Learn calculus based physics, notation, vectors, mechanics, and professional STEM problem solving through the complete crash course library at theSTEMmajor.com .
Chapter 1 Review: Calculus Based Physics, Units, Physical Quantities, and Vectors
This lesson reviews the opening chapter of a calculus based university physics textbook, focusing on the foundational language students must understand before they can successfully solve physics problems. The emphasis throughout the lecture is that students must learn how to read the textbook, understand notation, recognize definitions, and organize problem solving professionally before relying on disconnected online sources or artificial intelligence tools.
The Foundation of Physics
The first chapter introduces the measurement language of physics through time, length, and mass. Students are introduced to SI units such as seconds, meters, and kilograms. These units are the foundation of all future calculations and must become second nature before moving deeper into mechanics or calculus based applications.
Default Physics Problem Solving Flow
- Convert all units immediately
- Check significant figures
- Identify keywords in the problem
- Recognize the notation being used
- Determine the concept or formula being tested
- Structure the solution professionally
Jetpack LaTeX Formatting
Any mathematics inside these accordions should use Jetpack LaTeX formatting to preserve clarity and consistency across devices.
Vector notation changes from textbook to textbook. Some books use bold vectors, others use arrows, and some use handwritten notation. Students must carefully learn the notation system of the assigned textbook before mixing outside resources.
Reading the Textbook Properly
Students are encouraged to prepare the first several chapters of physics before the semester begins. Becoming comfortable with vectors, displacement, notation, units, and motion before lecture dramatically improves understanding and reduces stress during the semester.
The lecture emphasizes that the textbook itself contains the structure of the course. Example problems, notation explanations, and highlighted definitions are often the exact patterns students later encounter on homework assignments and examinations.
Strong physics notes should include vocabulary, notation, formulas, unit conversions, example problem structures, and the meanings behind the symbols used throughout the textbook.
The Main Takeaway
Physics is not simply memorizing equations. It is learning a technical language built around notation, structure, communication, and disciplined problem solving. Students who take the time to understand the first chapters thoroughly often discover that later chapters become dramatically easier and more enjoyable.
Continue studying mechanics, vectors, notation, calculus based physics, and textbook driven STEM preparation through the complete crash course and research library.
Visit authorjond.com and theSTEMmajor.com .
Original Transcript
All right, kids. I’m uh filling in my digital ebook and we are going to take a review of a of the um we’re going to look at a review of the university physics textbook here. And uh in the next video I’m going to do the college physics. I’m going to review chapter one in these books. And where did the college physics go? There. So I’m I’m going to show you in I’m going to review chapter one because I’m doing lessons from chapter one. on each I’m going to go through and review each chapter and do a lesson from each chapter and each section in each chapter and just make a whole entire sort of crash course here. There’s a difference between the the STEM majors guide to the university is me showing you guys how to study um for exams and how to write exam solutions. The PLM majors crash course is me showing you guys how to actually do math and physics professionally for like the job or research. So, there’s two levels of what I’m offering here. I’m offering a way for you guys to understand how to get through your college courses and a way for you guys to understand how to actually do math and physics. There’s two there’s different avenues of of college. You need to understand strategy and knowledge. So this is the first chapter units physical quantities vectors from the Hugh Young University physics book. You guys got to understand if you don’t read the book you will never do physics. You’ll never understand it. You’ll never do it. Okay? worst worst best chance you’ll have is you’ll get a grade curve and you’ll move on to the next course. But if you’re a math, physics, and engineering student, you have to read these things. You are given this book for a reason. There are words in it for a reason. You must read it. There are a lot of words in here that you need to know. All the bold words. Um, but in the first chapter, the key the key highlights in the first chapter that you should pay attention to are are um definitely words, you know, definitely the bold words in every chapter. That’s very important. Um but in this chapter, let’s look at the highlights. Time, length, and mass. Three different measurements. Okay. Time is time is no different than length. Some people they think time is some mystical alternate dimension. It’s a unit of freaking measurement. What’s the distance between my two hands? Okay, you it makes sense to you. There’s a length, a measurement between my hands, right? Where where did the measurement go? Time is no different. It’s the measurement of two points. Okay? It’s just the measurement of distance. It’s just there. It’s it’s just funny. It’s a unit of measurement. Okay? In the first chapter, you have seconds, you have meters, you have kilograms. These are called the system international units, SI units. Okay? They introduce you to these SI units. These are the standard units that make measurement and calculation much easier. At this point in in physics, what you need to do above all else is slap yourself in the face every time you forget to change the units. That’s the first thing you do in problem solving is address the units. I have a I have a whole methodology to problem solving. And I will show you guys the default here. There is a default method, a default flow that you should stamp in your brain every single time you be solving a calculus or a physics problem. calculus uh little different math is a little different. I’ll be doing the reviews on those two and uh okay so let me open this. All right so here here’s the blueprint. All right this is um this is a question I did in the other one. This is for the answer. Let me get rid of this. Okay so this is the question from the book.
