The Theoretical Minimum: What You Need to Know to Start Doing Physics - Tapa dura

What a wonderful and unique resource. For anyone who is determined to learn physics for real, looking beyond conventional popularizations, this is the ideal place to start. It gets directly to the important points, with nuggets of deep insight scattered along the way. I'm going to be recommending this book right and left (Sean Carroll, physicist and author of The Particle at the End of the Universe)

So what do you do if you enjoyed science at school or college but ended up with a different career and are still wondering what makes the universe tick? . . . The Theoretical Minimum is the book for you. In this neat little book the authors aim to provide the minimum amount of knowledge you need about classical physics . . . to gain some real understanding of the world . . . They do so with great success . . . Along the way you get beautifully clear explanations of famously 'difficult' things like differential and integral calculus, conservation laws and what physicists mean by symmetries (John Gribbin Wall Street Journal)

In this unconventional and stimulating primer, world-class physicist Leonard Susskind and citizen-scientist George Hrabovsky combine forces to provide a brilliant first course in modern physics. Unlike most popular physics books - which give readers a taste of what physicists know but not what they actually do - Susskind and Hrabovsky teach the skills you need to do physics yourself. Combining crystal-clear explanations of the laws of the universe with basic exercises, the authors cover the minimum - the theoretical minimum of the title - that readers need to master in order to study more advanced topics. In a lucid, engaging style, they introduce all the key concepts, from classical mechanics to general relativity to quantum theory. Instead of shying away from the equations and maths that are essential to any understanding of physics, The Theoretical Minimum provides a toolkit that you won't find in any other popular science book.