Advice for Aspiring Physicists

<p>A parent here mentioned a while ago an interest on her son's part in physics, and today I remembered a really cool Web page </p>

<p><a href="http://www.phys.uu.nl/%7Ethooft/theorist.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.phys.uu.nl/~thooft/theorist.html&lt;/a> </p>

<p>in which a Nobel prize winner in physics lays out how a physics-liking young person should study to be successful in physics. I really like the detailed, Web-linked advice he gives there, as well as his whole attitude of young people taking charge of their learning. Check it out if someone in your family likes physics.</p>

<p>tokenadult, thanks for posting that link -- can you (or someone with strong physics background) comment specifically on its merit? It looks really well done, but I'm no judge of physics content. I'd hate to recommend it to any young physics enthusiasts without some assurance.</p>

<p>Thank you, very good list of subjects and specific sub-subjects :)</p>

<p>Celloguy, here's author's profile on wikipedia <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerardus_'t_Hooft"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerardus_'t_Hooft&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I'm not a physicist myself (although I aspired to be one when I was in high school, hence my interest in that Web page). Mr. Chipset has kindly pointed to a Wikipedia article about the Nobel Prize winning author of the page I recommended, and I will add here that I first learned about the page from a Usenet post by a mathematics professor with a track record of very sound, well reasoned posts on Usenet's sci.math newsgroup. </p>

<p>I hope the page is helpful to young people in this generation who have the dream I had in my generation--the same motivation I have for much of my participation on CC.</p>

<p>thanks for the references; looks solid to me</p>

<p>
[quote]
tokenadult, thanks for posting that link -- can you (or someone with strong physics background) comment specifically on its merit? It looks really well done, but I'm no judge of physics content. I'd hate to recommend it to any young physics enthusiasts without some assurance.

[/quote]

Still in my third year of the major myself, but a quick glance shows the material is pretty solid. There are a few gaps that need to be adressed still, but I suspect that's more a temporary issue rather than a permanent one.</p>

<p>Thank you for the web site. It is just what I was looking for. For someone who is truly passionate about physics, which universities have the strongest undergrad curriculum in physics?</p>

<p>Thank you! Fowarded it to my son.</p>

<p>Kat</p>