What are the things you need to know in order to become a theoretical physicist?

The usual requirement to work as a professional theoretical physicist is to have a degree in physics. Most theoretical physicists have a PhD, and it would be highly unusual for someone to obtain a position as a theoretical physicist without one unless they had an established research record. The normal procedure is to do a science degree, majoring in physics, and then follow this up with honours and a PhD. You then get a position at a university, and away you go. Obviously, at 15, you're a long way off from that, but there are a few things to consider that can help you get started: * Obviously, do physics at high school. Mathematics is also essential, as university physics is very maths-intensive. If you interest is theoretical physics, you will probably want to do a lot of mathematics at college as well (it's not essential by any means, but many physicists double major in physics and maths). Chemistry would also be advisable. * For everything else, just maximise your marks so you get into the necessary course. * At your level, there is probably not a great deal of out-of-curriculum study you can do specifically for theoretical physics (I am a physics major, and even I don't understand half the stuff the guys in theoretical get up to). However, you can definitely maintain a good physics general knowledge, which is useful. Just read up any good science book.

Read einstein, google famous physics departments, take ap math and science courses in high school. Play a musical instrument. That can help. Really a google search is the place to start.

Leaving school with qualifications in maths, physics and chemistry will go a long way. Computer skills are important too, as well as good English language skills because you'll be writing a lot of essays.

You can practice it as a hobby, and leave the rest for school (maths, physics, chemistry) for now. You can join forums, I think physicsforums.com is the best, just try contributing with them, read people's problems, questions and insights and see the response of the experts, questions might cross your mind too and you could ask, or look them up on google. Also going to a local library is a good idea, read books related to physics and a lot of questions will pop up keep you wondering, or you would like to see more details on some topic, those will lead you to other books and motivate you to search more on google and forums, if you haven't read "A brief history of time", or "The universe in a nutshell" both by Stephen Hawking, yet, then I would recommend them, they discuss all the modern theories and problems that physicists are currently facing. If there are local scientific clubs you might wanna join them too and gain some more experience. You can watch documentary movies at your free time. You can eventually write articles your own articles, this will help you collect back and organize the information you had, and perhaps produce new ideas, or notice new vague aspects. I have the same interests as you, I may assist you with anything you want, any problems, or whether you're seeking ideas, you can contact me at [email protected], or if you could, please add me. :)

If you're in the top 0.1% you might want to consider the Landau theoretical minimum. http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/13861/lev-landaus-theoretical-minimum Don't be ashamed if you don't make it; hardly anyone would pass it. If you're relatively detached from the academic life, you might consider something like the background recommended by t'Hooft: http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~hooft101/theorist.html If you're going to college to study physics then don't worry about this, you'll find plenty of that. So give it a look to have an idea of what to expect. Depending on your math background, you might want to have a look into Feynman's Lectures on Physics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feynman_Lectures_on_Physics This is a popular 3-tome textbook when Feynman lectured at Caltech in the 1960s. Don't dismiss it for being about 50 years old. Have a look around public libraries where you live, or if you manage to visit a large city go to a college library to see if they have the volumes (or consult such a library's public web page to see if it has it). Give it a look to see what it contains.

Become a theoretical physicist?. Great idea. You cant be proven right, you cant be proven wrong. If your proven wrong, no problem. If your proven right, even better. Eric.