The best Physics of Mechanics books: Reddit reviews

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

i think zinn is the standard. but these days you're probably better looking for a video on youtube.

edit: zinn - https://www.amazon.com/Zinn-Art-Road-Bike-Maintenance/dp/193771537X/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

Yeah, Su's not just reading off a script. Her English has come really far; she's at the point of having enough vocabulary to feel like she can express what she wants to express once she picks the right words out of her dictionary. So she still has to do a translation of concepts into a smaller set of words (sort of like the book Thing Explainer) but she's got the confidence to do so.

Youtube videos. Park Tools is the channel to start with. But GMBN and many others have good maintenance videos as well. Buy this book and spend some evenings reading up on various parts of your bike:

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https://www.amazon.com/Zinn-Art-Mountain-Bike-Maintenance/dp/1937715477/

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If you are really interested in learning, buy an old cheap "project" bike off somewhere like Craigslist and work to tear it down and build it back up again.

I bought a copy of Zinn & the Art of Road Bike Maintenance specifically because it includes a sensible list of regular maintenance tasks. It has several lists, like “before every ride,” “after every ride (or three),” “every 1000 miles,” “every 20,000 miles,” and helpful hints about how to know specifically when you need to do certain things, regardless of how many rides or miles you do.

I would recommend snagging a copy of "Zinn and the Art of MTB Maintenance," it's a fantastic guide that will walk you through everything you need to know!

https://www.amazon.com/Zinn-Art-Mountain-Bike-Maintenance/dp/1937715477/

I would also suggest checking with your local bike shop or cycling club if you have one, they often (pre-pandemic at least) offer "bike maintenance 101" classes where they'll teach you how to fix a flat, tweak your shifters, and get everything ready for a ride.

Changing tubes and tires is definitely do-able for a beginner! I think everybody should know how to replace a tube in case you get a flat while out riding. Swapping out brake pads is also a pretty easy fix.

For bike parts, you'll probably want to avoid the no-name-made-in-China parts that you might order off Amazon, but if you order from your local bike shop or an online bike retailer, pretty much anything you get should be decent quality!

A Galileoscope and books. I currently like Thing Explainer, which seems really good for that age. Any space book will do though.

Update with Amazon link to book

Buy this book - Zinn & the Art of Road Bike Maintenance. it's under $20 on Amazon. Couple of points:

1. Amazingly comprehensive. Includes old stuff and new stuff.

2. A book is great for having when actually wrenching. Way better than trying to scroll on your phone with greasy hands.

3. All tasks are broken into three levels of difficulty. The first level is for people like you, and you'll be pleasantly surprised how much that covers. Has tool recommendations for each level.

4. Most tools don't need to be bike specific. A set of Allen keys, needlenose pliers, and an adjustable wrench will get you further than you think.

Good luck!

You bought a medium to high end bike as a beginner, but whatever. If you can afford it, no problem!

I would buy this book and read it cover to cover so you know the basics of how things work and, if needed, how to maintain them. Your bike will eventually need maintenance, and learning the fundamentals of that make it less scary when something goes wrong.

Get basic safety gear (glasses, helmet, gloves), some appropriate riding clothes and shoes (you'll figure this out), and have fun.

Do your best to avoid upgrade-itis -- only replace things as they wear or demonstrate a real need to replace.

Don't go too big too fast (you don't need to start jumping big stuff, or absolutely flying through the woods on the edge of control) else you're way more at risk of getting hurt.

Don't store your bike outside (they aren't meant to take long-term exposure to the elements) and do basic cleaning stuff to keep it nice and it'll last.

And most importantly, have fun.

Everyone (for their best protection) have to know the basics:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1937715477/

First thing I bought when I got my e-MTB.

For deeper readings I recommend Variational Principles in Classical Mechanics (pdf link) as well as the highly recommended Variational Principles of Mechanics by Lanczos (amazon link).

I just got one of these to keep in my garage. https://www.amazon.com/Zinn-Art-Mountain-Bike-Maintenance/dp/1937715477/ref=asc_df_1937715477/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312029833857&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=12305825286903171385&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hv...