Okay section X and let me just do that right quick. Heading two. Okay, heading three for that one. Okay. Uh, so this was where my question goes. This is the book citation and uh, blah blah blah. Anyways, this is the solution. Okay. What you guys need to stamp into your head right now. The first thing you do is you look at the you look at the um unit conversion. This should be unit conversion. These are the first three things you do. significant figures, unit conversion, keywords. Uh the keywords are going to help you understand how to solve the problem. So, I’m going to put these like this. And this is this is just a default stamp that I do every time I solve a physics problem. I just fill it in this way. It’ll change the way you look at problem solving big time. Um so, anyways, and and here that’s the first thing I do is the first thing we address convert units significant figures SI units. Uh let me let me do or um convert units significant figures sigfigs not si units. This here I’ll do s i units and then this is short notation. Sig figs is what you’ll hear that uh so here they show you the first thing they do is they show you how to do unit conversion. Don’t worry I’ll be in in the problems I do I will show you guys quite quite clearly how to do unit conversion. I’m just showing you what to pay attention to. You guys are going to want to know these words. You know, the British system, um, imperial system versus metric system. These are words you guys are going to want to know in conversation. Your ability to communicate with humans and elevate your social interactions and social lifestyle and business is going to be uh conditional on your ability to speak and to know words. To comput to communicate, articulate intelligently and reference words and actually know the definitions of them is very important. When someone like me has a conversation with somebody and I and I tell them I go, “Do you know what the definition of insanity is because I know they’re going to say it’s doing the same thing over and over.” I go, “That’s not the definition of insanity.” And I and I try to explig. So I go I’m like, “That’s not the definition of sanity. It never was.” And they have two options. One option is to say it isn’t. Or the other option is to defend their response. Nothing makes a person look more stupid than defending an incorrect response. As a scientist, you need to acknowledge that immediately. You will never be trusted in science if you can’t admit you’re wrong about something. The the definition of insanity verbatim, according to any dictionary, is seriously mentally ill. A quote by Albert Einstein is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is insanity verbatim. That’s Albert Einstein quote, not the definition. Never was, never will be. So if you defend that and you start saying, well, it’s kind of the definition. Oh, you missed. It’s this. It’s that. It makes you look like a complete [ __ ] when you defend incorrect responses. And when you’re dealing with somebody like me at my level of intelligence, my level of experience, if you defend an incorrect answer, you are not permitted in this field. We do not trust people that can’t admit they’re wrong. Do you know what happens when people can’t admit they’re wrong? Rockets blow up in space. All right? You have to be able to admit you’re wrong. It’s very important. Okay? So anyways, that’s why you guys got to read these books. You you I had a kid the other day. He was arguing with me on the significant figure ratio count or whatever. I was explaining how the sigfigs work and he’s like and I show him and he’s like about to argue with me and then he sees the answer in the back of the book and he’s like oh because he didn’t believe what I was saying even though I was referencing everything from the book. He believed what he was thinking even though he didn’t know how to site or reference anything. He thinks therefore he’s right. This is a characteristic of a future failure. You will not succeed in science if you if you’re like that. So as a scientist at this be at beginning in physics if you’re watching this if you’re lucky enough to come across this and listen to this as a scientist going forward if anybody ever asks you a question you have three responses. The first response should always be to which subject are you referring the second response is I don’t know or the third response doesn’t have to be in that order really but the third response is according to this source which would be a subject. I ask you a question, why does 1* a 0 equal 0? Your response should be according to which subject are you referring to? And I would say let’s talk about ring theory and abstract algebra under axiomatic space with transverse conditions. And you’re like, huh, I just made all that up. I mean, they’re just words I put together. It doesn’t mean anything. And you So then it confuses you. That’s the point. Because I’m saying nothing and you’re saying nothing. and we’re both getting nowhere. But if you say if I you say why does 1* 0 equal 0 and I go according to what subject? You go ah very good. You go according to standard algebraic operations in any American algebra book. I would say under standard algebraic operations 1* 0 is equal to 0 because it’s defined to be that way as a property a set of rules that you have to follow that allow everything to come out the way you want it to come out. You say good correct it’s a property. It’s a definition defined property. You guys, you need as a scientist, you need to change the way you talk and communicate with people. Otherwise, you’ll never be allowed to work in science. People don’t trust people that can’t admit they’re wrong. Do you not understand that? You can’t trust somebody to do science that can’t admit they’re wrong. It’s dangerous. It is very dangerous. And and some of the most arrogant people in the world think they’re smart because they’re studying math-based degrees, and they’re not. They’re future failures. There is a reason why only one out of a hundred of you actually work in your field. It’s like it’s not because you’re smart, kid. It’s because you’re honest, you have integrity and you work hard and you got a brain for it and you like it. Okay. Anyways, whatever. So, I’m just reviewing the first chapter. This is the first