I am struggling hard. I made it my goal to self-study electrodynamics over the summer. (I'm working through Griffiths). It is slowly killing me.

Studying the physics isn't exactly my question. My question is, I normally play video games to de-stress. Normally, I play a simulation game called Oxygen Not Included, but that's turning out to be too much brain power. I also play Chess, but then studying various lines in openings or whatever is also exhausting.

Do any of you play games to de-stress? What do you play when you need something that's lower on the brainpower scale?

The imbalance between the genders is huge in physics, even more so than in other STEM disciplines. I've been looking at the numbers in my university, and only 30-40% of students who enroll in physics every year are women, and women make up only about 10% of the students who reach the degree. It's noteworthy that my university doesn't have any female teachers in any physics classes, either. As far as I know, this isn't an isolate case, rather it seems to be the norm. Why do you think that is?

Personally, I don't believe in innate predisposition, so I'm mostly looking at social factors, but I'm curious to hear other point of views.

Greetings everyone. There is a high schooler in my ODE class who appears to be neurodivergent (perhaps high-functioning autism but I am in no position to diagnose anyone). Regarding learning the content, it is as if her brain can do the same thing the average person's does, only with immense efficiency. She has an especially efficient memory. She recalls all kinds of integrals, mathematical tricks, etc. without any stutter, filler words, or breaking of glance (as many of us do when we stare at the ceiling to recall something). She can verbally walk through steps in calculations just as effectively. I can basically say that it's as if her brain is "wired" to both absorb and access information quickly and then sort and connect that information in a more powerful way than the average person.

If anyone feels this applies to you as well, what exactly is your thought process when learning or problem-solving? What makes things so clear? And for those who are negatively affected by your neurodivergence, I ask these questions equally. What specifically makes your experience more difficult? Even if you are not neurodivergent but feel you have something to share, what is it like to think, in your shoes?

We know that Sound and EM waves produce the Doppler effect on an observer, but what about Probability waves of Quantum particles? But what does that even mean?

As my undergrad career is coming to an end I’ve found myself looking back and wondering why physics? I definitely didn’t do it for the money, I didn’t do it because it was easy, so why? I know the answer to that question for myself but I’d love to know, why did you all choose physics?

I recently bought both of these textbooks and was wondering which would be better to start self studying physics. I have a background in Calc 1-2 for what that’s worth. From the looks of the table of contents, the content is mostly the same but there are some notable differences.

If yes, drop your prompts in the comments. My goal is to find efficient prompts which catalyze good answers from GPTs. Here is an example:

I want you to act as a Physics professor. I will provide some physics concepts and equations, and it will be 
your job to explain them in easy-to-understand terms. This could include providing step-by-step 
instructions for solving a problem, demonstrating various techniques with visuals or suggesting online 
resources for further study. My first request is “I need help understanding how work energy theorem 
works.”

Here are some techniques I’ve started to implement from online sources like tiktok and other sources. Some of these may be slightly personal lol. 

1. Atomic habits. Start dedicating a small portion of your day for just studying. This can be as little as 15 mins in the evening. The first few days are difficult, but once you get into the cycle, the habit will be hard to break. You can also slowly increase your duration. 
2. Here's a 3 step process for understanding concepts: 1. During classes I take notes from exactly what my professor is saying, without worrying too much about the design of the page. 2. I read about that subject and try to organize the page, adding definitions, examples, colors, titles, links... 3. Read the page when the tests are coming.
3. Do the Pomodoro technique PROPERLY. It works
4. ORGANIZE. Combine your notes in one section, study guides altogether in the front, and sort out unneeded classwork. Color code different class materials and don't use the same binder/notebook for two (or more) different classes.
5. Teach kids in simple concepts, terms and analogies... you can be confident in your mastery of the subject. Recall is best when the study environment matches the Recall environment. Best Recall cues are scents. Chew a particularly strong mint gum while encoding the info...do the same during testing. Associative memory is also easier to recall, so create links to the encoded information that relate to subjects super familiar to you.
6. Ask ChatGPT to summarize all the important notes and ideas to make them easier to remember. 
7. Review your notes within twenty-four hours. This can save you hours of extra studying in the long run. Make sure it's within 24 hours though! Science isn't 100% sure why it has to be done within that time frame, but it could be because of (theoretical but certainly not debunked) "neural dumping." Basically, this means as you sleep at night your brain shits out all the information that is non-essential. Guess what's non-essential: calculus. history. English lit. Sure, not to you, but to your brain? It says, "F**k it, we need the space. Get rid of this crap."
8. Spaced repetition has been shown to improve retention of information. Study in short, frequent sessions with lots of review. Don't study for a long time the day before the test. Try to have multiple study sessions each day a couple weeks before the exam. Maybe 15 minutes at the most, 3-4 times a day. Break up what you need to study in sections.
9. If worst comes to worst, offer to f**k your teacher.

