at life and somehow the starts aligned and the conditions were perfect to support it?

I’m not sure what to believe and maybe we’ll never know for sure, but I think this is an interesting thing to think about.

What do you guys think?

Why? — Title.

Not a troll post here. Exploring maths, and don’t quite understand the workings of calculus or how to read formulas and functions etc.

I understand this object is a paradox, but can someone describe this paradox in a way that excludes formulas and mathematical equations?

Surely, the infinite surface area correlates to infinite volume.

Surely, I don’t understand the concept, yet. Help?

Edit: I understand the concept of cutting a square infinitely. The perimeter is infinite, and the area stays the same. Makes perfect sense. I read this analogy on a different thread I can link. But I think I have to think a bit more about how this applies to the Horn. I “get it”, but I’m not conceptualizing or visualizing it.