chapter. So, I’m just giving you kind of a, you know, military like it’s a reality check. You got a four, you got a short four-year window here to do this right, kid. You know, the way you’re doing it probably wrong. You’re already doing it wrong because you’re on the internet. The more you watch me, the less likely you are to succeed. But I have I’m going to give you the best chance of success. But I’m going to constantly tell you to stop watching me and start reading the book and do it on your own. However, if you want to engage with other scientists, that’s what Plem Academy is about. That’s what the research position is about. It’s you guys engage with me and other scientists in the live session and we solve problems professionally like this in great detail together. Team effort. That is not cheating. that is you training to work with other people to get good written and oral communication skills. So anyways um scientific notation all of these words okay these words in this book at the beginning here these words are the foundation these are the foundation words for the rest of the book you need to know what they mean what is scientific notation you know you need to know all these bold words that’s very important okay um but mostly in the first chapter here uh it’s important to start paying attention to look see this this professor this professor tells you here capital bold italicized capital letter bold italicized with an arrow on top is referencing a vector and then he’s telling you this is what I this is what it looks like in handwritten notation he puts a he puts a bar underneath it and he does an a like this with an arrow he’s this professor is trying to explain to you that there is intricate arrays in in language through notation written in print you guys live in the 21st century. You are not you should not be doing this by hand. He he’s explaining to you this at the beginning of the book. Most of you guys, you you wait until you’re in junior senior year semester after this book and books like this to realize the intricacies of the notation, the italicization, the bold, the nonalicized. Different books have different notations. Prime, he’s saying a prime is the same as a depending on how he’s noting it. You guys might see that as a derivative. This is not a function. It could be a vector function, but ultimately he’s calling it something else. These are notations. Notations are very intricate in math and physics. There’s many arrays, many layers of them in print. And this is very important. You guys are given a book in print. You’re given a computer with Microsoft Word. It’s free for students. I never promoting that. I’m just telling you, it’s a monopoly. Every company uses it. You need to have it on your resume, so you might as well use it while you’re in college. You’re given a computer to type. You’re given a book and print. Why the hell anybody would use a pencil and a piece of paper when you need five years of experience using computers, typing in computers? No company is going to hire you based on your ability to take notes in a classroom. You don’t need to take notes in a classroom, guys. Okay, the professor is just reading you the book. So, let me um let me make a podcast. Should is it important to take notes in college? I make podcasts on this later during lecture. It’s not because they’re just rereading you the book. Okay? You don’t need to take notes in lecture unless they’re solving a problem in lecture. You need to write down the solution. But you don’t need to take any of the notes. It’s all the book. They’re just rereading you the book. Why are they rereading the book in lecture? Are you one of these idiots that are like, “What am I paying them for? What am I paying them for?” You’re like paying them because they’re like a high price lawyer. You’re paying them for their experience. They give you this book. This is everything you need to know. It’s an instruction booklet. Nobody can force you to learn this, kid. You have to learn it yourself. They’re there to tell you whether or not you’re doing it right. You’re paying for their expertise. You are paying to prove to them that you have integrity. They are not going to give you a stamp of approval and let you graduate with an education if you have no integrity. You don’t show up to lecture. You complain about everything. They’re not going to help you. They are not there to do your homework for you. They are not there to babysit you. They’re not there babysit you. They’re not there to tell you to show up to lecture. They’re not there to tell you to do your homework. They’re not there to tell you to read a book. They give you a code of conduct, a syllabus, and a book, and you go do it. What you don’t understand, you go to them with their 50 years of experience, and they straighten you out. That’s what you’re paying for. You’re not going to get that if you don’t go to lecture. You don’t have to go to say have to go to lecture. Good. No one’s going to give you a job. It doesn’t say have to go to work. Anyways, uh at the beginning, so reviewing chapter one, the the highlights of chapter one is pay attention to notation. Okay? Pay attention to what they’re what they’re doing here. Look at this beginning beginning point ending point displacement. Then you have a vector A. This is the vector A. The displacement is the distance between the two from here to here. It’s not the total the total distance is different than the displacement. The displacement is like you know if I if I go in a complete circle my displacement is zero. If I go out the circumference my the displacement is two times the radius. Um pay attention here. They’re saying, “Look, a prime is the same as a.” That’s not the derivative. A point does not have an arrow on top, and the point does not appear to be bold either. This is bold. This is not bold. They’re both italicized. In different books, you’re going to see different notations. Let’s see in the algebra the algebra version what they um did for their vector notation. This is a different author in this book. So, we’ll see if they stuck with the same thing or they use different notations for vectors and things. Uh let’s let’s go to they have a different font in this book this standard. So in this book they are calling a vector vector notation.