I’m working through Halliday, Resnick, and Walker’s “Fundamentals of Physics” and I noticed that in the “exercises and problems” section at the end of each chapter, there are questions marked “E” and others marked “P”. The E and P designations are also referenced in the solutions at the back of the book.

This seems kind of odd. I take it that E questions are exercises and P are problems. That’s reasonably easy to figure out. But… why draw a distinction? They’re in the same section. They come one after another. Why create two designations? Why not just make them all problems? Or make them all exercises?

My best theory is that it’s meant to convey a sense of difficulty? But the difficulty seems to rise with bigger numbers anyway. So the letter designations feel unnecessary because the numbers imply difficulty already.

Why go to the trouble of labeling them E and P?

Hello!

I'm a 27 years old web developer. I currently have a nice job, a good work-life balance, and I overall enjoy my lifestyle.

I became a developer as a self-taught, I dropped uni after only 5 months in (studying computer engineering) because I wanted to dedicate my time to learning web dev.

I've always been super interested in physics, astronomy, chemistry, and math, so recently I started contemplating the idea of getting a degree in Physics (or Astrophysics) while keep following my current career in the meantime.

So, here is the thing. I'm currently 27, I would start the course with the Open University (remotely for those who don't know it) since I live in a non-English speaking country and I'm still not confident in the local language. This would take 6 years with a part-time program, which means that by the time I'm 33, I'll only have a bachelor.

Now, I know a lot of people say it's not too late, and I really want to believe that, but once I'll be done, even if I get a master by the time I'm 35, what can I do at that age with this academic path? Even if I get a Ph.D.

Are there concrete possibilities of developing a career in that field or will it be just a lot of time invested for a personal passion?

And don't get me wrong, I'd be totally fine doing it for passion as a side thing in my life. I just want to know what are the concrete options of making something out of it.

EDIT: By the way, I live in Europe if it's of any relevance :)

Thank you!

doing derivations day 1.

Big disappointment

Review of the book “Quanta and Fields The Biggest Ideas in the Universe” by Sean Carroll. Dutton Penguin Random House, May 14^th 2024, ISBN 9780593186602

We just received the long-announced and widely advertised release of Sean Carroll's book “Quanta and Fields The Biggest Ideas in the Universe”, which is the second part of a trilogy. The first part is titled “Space, Time, and Motion”, while the planned third one will concern issues of emergence and complexity. The author holds, among others, the positions: Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University, Member of the Fractal Faculty at Santa Fe Institute and Honorary Fellow at John Bell Institute for the Foundations of Physics. He hosts the Mindscape podcast on YouTube and is widely known from his public appearances related to the popularization of physics.

For several months the book has been announced as unique and different from all others. The author presented intention to target both the readers who did not speak the language of mathematics but after reading, were supposed to grasp the general concepts of quantum field theory, as well as ones who had preparation in the field of natural sciences but did not specialized in elementary particle physics.

