The first issue that really should be addressed in a presentation of physics ``from the beginning'' is not a part of physics at all. Rather, it is a discussion of the language within which the presentation will be made. This need arises because the exchange necessarily will be made of words, but it is far from clear how much meaning there actually is in words. Certainly words in themselves, as patterns on a page, contain very little intrinsic meaning. So most or all of the meaning we extract from them must be drawn from aspects of our shared experience. But this is a delicate thing to rely on when trying to teach or learn something new, because if the content really is new, it may involve precisely those parts of experience, or at least its interpretation, not yet shared by the writer and the reader. If that is the case, the meaning and any value of the words can be lost altogether.
Clearly, there is some level at which we share experiences almost universally. But the advantages available to be learned from physics can live at somewhat involved or subtle levels of thought, where words alone are far from unambiguous, and the shared experience on which they rely goes somewhat beyond what is universal, and can require careful arrangement if the words are to be understood in their intended context. A presentation of physics, even if it starts form the beginning methods of physics per se, if it neglects attention to establishment of the context, can accomplish very little. The solution would seem to be to take a ``bootstrap'' approach to the language (from the phrase `to pull onesself up by one's bootstraps'). The two essential elements in such an approach are that the language begin at a very elementary level, and that the reader expect to take an active, participatory approach to reading it. The point is to start every description at the level of action and experience that is universal to us all, and then by leading the reader to do or to see new things, to build a base of shared experience on which the next tier of more sophisticated language can be constructed.
The fact that every discussion must start simply does not betray an assumption that the reader is a simpleton. Rather, far from it, if anything the intelligent reader is already ``too complex'' in some ways. Any fully developed use of language necessarily incorporates implications and assumptions that have long ceased to be recognized, and many of them are contradictory to the points that need to be made here. Worse yet, the meaning carried by a language can depend crucially on very subtle aspects of how the language is approached by the user. Very possibly the only way to establish these subtle orientations in ways that are useful rather than counterproductive is to take the care to make them explicit, as they are built in stages from the elementary levels of experience.
This bootstrap process is not just a pedagogical device, and it is not trivial. It has become the approach to language used within physics as a discipline, and through its use the lanuage of physics has actually grown to be somewhat different from other forms of language. The purpose of this chapter is to explain the process, and to show how it has affected and come to be expressed within the language of physics. The goal is that the reader be able to recognize the features of this language, and make use of the added clarity and organizational power it affords.