Ask Slashdot: How To Pick Up Astronomy and Physics As an Adult?

First time accepted submitter samalex01 (1290786) writes "I'm 38, married, two young kids, and I have a nice job in the IT industry, but since I was a kid I've had this deep love and passion for astronomy and astrophysics. This love and passion though never evolved into any formal education or anything beyond just a distant fascination as I got out of high school, into college, and started going through life on more of an IT career path. So my question, now that I'm 38 is there any hope that I could start learning more about astronomy or physics to make it more than just a hobby? I don't expect to be a Carl Sagan or Neil deGrasse Tyson, but I'd love to have enough knowledge in these subjects to research and experiment to the point where I could possibly start contributing back to the field. MIT Open Courseware has some online courses for free that cover these topics, but given I can only spend maybe 10 hours a week on this would it be a pointless venture? Not to mention my mind isn't as sharp now as it was 20 years ago when I graduated high school. Thanks for any advice or suggestions."

Comments

From a physics professor

[dogvomit]

I've been a physics professor at a large public university for 22 years, and have taught many introductory classes. (Yes, we are innovating our teaching with new techniques -- different question.)

You will never learn anything by reading books or watching videos. The only way to learn physics is by working problems. Hard problems, that make you sweat, and lots of them. But you can do this, and with the online resources you could be successful. Also you can pace yourself.

Ten hours per week is one class. Start with calculus based mechanics, (kinematics, Newton's laws, work-energy theorem, conservation of momentum, energy, and angular momentum.) If you can do the problems in a standard university physics book, then move on to electricity and magnetism. If you get through that and you don't think Maxwell's equations are the most awesome thing ever, then stop.

Also, never be afraid to learn your math in a physics course. It's the best way.

Good luck! You could really enjoy this if you will truly work at it for 10 hours per week as you suggest. But like dieting, you have to commit.

—George

Re:I'm older but in the same boat

[methano]

Don't do it, man! You'll have a hard time finding a good (read interesting) job without a PhD and with a PhD, you'll be out of work at 50. And you'll be bitter. Oh, and that PhD needs to be from a top ten university and you need to work for a big name and you'll have to work a lot harder than you think unless you're real smart. Oh, you'll also have to do a post-doc at an even better university and with an even more famous professor. If you're real smart and lucky you can make six-figures. Maybe, till you turn 50. Then you have to find something else to do. Or maybe you can get an academic job and you'll have to work 80 hours/week for 5 to 7 years after that post-doc till you get tenure, if you do. If you don't then you start over. And you may never make six-figures. It's a lot harder to be a happy chemist these days.

Re:Telescopes and camping or night-tours

[wooferhound]

What is that up there . . .
http://www.stellarium.org/