[jpr703]

Well after a couple years of struggling since the tech bust, it's time to head back to school. I have a BS in Business with a minor in Economics, but I'm thinking about going to dental school and eventually taking over the family practice.

The catch is that I have lots of fun Chemistry and Physics courses to take before I apply. With my previous major, I have almost no experience in these two areas and I want to do everything I can to be ready for these courses when I start back this winter.

Can anyone recommend some good books, websites, or other resources that I can use to start teaching myself Chemistry and Physics? I'm a pretty smart guy, but I'm naturally a little more verbal oriented than I am science oriented. Also, I'll be starting from square one, so the simpler, the better.

 

[Born2bwire]

What kind and how advanced are the Physics courses you need to take?

 

[jpr703]

Chemistry will be General I and II and Organic. As for Physics, I'll be sticking with whatever 2 come first in the typical college lineup.

 

[Born2bwire]

Can't help you much with the Chem books. I hear that Zumdahl's Chemistry book is a standard book for a lot of colleges and high schools (including my Uni but that's because Zumdahl teaches the course himself) but I have heard it can be a difficult text for introductory students.

For Physics, I used Giancoli's Physics book in high school and it is a very good text. It's college-based physics book (algebra) and it covers mechanics and electromagnetics which are probably going to be your Physics courses.

The main thing though is that you are taking the introductory courses so really the only textbooks that can help you are either the ones that are required for the course, or high school texts that will provide an earlier background for you.

 

[mjg]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jpr703 Well after a couple years of struggling since the tech bust, it's time to head back to school. I have a BS in Business with a minor in Economics, but I'm thinking about going to dental school and eventually taking over the family practice. The catch is that I have lots of fun Chemistry and Physics courses to take before I apply. With my previous major, I have almost no experience in these two areas and I want to do everything I can to be ready for these courses when I start back this winter. Can anyone recommend some good books, websites, or other resources that I can use to start teaching myself Chemistry and Physics? I'm a pretty smart guy, but I'm naturally a little more verbal oriented than I am science oriented. Also, I'll be starting from square one, so the simpler, the better.

Hmmm...


I say start googling up some course websites with available lecture slides, though for general classes thats sometimes hard? I bet mit/princeton type places have em available.

 

[steel102]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Born2bwire Can't help you much with the Chem books. I hear that Zumdahl's Chemistry book is a standard book for a lot of colleges and high schools (including my Uni but that's because Zumdahl teaches the course himself) but I have heard it can be a difficult text for introductory students. For Physics, I used Giancoli's Physics book in high school and it is a very good text. It's college-based physics book (algebra) and it covers mechanics and electromagnetics which are probably going to be your Physics courses. The main thing though is that you are taking the introductory courses so really the only textbooks that can help you are either the ones that are required for the course, or high school texts that will provide an earlier background for you.

Those are the same 2 books I used in my High School AP Physics and Chemistry courses.

 

[pne]

also used zumdahl in highschool, we were told it was a university/college level book. it's quite a read, but i'm sure its the standard since we're using it all the way up here in canada.

 

[mjg]

i guess ill mention i used young and freedman university physics 11th edition for my physics sequence.

I paid like 25 bux for it on half.com. It goes from basics to modern physics sections at the end, and it's entirely calculus based, though derivations are unnecessary if you know basic geometrical relationships it shows you how to avoid complex integrations etc.

 

[mr_slacker]

Can't speak about chemistry but I know a thing or two about physics...

If you want something that resembles a university level you got to begin with math, algebra and calculus (Linear algebra... by David C Lay is quite good a starting point). Simple as that. It sucks, I know (been there done that)

 

[toor]

Oddly enough, at Berkeley (where Giancoli teaches) they dont use his text in the honors stream. But rather only in the regular stream.

For physics I would suggest the feynman lectures which can often give you an intuitive understanding which can be very useful.

 

[Born2bwire]

Quote:

Originally Posted by toor Oddly enough, at Berkeley (where Giancoli teaches) they dont use his text in the honors stream. But rather only in the regular stream. For physics I would suggest the feynman lectures which can often give you an intuitive understanding which can be very useful.

Giancoli's textbook is introductory physics with algebra. The introductory physics for engineers, physicists, and honors students would be in calculus. I don't have a suggestion for the calculus because I was self-taught that in high school and we exclusively used lecture slides in the undergrad courses. Feynman's lectures are pretty good but they would probably go in more detail than he would need. His lectures were relevant for my senior level electromagnetic physics courses. Still, I haven't looked at all of his lectures and my impression of Feynman is that he has this great ability to show real world applications or analogies of physics. For example, I seem to remember that one of his lectures on resonant chambers used a parallel plate capacitor as his model.

 

[jpr703]

Thanks for all the suggestions! Time for me to get cracking...

 

[DanG]

I don't think j needs linear algebra. The first two levels of physics certainly don't use it and a dentist doesn't have much use for matrices, either.