Please give me physics resources

Hi, I'm in year 9, and I really like physics, and I got a book - 'The God Equation', and I didn't understand some of it, so I searched stuff up for extra study (im bored). It seems that either it is super basic, which I already know, or filled with complicated formulas that make my brain hurt.

For example, I was researching electromagnets and magnetic fields, and either it was super basic , or it gave me 2 lines of formulas. Please give me some resources of my level to get ahead and actually understand the concept.

(edited 5 months ago)

Reply 1

MindMax2000

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by Darsh Rathod

Kind of jumping into the deep end. The GUT covers macrophysics and quantum physics. The basics of this material isn't covered until you do A Level physics i.e. look through some A Level physics textbooks on field theory and relativity.

Personally, I would go into the first year university textbooks for physics degrees to get a better introduction e.g.:
https://www.manchester.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/courses/2023/00638/bsc-physics/course-details/PHYS10121#course-unit-details
https://www.york.ac.uk/students/studying/manage/programmes/module-catalogue/module/PHY00028C/latest
https://www.york.ac.uk/students/studying/manage/programmes/module-catalogue/module/PHY00030C/latest
https://rl.talis.com/3/bristol/lists/AF74A17F-0454-B6CE-7894-7EF2F5CB4F1D.html?lang=en
https://rl.talis.com/3/keele/lists/4308E3D5-CA61-4DC5-8032-92E347AFDD7A.html?lang=en
https://rl.talis.com/3/keele/lists/5F4AB02D-09A4-AD51-9E71-9EAB4EFA0840.html?lang=en (University Physics)
If you want to look at the reading list for the other first year modules, you would need to look at the module content of the physics degrees for these universities e.g. Manchester, York, Bristol, and Keele.

Note: even for a 1st year, some of the content can go over your head for a Year 9, so ask a teacher with a physics degree (empahsis on physics because degrees from other subjects might not go into enough depth to explain a number of the concepts) to go over some of the content.

Where possible, I would try to get the books through the library, through your local university's library (some allow people with public access to get into them), or get them second hand (as a last resort). A number of the books on the list can cost between £30-60 each brand new, which is not ideal.
Note: some fo the cheapest second hand books are not always on the popular sites that you usually go to for second hand stuff - always try googling the title and specifically look for the second hand copies to purchase e.g. "University Physics book used £".

Maxwell also comes up often for electromagnetism, so it's worth reading up on him (if you don't fancy looking into the equations just yet).

If I am to be blunt, you can get a lot of the information you are looking for from other physics books under the popular science category in your book shop. The sort of authors who would talk about GUT would be Stephen Hawkings (although he focuses more on astrophysics), Brain Greene (more quantum), Paul Dirac (if you like difficult quantum equations, so look for authors who talk about him instead), Neil DeGrasse Tyson (who generally talks about physics but specialises in astrophysics), and possibly Richard Feyman (more quantum physics). These authors tend to talk about physics in a simpliefied way, but I haven't seen many books by them that specifically talks about GUT.
However, you did say that you wanted to understand the material as opposed to marvel at it, so I gave you the grand tour.

(edited 5 months ago)

Reply 2

Darsh Rathod

Thank you so much, I was looking at GCSE Textbooks, but even those are a little too simple, and definition- filled, doesn't really explain it (where does electromagnetism come from?) I read somewhere that it is because the electrons move a little bit faster than the protons, and due to the fact that faster objects are smaller, it leads to different densities, and the magnetic/electromagnetic field is formed. But I will look at the above links, and hopefully that should clear it up for now... only really need to understand it, and not really memorise anything for now, since I have already covered most of GCSE syllabus. Anyways, thank you once more, really helps