Best local model for theoretical physics?

I have a somewhat specific question in case anyone has experience with this. I am a big fan of CS, math, and physics. While I was able to get formal instruction for the first two, I was never able to get the opportunity to learn physics. The most wonderful part about llms for me is that I can pursue that now without the costs of college tuition. My current process is the following. I pick up a textbook. I read it section by section and almost always don’t understand on the first read. Then I open up an llm and ask it to explain the section to me and ask it specific questions that help my learning. I’ve gotten past introductory quantum mechanics and special relativity this way, now I’m trying it on general relativity. However, tokens are expensive so I’ve been increasingly trying to replace my workflow with local models but have not gotten a lot of success with the smaller qwens and ministral. Would greatly appreciate any advice on other models or fine tunes. Has anyone else used local llms for physics or other sciences? Thank you!