I’m interested in learning about the laws of motion and relativity. I’m curious to know where to start and what level of knowledge is required for someone looking to gain foundational knowledge of classical mechanics.
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The maths barrier to classical (Newtonian) mechanics, the physics of motion, isn’t that high. A bit of algebra and some trigonometry will get you most of the way there. If you’re UK based, think GCSE maths.
Special relativity isn’t too bad either (and is most of what people talk about when they think of relativity – time and space being unified, Lorenz contractions, twins paradox, etc). UK A-level (maybe further maths for some of it, that’s certainly where I first looked at it but that could’ve just been because we had extra time and a maths teacher willing to do interesting stuff) will cover you.
General relativity is where you see spacetime curving with gravity and you will need some serious studying to understand the maths behind it, though of course the ideas are worth looking at even if you can’t solve the actual equations.
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