How to Become a Good Theoretical Physicist
For reference, generally people learn all this over four years of undergrad and probably the first few years of grad school (I have a BS in physics, and a PhD in a different field, so not 100% sure on the grad school work).  That's 6 years of more or less full-time work, surrounded by excellent peers and mentors, where every week you read 2-4 chapters and do 10 problems per chapter.  If you're motivated and talented, you'll breeze through the first few years of problems, but anecdotally, everybody hits a wall where the problems start to get really hard.  I have no doubt you can replicate the undergrad education through self-study, and maybe even save money and time, but after that point, why not just go to grad school?  You won't save much time doing it on your own, and you get mentorship, exposure to the research aspect (not exactly trivial to learn), credibility, and funding.<p>I'm pretty sure the number of high-quality researchers in theoretical physics, or any major field, who are totally self-taught is really quite small.  This website feels like it's in part to dissuade amateurs from sending their "awesome result" to professionals, which the author mentions in the intro.