November 24. A few people seem to have early copies though.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0544668251/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0544668251&linkCode=as2&tag=thekcs-20&linkId=S4XRZJJKSMHOWEQU

Here is a book I would use to make cool mechanisms when I was doing applications for 3D printers. http://www.amazon.com/507-Mechanical-Movements-Mechanisms-Devices/dp/0486443604/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_y

There are a lot of pulleys and things you may not be able to use. But there are some real cool escapements. Check out the Geneva Escapements. Most of these are 2 axis but you can do bevel gears and such in 3 axis if you want to.

Knowing how to model in any CAD/CAM system is CRUCIAL when getting a job. Jigs, fixtures, heck just bounding boxes are things you will do every day.

Try to make something you can bring to an interview and have them play with.

There's no real way to ELI2 Quantum Physics without this book, but the closest I can get is that the physics of the super tiniest things is super weird and makes it so that the electrons don't want to hang around that close to a nucleus for any sustained amount of time, just the just zip around close by

I would further recommend a pass through Thing Explainer for general knowledge with simple explanations. With reading through the BOFH stories to give you mind a place to go when knowledge fails because of someone elses lack of imagination.

I rarely buy books and just use publicly available information to setup and troubleshoot.

Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words Maybe he was one of the source materials for Randall Munroe's book (the guy who makes the XKCD comic)

I just got back from reading Quantum Physics for Babies and am sad to report to everyone that /u/AngeloCaruso91 may have been bullshitting us.

Random comment / thought on the whole "meme" label, forum humor, etc.

The original crayon eaters are the United States Marine Corps. Self-deprecating humor is in widespread use throughout the world's militaries, not just the US, and you would be hard pressed to find a politician or government official who'd dare say having a sense of humor makes you unprofessional, unintelligent, etc.

For example, ELIA - in the military, we'd call that "break it down Barney style", meaning describe something complex in terms simple enough for Barney to explain to a child. If you don't know who the fuck Barney is, well, I guess I'm old. Kids show, TV purple dinosaur, super annoying. Anyway.

This same concept is used to great success by XKCD, by all measures a highly intelligent and successful webcomic artist who delves into some pretty decently thorough mathematical hypotheticals for fun. He also wrote a book called The Thing Exlainer : Complicated Stuff in Simple Words, where among other things he breaks down the complete functions of a nuclear reactor using only the 1,000 or so most common words in the English language.

My point : SELF DEPRECATING HUMOR AND MEMES SHOULD BY NO MEANS BE AUTOMATICALLY ASSOCIATED WITH LOW INTELLIGENCE, UNPROFESSIONALISM, OR A LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY AND RESPONSIBILITY.

If we can trust our nation's military to think fart jokes are still funny on a nuclear submarine, we can trust retail investors to do whatever the fuck they want with their money when it comes to a stock that's been on the publicly traded exchange for over 2 decades.

I am not surprised at all to here that. To be able to explain something so well means that you understand it extremely well. I used to tutor for calc, o-chem, and lab techniques like IR and NMR, and yeah I learned teaching wasn't for me either lol.

If you don't mind, could you provide some ideas on math studies for a particular goal? I've worked as a software developer/engineer, as well as some data research, but I'm looking to beef up my math and physics knowledge to move into more data/software/computer architecture engineering roles. I have studied math up to PDEs, some minor Linear Algebra, and a sprinkle of Quantum Mechanics relating to electron states for inorganic chemistry, but I want to be able to understand high level concepts like those found in this book:

The Variational Principles of Mechanics (Dover Books on Physics) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0486650677/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_i_705GMASH9R2FK9XY1SME?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Searching Reddit for that title is how I found your post to begin with lol. In your opinion, what type of math should I be studying to be able to understand the concepts in that book?

My idea was to refresh my Calc knowledge and then do:

Linear Algebra > ODE/PDE > Real/Complex/Functional Analysis as well as studying Proofs > Combinatorics > Newtonian Mechanics > Lagrangian Mechanics

What do you think of that? If you have any book reqs, that'd be awesome too!

Aside from YouTube, this is a great book to have in your garage Zinn & the Art of Mountain Bike Maintenance: The World's Best-Selling Guide to Mountain Bike Repair https://www.amazon.com/dp/1937715477/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_3H0D28N5ETX7GTADABVQ

Hackeran, just so you know, I have never seen someone completely make up something that's as easily disproven as what you just said. You should be proud of yourself for that.

