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I have a very great interest in physics. I'm in my last year of high school and unfortunately I only have 3 hours of math a week at the moment. Now, I'd like to go and do physics next year and I will have 3 months in the summer to prepare and catch up. (Sorry if this question does not belong here.)

How can I use this time to prepare and have a good base to pursue a bachelor of science in physics? Any recommended literature?

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    $\begingroup$ Start problem sets early, work hard and you can do it. Most physics courses require you take calculus in parallel so you will get plenty of math in your first year. $\endgroup$
    – Greg Petersen
    Commented Mar 30, 2016 at 17:53
  • $\begingroup$ Welcome to Physics SE! Look around, and take the tour. This is a highly opinion-based question, particularly since we do not know you personally. If you are taking Calculus in HS, good on you. If not, life your first year will be harder since you will need calculus, and need to get good at cranking through equations to solve problems. $\endgroup$
    – Jon Custer
    Commented Mar 30, 2016 at 18:30
  • $\begingroup$ Do you like math? You hve to like math and solving problems with math. How did you like trigonometry. algebra. geomerty, matrices, etc. in your studies so far? $\endgroup$
    – Peter R
    Commented Mar 30, 2016 at 19:00
  • $\begingroup$ They all seemed intuitive to me. I'm not good at memorizing theory or proofs but once I understand the concept I can derive the proof. Solving the real world problems was also interesting. I enjoyed matrices as well because I got to work with them in machine learning, so the abstract was connected with solving real problems. My interest in physics comes from wanting to understand the real world. $\endgroup$
    – Lagastic
    Commented Mar 31, 2016 at 8:17

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In three months you can study a lot of material. You can find a good calculus book and you can find out come good calculus books in the website goodreads.com(it contains reviews by users). Then you can re-study the material that you covered in your last year but not in the traditional sense. You must just try to solve a lot of difficult exercises(i take for granted that you know the basics very well--if not, then you must re-study the material from the beginning in the more traditional way). As you don't have a strong background in mathematics, i do not think that it is a good time to study mathematics that are taught at first or second year in universities. I think that you must just try to build a very strong background in your last year mathematics. Also, make sure that your background in physics is REALLY solid. If you want to succeed, you must know the basics perfectly, not just well. Also, there are video lectures in the internet for first year calculus(try youtube). You should be a great problem solver(in both mathematics and physics) and also get the intuition right. The university builds on that knowledge and just gets more sophisticated from there and on, so your base should be very strong because your intuition will build up when you start connecting the more sophisticated stuff with the more simple that you encounter in high school. Lastly, just in case that your high school teacher taught you the material at a lower level than other high schools(you will compete against students from top high schools), check out what other people are taught. For this, the internet is your best friend.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thank you, I'll focus on getting a solid background in both the basics of Mathematics and Physics. I also found the list of book recommendations on this forum that will be of great help. $\endgroup$
    – Lagastic
    Commented Mar 30, 2016 at 18:43

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