Intro to Physics.

saracelica

saracelica

Pattern Altitude
Joined
Oct 20, 2010
Messages
1,814
Display Name
Display name:
saracelica
Okay - In high school when I was given the option to take Physics or Biology 2 I went with Biology 2 (Who can resist getting to cut open frogs and stuff and okay there was a cute guy taking the class as well) So Physics isn't something I learned in school.

Anyone recommend a good book - I'm thinking Physics 101 or Idiots guide to Physics. Seems like flying involves alot of Physics and I can't go back to High school to learn it. <sigh>

Thanks!
 
Dunno about a good intro book, but a good intro Physics class at a Junior College might be a good idea. Make sure it's really an intro class, otherwise you might need to brush up on some more advanced math, too.
 
Last edited:
Flying may involve physics, but not much is really used while flying.

I suggest you swing by your local public library and check out a book there that may be of interest to you. They generally have a variety of books for the various sciences.
 
I was hoping could recommend one instead of me just randomly pulling one off the shelf.
 
Physics for the sake of Physics or Physics as related to aerodynamics?

"Introduction to Flight" but John D. Anderson, Jr.

Covers the fundamentals of aerospace engineering. Surprisingly light on the calculus and is quite readable. The current edition goes for text book prices, but I was able to pick up an older edition (third) for about $20. Well worth it.
 
Thanks Capt Geoff! :) I'm open to more suggestions. It's suppose to be a cold winter....
 
saracelica said:
Okay - In high school when I was given the option to take Physics or Biology 2 I went with Biology 2 (Who can resist getting to cut open frogs and stuff and okay there was a cute guy taking the class as well) So Physics isn't something I learned in school.

Anyone recommend a good book - I'm thinking Physics 101 or Idiots guide to Physics. Seems like flying involves alot of Physics and I can't go back to High school to learn it. <sigh>

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Caveat: I'm not a CFI

I would suggest that you don't need any Physics to learn to fly. The min math needed is straightforward (of course, my undergrad is in math) and no one needs to understand aerodynamics.

I don't think I really used any of my undergrad physics when learning to fly <mumble> years ago.
 
Not saying I *need* it but thought it'd be fun to read about it - but not at too high of a level.
 
My experience as a physics/engineering nerd is that in flight training I could never allow myself to know something until I understood the physics behind it. In the end, I doubt that habit had any advantage, it just put up an extra hurdle in the process, but that's just how I'm wired, I'm inclined to disbelieve everything until I understand how it can be proven that it _should_ be true, even when the plane will happily show me that it is true.

So what we're hinting at here is that if you're interested in physics and interested in understanding the physics behind flight, that's great, and I would never recommend "not knowing" over "knowing", but do understand that it's not really a practical prerequisite to learning how to fly, and most pilots and instructors don't really have a thorough understanding of the physics that underlies it all, they tend to learn "this is how it is" without needing to dig deeper into "and this is why", and that's generally good enough for the pilot.

I think a good, classical, description of "just enough physics" to understand flight is found in "Stick and Rudder". This already goes beyond what most pilots carry around in their heads.

But, of course, I'm not answering the question you've asked.
-harry
 
saracelica said:
Anyone recommend a good book - I'm thinking Physics 101 or Idiots guide to Physics. Seems like flying involves alot of Physics and I can't go back to High school to learn it. <sigh>

Thanks!
Click to expand...

The "Cartoon Guide to Physics" is actually not bad.

Next up may be the books by Isaac Asimov such as "Understanding Physics, Vol. 1," or "Understanding Physics, 3 Volumes in 1."

The only caveat I have is that it is now difficult for me to tell how easy it is to learn from these since I got a BSc in the subject many years ago. I did read and enjoy the books by Asimov prior to getting my degree, but I had already acquired some physics knowledge even before I read them.
 
ScottM said:
One would not be flying if physics was not being used.
Click to expand...

Physics doesn't MAKE airplanes fly.
Physics DESCRIBES how airplanes fly.

The "Laws" of science are things we've INVENTED to describe things. Most have held up very well, but never forget that they're invented constructs of our imagination that are useful, and that's all.
 
TMetzinger said:
Physics doesn't MAKE airplanes fly.
Physics DESCRIBES how airplanes fly.

The "Laws" of science are things we've INVENTED to describe things. Most have held up very well, but never forget that they're invented constructs of our imagination that are useful, and that's all.
Click to expand...
Physics does indeed make things fly. Our understanding of physics is how we describe how something flies.

Surely you are not suggesting that gravity did not exist until Newton derived the equation for it? The physics of gravity were there all along. But they were not understood and able to be described until Newton figured a lot of it out. Samething here. The physical principles of flight are there. We understand a great deal of them and can describe them. But the ones we do not understand are not non-existent, just indescribable at this time.
 
Last edited:
Read Aerodynamics for the Naval Aviator.

That's a good... start..
 
ScottM said:
Physics does indeed make things fly. Our understanding of physics is how we describe how something flies.

Surely you are not suggesting that gravity did not exist until Newton derived the equation for it? The physics of gravity were there all along. But they were not understood and able to be described until Newton figured a lot of it out. Samething here. The physical principles of flight are there. We understand a great deal of them and can describe them. But the ones we do not understand are not non-existent, just indescribable at this time.
Click to expand...

Dont call me Shirley:rofl:

But, while I'm sure that things fell when dropped before Isaac, that's not the same thing as saying Gravity existed. Gravity is the concept we made up.

You think that "physics" are reality.
I'm saying that "physics" is a description of reality. It's all about where one places that chisel between the reality itself and the concepts we use to describe it.
 