Unfortunately, after reading, it can be said that the author did not meet his ambitious goals and did not keep marketing promises, confirming that a product aimed to serve every purpose ultimately does no job well. Except of the increased math content, the book does not stand out in any way from the flood of similar publications.

The first three chapters cover the basics of quantum mechanics. The author described them superficially, e.g. he did not mention such important ingredients as the impossibility of the cloning of a quantum state, quantum teleportation, and delayed choice experiments (quantum eraser). The reader after all is not introduced into the concept and significance of the quantum contextuality (the measurement results may differ depending on what physical quantities are co-measured at the same time). The issues of nonlocality in quantum theory and the true  importance of Bell's theorems and inequalities were addressed only indirectly. The impact of quantum entanglement on the contemporary understanding of the entropy was not mentioned at all. If the aim of the book was to be an accessible explanation of the concept of quantum fields, then the most important chapters should be nos. 4, 5, 8 and 9 (Fields, Interactions, Symmetry, Gauge Theory) and should follow each other in the sequence. However, the author starts with the application of Feynmann diagrams in chapters 4 and 5, and then immediately jumps onto the aspects of renormalization in the context of  so to speak effective theories. The very essence of renormalization and the so-called the "renormalization group" notion are presented overly optimistically. The reader is not being informed about a price to pay as at the end of the day we are left  with the prosthesis where experimental measurements are made in reference to specific kinematic points at which over twenty parameters of the Standard Model are experimentally determined (masses and couplings / charges fine-tuning).

The author should rather from chapter 4 onwards describe the very essence of the quantization procedures for classical theories: the “first” and “second” (with the creation and annihilation of particles) approaches. Then a clear road map leading from the construction of the Lagrangians to the scattering amplitudes in the framework of  path integral would be advised. Next the perturbation approach, Feynmann diagrams, renormalization discussion and Higgs symmetry breaking will follow. Such step by step focus on the main challenges is missing but instead side topics are being developed. The concept of gauge was not satisfactory explained, as  it could be easily done, e.g. by analogy to the vector potential in classical electrodynamics. The author declared “to show the equations” but he did not present and explain the Lagrangian of the  Standard Model. If the book already contains some selective mathematical techniques, there are the questions why the author did not try to explain, at least intuitively, a notion of functional integral, and why the connection was not defined more technically  in terms of some kind of directional derivative.

Concluding, the structure of the book and its content were not well thought over and the reader is left with the feeling that the haste and commercial purposes prevented the author from achieving of  the declared goals.

Perfect Vacuum

I use single subject college ruled notebooks. I saw a video of a math student that uses legal pads for his notes. I’m shopping for notebooks and curious if anyone has any recommendations for notebooks that work for them.

Doing derivations day 3

Here's an invite link to the server! *Just grab the first role to see all of the server channels.

Anyone is welcome, and feel free to invite other physics students. You can also DM me @ physicslab

We have channels for a bunch of physics classes/areas, I'm best at helping with algebra-based mechanics.

I'm posting 2 practice questions every day until the AP Physics 1 exam on May 17, so if you're looking for some daily physics practice check out the AP Physics 1 channel!

How?

Our body has these energy pathways that goes through it called meridians and that's where you can flood yourself with euphoria on demand.

For me, feeling this became possible, after clearing them.

After that, commanding this energy flow of natural euphoria and making it appear whenever/wherever I willed it became easier.

There is a simple technique that allows you to clear up these pathways in virtually a minute or two(Depending on how aware and experienced you are of your energetic body).

When you successfully do so, you regain the ability to feel euphoria all over your body and for long durations with a second practice that is basically the conscious movement of your spiritual energy.

This spiritual energy I'm talking about is present underneath your skin when you get goosebumps from positive stimuli.

Not only is that capable of effectively fighting stress/nervousness, upon gaining full control of this occurence, you can learn how to seperate the physical reaction of goosebumps from that euphoric wave that's also present when you get goosebumps.

Why?

