Hey guys I dunno if I put this in the wrong section but I wuz just wondering how to best solidify my chances on making semis for USAPHO.
I read university physics by roger and freedman already and did most of the problems and have a good grasp of the material in it (all tho it’s a super limited book tbh). I started reading kleppners and kolenkows introduction to mechanics book, which is a rly hard book in my opinion. I have not learned all of calculus yet(I know differentiation pretty well but I’m iffy/not good at integration, I’ve only taken precalc lol). I’m doing decent with kleppners, but shud I do every single problem in the sets or just read all the material first to best help w usapho and f=ma. At this point I don’t rly care about doing well on uspaho I just wanna make it there as a freshman.
Anyone have any other books to recommend. Money doesn’t rly matter to me the Indian version of all the physics books r rly cheap and I just get them mailed to me. I’ve heard Halliday and resnick is good but it seems like a step down, and also the Feynman lectures (I rly dunno how useful the Feynman lectures will be they seem rly good for concepts). Also I wanted to know where I cud find some good problem sets to do that r similar to f=ma problems. Irodovs problems and kleppners seem like overkill but I’m slowly working thru them.
Sorry for the long post lol
I can’t say much since I’ve never participated in USAPHO or IPhO myself. However, from the people that I hear who have been in IPhO, they had practice in vector calculus, eigenvalues and eigenvectors, and solutions to nonhomogeneous 2nd order ODEs. They used books like Morin or Taylor for Classical Mechanics and Griffiths or Purcell for Electromagnetism, although I’m sure they are all overkill for USAPHO.
When I studied Physics for the AP Physics C exams, I used Halliday / Resnick, which as you know only requires single-variable Calculus knowledge. In Physics, I always found it useful to think of Calculus as a tool rather than a problem-solving process. Calculus is not needed nor the most efficient in many problems on the USAPHO. The main idea behind integration is that you are taking an infinite sum of differentials. What I’m trying to get at is for you not to worry if you don’t know Calculus well, but it wouldn’t hurt to practice integration skills in application.
Hopefully, someone who partook in the USAPHO can give a better response in this thread. I hope this helps a bit.
Okay thanks @ObitoSigma, since the f=ma exam is purely mechanics do u think morin would be enuf. Also, wud u happen to know the level of difficulty of the problems in morin relative to the f=ma exam? how good or hard were the problem sets in Halliday and resnick
Morin is one of the most rigorous Classical Mechanics textbooks out there for undergraduates, directed at students taking Classical Mechanics as a second course. It heavily uses Calculus, and I would likely not recommend them at your current levels in Calculus. Morin utilizes Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics (Hamiltonian chapter is found on his website), which I’ve heard were very useful for IPhO and possibly for USAPHO.
Halliday organizes his problems by difficulty through the additions of “stars.” 1-star problems are easy and meant to be concept checks based on how well you are able to apply what you have learned in relatively simple scenarios. 2-star problems and 3-star problems are the ones that will come as excellent practice for the USAPHO. They are significantly harder than other textbooks’ problems (those directed for first-year calculus physics) and require interesting problem solving skills.
Okay, so Halliday and Resnick for problems. Anything as far as really good descriptions for physics concepts. Iive heard that the feynman lectures shine in this aspect but any other books. And also, any other places to get rly good F=MA like problems
For F = ma problems, the most direct way to get practices is to go to its website and look at those previous test problems. All the other textbooks are just the ways that you can get to learn concepts and mindset of solving calc-based physics problems. MIT open course ware is also an option to pick up concepts.