How do I fully understand high school physics and build my own simple hardware?

[MP.]

Hello,
I am a 21 year old high school graduate from Czech Republic. Unfortunately the high school has completely failed to give me even some of the basic insights into physics - Usually I simply learned what was necessary to pass a particular test and forgot within weeks. But at least I have very good understanding of all the high school math with the exception of stereometry (which I hated a lot). Although my primary interests are philosophy, IT and praxeology, I like to spend time in a local hackerspace, where I'm missing out on a lot as I can't keep up with almost any projects - even the tiniest "one afternooners" - without somebody taking the time to explain the whole situation to me. I made this account primarily to ask questions and maybe help a few people with some math.

There are two things I'm curious about right now that I think belong to this category

first: Considering I know close to zero about physics: How much time/effort does it take to

1. Fully understand all the high school physics and memorise/get the ability to easily derive the specific relations ("the formulas")?
2. Learn enough to be able to recognise all common low-power components and their properties and get into a point where I would be able to build my own simple hardware (for example a passcode-protected arduino-based calculator), given I have the coding skills.

I understand this is unquantifiable, but I still believe people here will have the ability to provide some answers that will make very good intuitive sense (like comparing it to the complexity of high school math / quantifying certain key aspects like the approximate number of direct relations "formulas" one has to get familiar with / estimate a time range).

second: What are the rough demographics of this forum / subtopics?

Other than that, I'll add that I consider it as an issue of the highest importance to spread rationality and the scientific method as wide as possible throughout the modern society and explaining the advantages (or more precisely necessity) of using it as the foundation for constituting any opinion of importance (for example religious or political). It's probably not relevant for the discussions going on this forum, but I'd be more than happy for people to tell me about any projects/movements that are oriented in this direction they know about.

Thanks for the answers guys

MP

 

[Evo]

Welcome M,

Please read "help" https://www.physicsforums.com/help/

Please read our guidelines, it also has a link to additional help for homework in the homework section. https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/physics-forums-global-guidelines.414380/

And be sure to post your questions in the appropriate forums.