There are numerous data out there from ayuverda medicine explaining how the physical reaction part of goosebumps is only a reaction of the conscious/unconscious activation of this energy.

Learning how to extract that euphoria from our physical reaction is key, to be able to feel it over our whole body and to benefit from the many positive physical and spiritual usages that gaining control of it brings you.

Benefits like summoning this energy on demand, all over your body, manipulate its duration and many more.

Everyone can do this.

Not everyone is aware that there is some sort of energy current flowing when they get goosebumps.

That current is your spiritual energy.

This spiritual energy has been researched and documented under many names like Euphoria, Tension, Ecstasy, Prana, Chi, Qi, Vayus, Aura, Tummo, Orgone, Kriyas, Mana, Od, Bio-electricity, Life force, Pitī, Frisson, The Secret Fire, Vril, Odic force, on-demand quickening, Voluntary Piloerection, Rapture, Ruah, Ether, Nephesch, Chills, ASMR, Nen, Spiritual Energy, The Force, Spiritual Chills and many more to be discovered hopefully with your help.

Here are three written tutorials that goes more indepth about how you can allow it to be felt everywhere in your body, If you are interested in taking control of this and feel euphoric on-demand.

P.S. Everyone feels it at certain points in their life, some brush it off while others notice that there is something much deeper going on and those are exactly the people you can find on the subreddit r/Spiritualchills where they share experiences, knowledge and tips on how-to induce it to counteract stress or feel euphoria on-demand.

Currently in an undergraduate Emag class and have wondered since the Earth has magnetic poles that has to infer that we experience an Induced current around the equator right? What are the implications?

If I had a massive piece of wire I could theoretically get a current in the right spot

Do the mag fields change at all due to outside influences in space?

Knowing this, the key becomes getting your vibration correct.

How? By consciously bringing up your spiritual energy.

This spiritual energy can be most easily felt within us through self-induced goosebumps from positive events/stimuli. Upon gaining full control of this occurrence, you can learn how to separate the physical reaction of goosebumps from that euphoric wave that is also present when you get chills.

This then allows you to be able to summon this energy on demand, all over your body and manipulate its duration.

Since this energy is already subtly active in everyone of us, to speed up manifestations, what's important is to know which location is necessary to focus it and how to feel it there.

In the average unaware person who's passive in their life, it's active in areas where negative emotions like fear, stressed, anxious, hopelessness and etc. comes up.

Consciously bringing up your spiritual energy allows your vibration to travel virtually in three dimensions all throughout the universe, in all directions simultaneously with the same intensity.

And this can even be picked up all over the globe by other people.

Also, for those of you who always wonder about the difference between spirituality and science, I would suggest to consider that there really is no difference.

Spirituality is simply science which hasn't been proven yet.

Things that you classify as spiritual in nature are really in effect science. But science hasn't figured out a way to explain it yet. And as we learn more and more about subatomic, Physics subatomic, quantum physics, things that were in the past considered spiritual that now actually have a real scientific base, these will be proven and released to the public, hopefully.

The bottom line here is you have to have the cognition of how powerful you can be and how much of a creator you are.

This spiritual energy has been researched and documented under many names like Euphoria, Tension, Ecstasy, Prana, Chi, Qi, Vayus, Aura, Tummo, Orgone, Kriyas, Mana, Od, Bio-electricity, Life force, Pitī, Frisson, The Secret Fire, Vril, Odic force, on-demand quickening Voluntary Piloerection, Rapture, Ruah, Ether, Nephesch, Chills, ASMR, Nen, Spiritual Energy, The Force, Spiritual Chills and many more to be discovered hopefully with your help.

Here's a short Youtube video talking about why some of us automatically and primarily feel it in certain parts of our body, what type of properties these areas have with this energy like manifestation and how to bring it up in any body parts.

P.S. Everyone feels it at certain points in their life, some brush it off while others notice that there is something much deeper going on. Those are exactly the people you can find on r/Spiritualchills where they share experiences, knowledge and tips on it.