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Horsefeathers
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I've done some searching on this forum and elsewhere and from what I can tell, the book Introduction to Modern Astrophysics by Carroll and Ostlie is an excellent place to begin learning about the subject. I believe the introduction to the book states that anyone with a calculus based first-year physics background should have no problem understanding most of the content. At the moment, I'm in the process of teaching myself calculus but I'm not sure which physics book to go to, nor what topics I should study. I know that astrophysics draws on many different physics topics (mechanics, relativity, thermodynamics, etc), but if someone could supply a sort of list of necessary basic physics knowledge I'd be grateful. I assume things like optics and circuits could safely be skipped, for instance. If the answer to which topics to study happens to be "all of them" then are there any that are more or less important than others? An good understanding of gravity, for instance, I have to assume is more important than some other physics topics.
I believe I've seen Fundamentals of Physics by Halliday mentioned as being a good introductory calculus based physics text but I'm not sure if it's the best option for self-study. Would this be a good choice, or would some other book be better?
Thanks in advance.
I believe I've seen Fundamentals of Physics by Halliday mentioned as being a good introductory calculus based physics text but I'm not sure if it's the best option for self-study. Would this be a good choice, or would some other book be better?
Thanks in advance.