Okay where are the vectors coordinate system motion and okay they don’t start this this book’s this book’s written a little bit differently. Uh vectors okay let me so they’re vectors in this book start in chapter three. This book’s a little different than the flow of the of the other professor’s book. So, right there we go. So, there you So, pay attention. Okay. In the algebra book, the vector not italicized over here. Italicized, still bold, still has a hat, not italicized. In linear algebra, it changes in linear algebra, changes in all the different maths. So, before you start physics, this is chapter one review. That’s the kind of stuff you’re going to pay attention to. Pay attention to the notations book to book. And if you have a professor that’s still writing by hand during lecture on a chalkboard or something on a whiteboard, it’s just absurd. We are our education is just diminishing by the day because of people teaching the way they taught in the 1700s. We are at an exponential curb in learning. We do not have time to dick around talking about writing by pen writing with pencil and paper you know watching con like are you kidding me we don’t have time for that you guys got to get with the program the first couple chapters of these books takes longer to understand than anything else so if you guys are in this course you need to pay attention you need to spend chapter 1 2 and three for physics chapter 1 2 3 and four basically leading up to two-dimensional kinematic equations and working in force Newton’s laws You need to have all of that mastered before you start the semester. Okay, that’s that’s uh that’s what I’m that’s going to be well not what I’m doing specifically, but you need if if you’re it depends on what book you’re in, but the first basically the the chapter 4 does the laws of motion here. You need to have these first four chapters. Same with this book. The first four chapters, you need to have that mastered before the semester starts and your life will be so easy. The course will be so easy. It’ll be so much fun, too. You You’ll be shocked at how much fun these courses are when you have the first four or five chapters done before you start it. So, anyways, this is chapter one review. I’m doing a library on plumacademy.com. I will show you again what it looks like here. So, this is the if you come to the front page, I’ll just I’m just adding these in one at a time. This is for the these are for the research position. Those of you that are part of the research position, this these these books are where you come to do reviews. These are the instructions for the certificates. These are the first editions for any STEM major. Then I’m adding in the crash course, the STEM majors guide to the university, which is crash courses. These courses are designed to help you understand how to work through the textbook and how to solve problems correctly uh using specific methods for solution writing so that you can maximize your points on exams. This particular crash course I’m not doing lessons on. I’m not teaching you anything. I ain’t trying to do your homework for you. I all I’m doing all I’m doing is I’m taking a question getting the answer from the back of the book and showing you how to solve it from start to finish in like 10 minutes or less so that you can see how you’re supposed to be doing this on an exam without making mistakes. And uh so um I do a quick recap on this. I had made a typo that I am going to actually get that typo out of there and put it back in after the fact because I had um I had forgot to write centimeter here and I had it written here. So I want to address that in the review of this. I will do a review of this next. So anyways, um so chapter 1 textbook review for calculusbased is what this video is. That’s that’s the gist of it guys. Pay attention to the notation. Any symbol you see, make sure you understand what the symbol’s talking about. This italicized I with a with a carrot hat, J with a hat, those are unit vectors. They have different sh. The same with these letters. These letters change in book to book to book. If you’re mixing and matching books, you’re mixing and matching notations. The calculations might end up being wrong. The uh the notation’s definitely wrong. Not not what you’re supposed to be doing. And you got to be real careful with that. But, uh, for the most part, anything that’s in these yellow boxes, you’re going to have to memorize. You’re going to have to have those memorized. And in my how to study guide, I show you guys how to take these notes. And I will be sharing that with you guys as well. And let me just show you here. So, for chapter one, just just since this is chapter one review, I’m just going to show you guys the the method to taking notes. You should be doing this in Microsoft Word kits. You need four to five three to you need you need like five years of experience using Microsoft Office tools. You you don’t want to waste your time writing by hand and using anything else. You don’t want to use latte type set software. You don’t want to do thirdparty type ST software. You don’t want to use that garbage. You want to use what needs to be on your resume. Microsoft Office tools, mat lab, wolf ram alpha. Knowing how to use chat GPT or AI as a consumer