Chris Ferrie has a large range of science books that are specifically for reading to babies. They're illustrated with fun colors and simple short text.

The idea is that because babies have very impressionable brains, if you read them these books, then they'll develop a more scientific way of thinking earlier in life.

Babies won't know the exact meaning, so it'll stop help them fall asleep just like any "happily ever after" bedtime story.

As for Susskind's book, you can find it on Amazon, at least in the US. I'm not sure why it's not titled Classical Mechanics like the other two in the series, but there you are. Whether you choose that or Thorne and Blandford, or another reference, I hope your search for the meaning of tensors is fruitful!

I'm amazed and disappointed at the same time. No mentions of the definitive book set... Zinn: Zinn & the Art of Road Bike Maintenance: The World's Best-Selling Bicycle Repair and Maintenance Guide https://www.amazon.com/dp/193771537X and Zinn & the Art of Mountain Bike Maintenance: The World's Best-Selling Guide to Mountain Bike Repair https://www.amazon.com/dp/1937715477

Every home mech sounds have at least one of these two. Yes there is also a lot of repeated information obviously, bit they are fantastic references. Supplement these with the park tool yt vids, you can do basically anything

To add to what others have said, suppose you like physical reading material?

Zinn’s Art of Road Bike Maintenance is the bike repair bible.

I would suggest "The Theoretical Minimum"

https://www.amazon.com/Theoretical-Minimum-Start-Doing-Physics/dp/0465075681

It's not a pop sci book that give handwavy woo-woo explanations, it delves into the math but explains what the equations mean. A college educated person would have no problem with it.

There is a really good book that goes into this

https://www.amazon.com/Theoretical-Minimum-Start-Doing-Physics/dp/0465075681/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=theoretical+minimum&qid=1639841522&sprefix=theorei%2Caps%2C122&sr=8-1

And a youtube series taught by the author

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-rICyRc1Qz144U91HTd6zY9pDVVPwskg

Search for Analytical Mechanics.

Here one of my favorites:[Variational Principles of MEchanics]( https://www.amazon.co.uk/Variational-Principles-Mechanics-Dover-Physics/dp/0486650677/ref=asc\_df\_0486650677/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=310867999190&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=15627765740017970246&hvpone=&hvptw...)

I've never actually watched this, but Leonard Susskind's Theoretical Minimum set of courses might be worthwhile for you. There's also a book with the same title by him, which sounds like what you're looking for. The book and the courses are both stand-alone, the first isn't a textbook you need for the second.

I'm pretty sure the courses are free to watch, so I'd suggest starting with them. The eBook or paperback versions aren't that expensive, though.

Not only is UI/UX design interesting, it can be fairly lucrative if you're good, if you work hard, and if you keep learning (and know how to collaborate). There are countless online courses and traditional programs to learn and get better at production web/graphic design and ui/ux design. Even within those roles, there are many specializations and avenues to explore.

I started my career in ui/ux for the games industry. Did the HUDs and UIs for some AAA titles, Medal Of Honor, Madden, Fifa and other EA titles, then moved to Xbox Kinect (sorry) and Msft Games.

I eventually moved out of games and onto more technical roles, and now completely into software engineering & architecture, but I work with marketing and design teams every other day.

Take your time to choose a program that's right for you, but know that where you start is never where you finish. Follow your talents, improve your skills, keep an open mind.

Also, as you progress your talents, know to never work for free. Better to say no to friends/family, than to sell yourself short. I wish I learned this earlier on in my career. The only difference between a "pro" and an "amateur" is that the pro gets paid for his/her time.

And, while design degrees and certifications are great, all that matters is your portfolio, which shows your creative journey and your progression. Give this book a read for some inspiration.

Good luck!

Good sir Cornelius has written an excellent gem of a book that should be more well known:
https://www.amazon.com/Variational-Principles-Mechanics-Dover-Physics/dp/0486650677

It's been Doverized so can also be picked up inexpensively.

Some preliminary lectures on first order perturbation theory may also build intuition. I find the arguments particularly intuitive and concrete, particularly those used in physics approximations.