I fall into the camp that says you're probably not going to learn very much through an intro physics text. It's true that flying, just like everything else in the Universe, obeys fundamental physical laws which would be presented in the text. You'd learn Newton's laws, harmonic oscillators, springs, some basic optics, etc. You'll learn to do calculations involving sleds on ramps and light through a prism and that sort of stuff.

But the only useful info you might be able to take out of this are isolated factoids like why speed is so dangerous in an accident (because all the bad stuff happens as the square of the speed, not linearly).

I'd recommend reading 'Stick and Rudder', which is a great, theoretical introduction to how airplanes work and how to fly them safely. There is also a website, www.av8n.com, that covers the same stuff, and perhaps even better.
 
Lots of good suggestions! Much appreciated. Keep the discussion going. I'm reading them all!
 
saracelica said:
Lots of good suggestions! Much appreciated. Keep the discussion going. I'm reading them all!
Click to expand...

Iam a physics lover and even have my own concept of the fabric of the universe. One aspect of physics that I found very interesting is the history of how discoveries were made, specially in the electromagnetic field. If you study the history behind every discovery you will find physics to be as interesting or more than other science fields. BTW biology is the study of the combination of multiple physics event that lead to life.

José
 
I'm teaching a course right now called "Conceptual Physics" which is probably pretty close to the level you are interested in. Math-wise it requires basic algebra but not much more. The book we're using is called Inquiry Into Physics by Vern Ostdiek and Donald Bord, published by Brooks/Cole. A few of the other faculty types in my department hate it, but I think it's generally accurate and pretty readable. You could do far worse. The only bad part is that it's not cheap -- anywhere from $150 to $200 new. You might be able to pick up a used copy fairly inexpensively though.
 
Studying Physics books to learn how to fly, is similar to studying Physics books to learn how to do long-haul Radio Communications.

Yeah, the Physics applies, but just going and doing either one will teach you more of what you need to know.

There's lots of RF engineers who couldn't win a radio contest or DF contest to save their lives.

The knowledge gained can make anyone a better [insert discipline here], of course, but it won't teach you how to do anything with the knowledge.

It's all in learning styles. Some people want to know how to do something before they want to know why it works, and vice-versa.
 
Jim Logajan said:
While the Feynman Lectures are very good, they are college level.
Click to expand...
I sure wouldn't recommend them to someone who wants a beginner's book on physics. It isn't even so much that they're college level, by today's standards they're ADVANCED undergraduate level, especially in volume 2. He jumps right in and derives Maxwell's equations in differential form. Personally I didn't like his treatment of special relativity in volume 1, it's too ad hoc and abstract: relativity is nothing new (he says) and all you need to know is contained in the Lorentz transformation. (Okay, that's an oversimplification, but not by much.) No thanks, I prefer Taylor and Wheeler in Spacetime Physics, they're much more physical and intuitive.

And aren't they still copyrighted?
Click to expand...
I think I saw a new edition for sale recently from a publishing company. I tossed the ad out with the junk mail, but I'm pretty sure of that. My guess is, they are still under copyright.
 
Enrolling in an introductory Physics class at your local university as a continuing education student is another possibility.
 
Most ones would not be flying if an understanding of the underlying physics was required.

ScottM said:
One would not be flying if physics was not being used.
Click to expand...
 
wabower said:
Most ones would not be flying if an understanding of the underlying physics was required.
Click to expand...

A pilot doesn't need to know the complexities of physics but he sure should have a grip on the basics. Too many have killed themselves when they did a low-and-over and pulled up sharply (or did some other load factor-increasing maneuver) and stalled and spun the airplane just because they didn't understand that published stall speed relates only to the 1G condition. Too much of PPL groundschooling is rote stuff that doesn't sink in.

Dan
 
www.av8n.com ("See How it Flies") was written by a physics prof/CFI and, while aviation oriented, includes some bare-bones physics concepts.

Bob Gardner
 
Piloto said:
Iam a physics lover and even have my own concept of the fabric of the universe. One aspect of physics that I found very interesting is the history of how discoveries were made, specially in the electromagnetic field. If you study the history behind every discovery you will find physics to be as interesting or more than other science fields. BTW biology is the study of the combination of multiple physics event that lead to life.

José
Click to expand...

Michael Faraday - "Chemical History of a Candle"

A series of lectures delivered by Faraday later in his career. (1860)

Looks like it can be found on line from a number of sources.
 
I find an understanding of the conversion of energy from one form to another and the transfer of energy from one object to another very helpful in understanding various phases of flight and transition between phases of flight.
 
Understand the 1/2∙rho∙V^2 term. It answers a lot about the various critical speeds of aircraft. It can be found in basic fluid mechanics. Also, basic vector mechanics (i.e., force components).
 
See How It Flies

Another vote for "See How It Flies" by Denker. Excellent discussion of energy and a unique look at the power curve. And it is free on the Internet.


Corrects afew errors in FAA pubs
 
Piloto said:
Excellent listing of physics concepts. Handy for when you need to refresh your knowledge. Thanks

José
Click to expand...

If it is considered so good, one could just pay for a legitimate copy. The site in question is in Croatia and contains a series of PDFs from scanned images of the 3 volumes of the Feynman Lectures on Physics as published by Addison-Wesley. The books are still copyrighted by the California Institute of Technology. The scanned copies conveniently begin on the page 3 - right after the copyright notice which appears on page 2.
 
I took a introductory course in Physics in HS and another one in college. I think they helped me understand some flying concepts although that is not why I took the courses. That's not to say that I would recommend taking a Physics class since most of the concepts are simple and logical even without any background. I'm also not sure what help it would be after the fact.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top