Physics

Scientific knowledge is induced from observations, finding the single causal principle that explains a wide range of observed facts, integrated into all other knowledge without contradiction. (The crucial role of experimentation is to isolate possible causes.) Because scientific knowledge is the integration of observations into contextual principles, it must be understood historically, to know what it is that men observed and why certain principles are necessitated and justified by these observations.

• Physical Science by David Harriman. These wonderful lectures, recorded before an audience of students just learning science and mathematics, teach the critical ideas in man's knowledge of the physical world by starting at the beginning of science and showing each step by which more was learned, what evidence and reasoning validated the new knowledge and how each step built on and extended prior knowledge into wider integrations. I was a physics major when I entered college, yet I can easily say that my actual understanding of physics is much greater as a result of this course than I can credit to any other class I've taken – in large measure because I now have a clear grasp of what the physical theories actually refer to and, thus, why they are correct.
• The Duel between Plato and Aristotle by Leonard Peikoff. This ten-page essay, printed as an epilogue in Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, identifies the key ideas and consequences in the history of philosophy.
• Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems by Galileo Galilei. The Dialogue is one of the most important documents in science, readable, establishing a proper scientific methodology and demonstrating, by application of this, both a large number of new principles of nature and also that reason, not faith, produces knowledge.
• Opticks by Isaac Newton. One of the most approachable significant works in science, Newton's Opticks shows the process of inducing scientific principles from careful observations. (more:
  • The Newtonian Moment
  )
• The Chemical History of a Candle by Michael Faraday. Originally published in 1861, these lectures, by perhaps the greatest experimental physicist of all time, uses the familiar phenomenon of a candle's burning to demonstrate an enormous range of physical and chemical phenomena to an educated but non-scientist audience.
• The Forces of Matter by Michael Faraday. Six clear and essentialized lectures by the great physicist Faraday introduce readers to six forces of nature and some introduction to the proper method of inducing scientific principles from observation.
• The Development of the Concept of Electric Charge, Electricity from the Greeks to Coulomb by Duane Roller and Duane H. D. Roller. A clear historical account of the observed facts and careful reasoning by which scientists induced the concept of electric charge. (out-of-print, see sources.)
• The Character of Physical Law by Richard Feynman. Transcriptions of lectures to a non-technical audience, explaining physics, not the detailed laws of physics but the features that characterize all the physical laws we know.
• The Taming of the Atom, The Emergence of the Visible Microworld by Hans Christian von Baeyer. The author shows us the reality of atoms, not just atoms as a useful mathematical fictuion, but that they are real entities.
• Q.E.D., The Strange Theory of Light and Matter by Richard Feynmann. A short, somewhat technical but non-mathematical popular explanation of the quantum theory as it is generally understood by many physicists today. This has the virtue of being a clearly-written exposition of the actual theory, not altered to make a simpler explanation of something other than the theory. It has the disadvantage of accepting various impossibilities such as quantum indeterminacy (a violation of the law of casality). The theory of electrons and light is about at the stage that astronomy was before Copernicus and Galileo--that it, is describes appearances without a theory of what is acting and why--but the author has the perspective to, in effect, admit this.
• Powers of Ten, About the Relative Size of Things in the Universe by Philip Morrison, Phylis Morrison and the Office of Charles and Ray Eames. A journey from the largest view of the universe to the most microscopic in 42 images, starting at a billion-lightyear scale. Each succeeding page is magnified ten times the preceding.
• Feynman Lectures on Physics, volume 1, Mainly Mechanics, Radiation, and Heat by Richard Feynman. In-depth education on physics by a brilliant scientist and teacher.
• Feynman Lectures on Physics, volume 2, Mainly Electromagnetism and Matter by Richard Feynman. Further lectures, expanding on volume 1 and investigating the interactions between matter and electromagnetism.
• Feynman Lectures on Physics, volume 3 by Richard Feynman. Further lectures, building on volumes 2 and 3, adding quantum mechanics.

Links

• Junk Science – A general science site: much-needed articles debunking contemporary psuedo-science.
• Lunar Eclipse Computer – Computes the times of upcoming lunar eclipses for any location.
• Magnetism and Astronomy Links – Links to homeschool resources for education and experimentation on astronomy and magnets.
• The Newtonian Moment – Exhibit at the New York Public Library celebrating Isaac Newton's achievements and effect on civilization.
• The Unbounded, Finite Universe