<DIV>In <I>The Theoretical Minimum</I>, physicist Leonard Susskind and hacker-scientist George Hrabovsky offer a first course and associated math for the ardent amateur. Popular physics books give readers a taste of what physicists know, but shy away from teaching the skills required to do the work. By contrast, Susskind and Hrabovsky cover the minimum--the theoretical minimum of the title--that readers need to study more advanced topics. Beginning with classical mechanics, the work ends with discussions of electromagnetic fields and chaos theory. An alternative to the go-to-college method, <I>The Theoretical Minimum</I> offers a tool kit for amateur scientists to learn physics at their own pace. <br></DIV>