Hello Veeky Forums

Hello Veeky Forums

If a want to have an understanding and practical knowledge, enough to read anything without difficulty, or a general understanding about the universe and how it works.

>Be a polymath

What should I study?
Where should I start?

>pls respond

Bump!

First step is to be this guy.

There's no second step.

start by reading this

click the "random article" button on wikipedia a lot

...

Are you sure user? Nothing about social sciences or Arts?

I know you love that chart you made but its fucking shit so be a good kid and stop posting it

as a pure mathematics msc i'm 100% confident i can read and savour any text with no difficulty whatsoever in a week tops.

and it's cheap, and it's low, but it's just so easy to say, you know.

>in a week tops

How is that even impressive?

mad skills bro.

Kek'd

Expand the list please

I feel like this is heavily math-biased.

Is it proportional? Is there really that much more literature and content in math than in biology, physics, and chemistry?

You should double major in Physics and Mathematics

Or if you're not retarded just major in Physics

>Or if you're not retarded just major in Physics

Go to a good university and just take all the first year courses and then all the second year courses and so on until you've exhausted them all. At that point, you'll have a decent understanding of how things work.

Obviously not you fucking retard. This board is just biased as fuck. Where there aren't books on subjects it's because *gasp* the poster is too ignorant of the subject to provide even an introductory staple.

Calculus/Analysis, ODEs, Linear Algebra, PDEs, Complex Variables, and Probability pop up EVERYWHERE. Everyone in STEM needs that knowledge.

>has to ask for handouts
>has to ask for where to start and where to go
>incapable of independent thought and research
>thinks he is qualified to be a polymath

hmm i see

The only real answer

As much as I agree with the inclusion of many of those books, it's an utterly shit list if meant to be comprehensive in any way whatsoever

What do you recommend, user?

Kek

> to read anything without difficulty

Start with the Greeks, Socrates, Plato. Don't start with dumb unrigorous shit like calculus. Program everyday, study physics, have a daily journal(which is not a gay diary).

Basically, start with mental problem-seeking and problem-solving.

This

>Start with the Greeks, Socrates, Plato
fuck off popsci underage idiots

You will need to study three subjects in detail to begin with: basic math, physics and biology. Peripherally: study psychology, philosophy and history.
Do this for about a year. psychology is pretty easy to get your head around, history is mostly just learning facts (focus on great conquerors/civilisations/empires) so that should be pretty fun and easy to get too. Biology will be the easiest out of the sciences, and you should focus mostly on the function of human bodies, but also probe into how common traits spread across all life on earth. Start studying natural selection and evolution.
Maths will be the hardest, because it takes perseverance which is difficult to attain without the encouragement and support of a teaching institution. Just stick at it, and dedicate most of your time to this. It will be invaluable later on.
Physics will be boring to begin with, but you may find it interesting when related to the beginner philosophy you are studying. It will mostly seem dry and uninteresting for the first year, but as with math, it will take persistence. You are currently altering the way your brain thinks about things, and there is no shortcut here. It will be difficult and frustrating and you will lose interest and motivation, but you must push on. The first two years are the hardest. Motivate yourself byu reading popsci and wikipedia articles related to more advanced areas of science and math.

Shall I continue to year two?

>dumb unrigorous shit like calculus
You must be new.

>read anything without difficulty

>Shall I continue to year two?

Please, Do it, user.

The only real answer

Okay sorry for the wait there.

After a year, move up to more advanced mathematics. You should be totally comfortable with all of algebra by this point. That includes solving quadratics, higher order polynomials, indices, laws of logs and exponentials, trig functions and identities and basic graphicacy like sketching all kinds of polynomials. Also, you should be able to understand the basic workings of functions such as arguments, coefficients, roots etc. Now move on to basic calculus. Here, you will have to just read a lot and most importantly, try LOTS of examples. Do not give up unless you have spent over two hours on a problem. Also start looking at complex numbers. If you feel comfortable by the end of this, you can start looking at linear algebra and amtrices. They may seem mysterious and confusing at first, but it all makes sense. Trust in math!
In physics, you should have a firm grasp of Newtonian mechanics by this point, including Newtonian gravity. Projectiles and the laws of motion will be a challenge, but they are surprisingly helpful when it comes to more sophisticated mechanics later on, such as Lagrangian or Hamiltonian mechanics.
In biology, you should have a good understanding of the function of DNA and the general workings of plant, animal, and fungal cells, as well as virus particles. You can now move on to the beginnings of immunology and more advanced anatomy such as the lymphatic system and the nervous system.
Now you should start studying chemistry. There are only two fields of chemistry worth studying in depth: pure and organic chemistry. Organic will tie in well with biology, and pure will set a good foundation for more advanced physics concepts later on.
You can continue history and psychology in your free time if you wish, but you should now restrict history to scientific history.

cont.
By this point, you will be asking metaphysical questions in philosophy, for which you will find many interesting possible answers in physics; but you will have to wait till later on to get to the juicy stuff.

In biology, you should also now have a good grasp of the mechanics of evolution (and be well prepared to put down the mentally invalid creationists with brutal speed).

Something to note here, you will probably find this year more challenging than last year, because you will be more motivated but not necessarily more adept at handling the new material. But trust that you have made a lot of progress, and compare your scientific and general intellectual acuity now to that before. You will find it pretty damn rewarding. You will be growing not just as a person, but as a free-thinking being. You are developing a good bullshit detector and a healthy skepticism.

In case you were wondering, I'm a 4th year physics with astrophysics student. I've gone through eleven years of education, but I can't help but be biased towards things I'm interested in. I encourage you to also seek out areas of interest to you, but always try to evaluate whether or not the field is genuinely helping you understand the universe and yourself.

Onto year three.

By now you should have a really firm grasp of most of the basic operations of human anatomy, with an eye to the chemical structure and interactions going on. Now it's time to merge two fields. Your study of the nervous system will have undoubtedly led you to look at the brain. You can now mostly abandon the rest of biology and leave it on the back burner, studying it for fun or if you need extra info. Use your study of psychology/psychiatry to inform your new probing into the incredibly complex workings of the human brain. Spend a lot of time on this. You will have a basic knowledge of circuitry by this point, as well as chemistry. So you will rapidly begin viewing the brain as a complex biological computer. This will be incredibly interesting!
In maths, you should now be very adept at single variable calculus and complex-valued algebra. You should now move on to multivariable calculus (partial differentiation, double, triple integrals) as well as more in depth study of linear algebra and matrix mechanics. These will be your treasured tools once mastered, and remember as always with maths, it takes a lot of practice!

cont.

In physics, you should have progressed past all of classical mechanics and electronics, as well as being versed in optics. You can start looking at electrostatics and simple harmonic motion in more depth now. Pick up an introdictory physics textbook, and progress from chapter one to the very last chapter, missing out anything to do with quantum mechanics, relativity, thermodynamics or fluid mechanics.

You will now be applying your knowledge of calculus extensively to physics, and it is pretty cool. Hopefully, you should be somewhat addicted to math and physics by this point. Don't forget to keep yourself motivated,

In chemistry, you shold have a really good understanding of the periodic table, most organic compounds and interactions, and the beginnings of electron orbital stricture. This is basically physics, but chemists dumb it down a lot.

>history is mostly just learning facts
This is what mathfags actually believe

B A S E D

Be back in 5 years