Learn physics in nine months
Nine months of disciplined work — 45 minutes a day plus weekend problem sets — takes a learner with calculus through Newtonian mechanics, electromagnetism, and waves. About 220 hours total. Enough to read most popular physics writing without losing the thread, and to solve real introductory problems.
9 months · ~220 hours · solve mechanics and E&M problems from first principles
1.Halliday, Resnick & Walker — Fundamentals of Physics
The standard calculus-based introductory physics textbook for fifty years. Read each chapter, do the worked examples by covering the solution and trying yourself first, then attempt the odd-numbered problems. Cover the mechanics half by month five, electromagnetism by month nine. Older editions are nearly identical to the newest; buy whichever is cheap.
~$30 used (older editions)
Halliday & Resnick →2.MIT 8.01 — Walter Lewin, Classical Mechanics
Walter Lewin's mechanics lectures remain the most cinematically taught physics course on the internet. Watch them alongside the mechanics half of Halliday. He demonstrates every concept with the kind of physical apparatus universities used to build and don't anymore. The MIT OCW page hosts the full series with problem sets and exams.
Free
MIT OCW 8.01 →3.The Feynman Lectures on Physics
Caltech hosts all three volumes online for free, in full. Feynman is not your textbook — Halliday is — but when a topic in Halliday feels mechanical, read the corresponding Feynman chapter and you will see what the formula is actually saying. Especially valuable for vectors, fields, and the Maxwell equations.
Free
Feynman Lectures →If this doesn't fit you
If you don't have calculus and don't want to learn it first, drop this entire path and read Conceptual Physics by Paul Hewitt. You will understand the ideas without solving the equations. You won't be doing physics, but you'll be able to follow most science journalism, and that's a real outcome.
Why this path
Physics is learned by solving problems, not by watching them solved. Halliday is the textbook because it has the largest, best-graded problem set in the field. Lewin gives you the in-the-room teaching no book provides. Feynman is the safety net for when the formal treatment loses contact with reality. Skipping problem sets is the standard failure mode here; people who watch lectures and read along feel like they're learning physics until they sit down to solve a falling ladder and realize they're not.