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Comment by flexd | Hacker News Reader

I'm taking Math and Physics at uni in a pre-engineer year. Khan Academy is making me learn a lot! My physics teacher is not that good, Sal however is an amazing communicator. If you only visit the site shortly you will only see the youtube videos but looking closer you will find the real gem: The application guiding you through math and physics. If you can answer all the questions correctly you know have learned everything you need to know to pass a exam! :-)

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I would highly suggest watching the Walter Lewin videos from mit. They are what got me through a mediocre at best, terrible at worst teacher in physics. I used him heavily for electricity and magnetism and some for the classical mechanics stuff. Excellent teacher!

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-01-physics-i-classical-...

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-02-electricity-and-magn...

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-03-physics-iii-vibratio...

If you can manage to deal with silverlight, I'd add Richard Feynman's Messenger Lectures. (Thanks Bill Gates)

http://research.microsoft.com/apps/tools/tuva/index.html

Cool thanks! I have a test coming up this Wednesday on the first chapters: Motion in a straight line and Force and Motion. I understand the basics/theory behind it but i need to solve more problems. :-)

My current physics teacher's philosophy, as I understand it, is that he teaches something once, if no one says they need more instruction he moves on, and he does not work out problems to a final answer in class. His explanation is that he wants us to learn to learn on our own and ask questions, but of course he won't answer questions if they relate to material we should already know.

I haven't been able to figure out if this is a good thing or bad thing, rather it may come down to how students learn and what is the actual job/purpose of the instructor. If you learn the material before his lecture then there is no problem but then there is little reason to come to class other than it being a requirement and to enjoy the half of class he isn't instructing, discussing random topics and shooting the shit.

That kind of makes me sad, physics can be so engaging with a good teacher even though physics turned out to be my hardest non engineering course because of the teacher's assigned workload and tests it was by far my favorite class to attend.

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