Physics

[SnoringFrog]

Okay, I would really like to learn physics and things of that nature, but I can't take physics at school till my junio year, which is still 3 years away, so I was wondering if anybody could tell me of any books that I could pick up to learn physics?

[Technomancer]

It depends on what you want to do. If you mean really learn physics in the sense that you will in school, you might want to find out what textbooks are being used. Because you won't have had any calculus or vector algebra yet, you'll need to stick to books that are written for that kind of audience. Unfortunately, most of the books that I know are likely to either be for undergraduates, or long out of print. Keep in mind the focus will tend be fairly mundane things: pulleys, friction, etc and not the cool stuff that requires greater mathematical formalism. You might get some stuff about electromagnetism and optics.

Doing a bit of searching I did find this list on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/listmania/fullview/1W29NB1Y74DYP/104-5374085-5790341?%5Fencoding=UTF8

Hopefully, it will help. As far as mathematics go, you might also want to find out what high-school level texts are being used or are available at your library.

[Slater]

I (and a few other members here) highly recommend Giancoli's 5th ed. Physics book ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0136119719/sr=1-11/qid=1137138279/ref=sr_1_11/103-7547237-6911054?%5Fencoding=UTF8 ). It is excelent in explaining things and fun to read. However, it is university level, and you may have a hard time with some of the stuff in it since you're only a freshman... Basically, the math is made for those who have at least a good grasp on algebra and basic trig (it's not calculus based book, which has its pros and cons). Still, I don't think you need to fully understand the math to understand the concepts in the book (though I may be wrong).

It isn't a Christian book, and thus it has a few things involving evolution in it. In spite of this, I am glad to say that they treat those ideas as nothing but theory and when they do bring it up, they remind the reader that those things are still theory and possibly (and in the last paragraph, probably) false, so it's still pretty Christian-friendly.

However, I wouldn't recommend that you read those chapters since they deal with quantum physics and other things that I wouldn't recommend unless you have a really firm grounding in your algebra and trig.

And, in case this book still is too high to understand, Google is your friend. The laws of mechanical physics are explained in a million different ways on the internet, and there are many of us who can help you through your search for knowledge. Whatever you do, start with mechanical physics; it's fun and sets the stage for so much more.

[Tringard]

If you're serious about this, Technomancer's answer is fine. Personally I'd recommend starting with the library and finding out what book your school uses.

If you would like to just look into the subject, a fair amount of resources can be found via Wikibooks and Wikiversity

From Wikibooks, this series looks promising.

If you are looking at this as a hobby and/or are interested in a particular branch, you can also browse your bookstore's science section where you should be able to find a decent collection of books written by well known scientists/professors, but intended for the [near] layperson .