A Wall Street Journal Best Book of 2013

A world-class physicist and a citizen scientist combine forces to teach Physics 101€"the DIY way

The Theoretical Minimum is a book for anyone who has ever regretted not taking physics in college€"or who simply wants to know how to think like a physicist. In this unconventional introduction, physicist Leonard Susskind and hacker-scientist George Hrabovsky offer a first course in physics and associated math for the ardent amateur. Unlike most popular physics books€"which give readers a taste of what physicists know but shy away from equations or math€"Susskind and Hrabovsky actually teach the skills you need to do physics, beginning with classical mechanics, yourself. Based on Susskind's enormously popular Stanford University-based (and YouTube-featured) continuing-education course, the authors cover the minimum€"the theoretical minimum of the title€"that readers need to master to study more advanced topics.

An alternative to the conventional go-to-college method, The Theoretical Minimum provides a tool kit for amateur scientists to learn physics at their own pace.