is not a skill for your resume. They can do that themselves. Why would they hire you to do that? This is uh real world notes from this chapter I’m looking at. You get first you get all the bold words out of there. Okay, I did all the bold words and retyped them. That will reinforce it in your brain. Then I got all the equations and formulas and everything here. That’s how I put it all together. I extracted everything that was important from the book. As you progress through these books, you’ll begin to learn what’s important and what’s not what’s not important. In a physics book, what is really important is the formulas that you find in the example questions, not necessarily in these boxes. It’s the in the example questions. In in a math book, these boxes, you’re going to have to follow what’s in the boxes like precisely. But in a physics book, you’re going to rearrange everything and use the formulas that are in the example in the reading the reading part. You’re going to stick with formulas that are rearranged for the most part. But go through all this. Make sure you familiarize yourself with all the notation. It’s not it’s not really that much stuff. Most of this should be review from like trigonometry or if you’ve taken vector calculus, it would be review. It’s not difficult stuff, guys. Take the time to do this before the semester starts. If you want to know how much work you should do before the semester starts, the first three to four chapters of a physics book and the first like three to four sections starting at like chapter two of a math book, usually the first chapter is usually a review of the previous section. So, should definitely do the review though. But like the first three to four it’s because the the math and physics books are broken up in sections. So you might have to get like 15 sections ahead versus um the the the physics books are generally broken up in chapters even though they have sections individual sections. It’s just one question bank for one chapter. So um the other thing to know is that the questions that are the the example questions the example questions are usually the questions that are on the test. Okay? They usually take these questions word for word, number for number and put them on the test. These example the example the reading questions. So if you work all these example questions and you do it before lecture, not only will you enjoy lecture and understand it, your homework will be ridiculously easy and you will have already taken all the questions that will be on the exam. When you make your cheat sheets, if they let you do a cheat sheet, you go to the example questions and you look at the example questions and you look at these questions here and you look for key words like magnitude, vector, scalar. then you know you’re going to need this formula and it’s probably going to see this picture or something. You’ll know what to do and you can put that on your cheat sheet. The tests are not usually meant to challenge or trick you. It’s meant to see if you’re paying attention to the book. I mean, you’re given this book to study this book and you guys all go to Khan Academy and AI. What the hell are you in college for? You’re here to study this book. Whatever you think about not studying the book, you are wrong. Stop doing that. You’re going to ruin your future if you listen to an uneducated college student. Kids that study math and physics in college are some of the stupidest people I’ve ever met in my life. You’re not smart. You’re not skilled. You’re not special. You’re choosing to do a discipline nobody else wants to do. And it’s like 10 plus hours of study a day for years and years and years. And it is all about learning the textbook, how to use the textbook. You think you’re smart. You sign a contract for the code of conduct, follow the syllabus, and walk down the footsteps of your professor. And you go to Khan Academy, a social media company, AI. It’s only 50% accurate on a bad day, a good day, any day. You think you’re smart and you do that. You think you’re clever because you’re doing that. You are ruining your future because you’re listening to an uneducated college kid yourself. Stop doing that. All right. Listen to me. Follow my lead. Join Plum Academy. You want to do real math, real physics, and understand how to do proper research. Become a research member or join my internship program. You work live with me in the group and we do problems together. Then you can come on here and you review it. You type it in HTML. You type it in latex. You get all this stuff on your resume. You get your own website with Pla Plum Academy like this to host your resume and all the work you do so that when you graduate, you can show everybody what you’ve done. I’ll be putting that together here shortly, too. But anyways, this is the um this is the review for the calculusbased textbook. Shoe enjoy. Don’t forget to subscribe. If you can leave a thumbs up too, I really appreciate it. YouTube does not give you any love if people don’t leave thumbs ups and subscribe or leave positive comment. I also appreciate any donations. If you can buy a book, join Pllem Academy. This is what I do for a living. Without your support, I cannot continue doing this. So, please show support. Have a nice day.