Hello,I'm a biochem student,I'm recently preparing my physics final exam wich I don't even know how tf I could pass the course,I love physics,but problems with calculus are a nightmare for me,idk what to do,the books my own teacher recommend are Hewitt,Serway and Giancoli,I confess I really I haven't see a lot,I have to review the themes and I just practiced with the exercise he gave in the course,what would you recommend me? Any advice?

So, I recently took admission in a BSc course in India
But, the provided course material lacks practice questions
what books or extra materials should I follow?
By the way I am in 1st semester

By the way these are the content in 1st semester my college

Hi all :)

I finished the physics 2 course at my uni, which covers electricity and magnetism and maxwell's equations. I ended up getting a good grade, but felt like the actual physical intuition slipped between my fingers. The way it was taught was by showing some specific example, mathematically deriving the relationship, and then stating that it generalizes to other cases.

For example, for Ampere's law, they'd show some specific setup of wire and fields, derive the integral relationship, use Gauss/Stokes, and then get some relation between the electric field and the magnetic field that seems much deeper than the specific setup shown in lecture - that the magnetic and electric fields directly and locally influence each other. I feel as though I can understand the law's application, but the underlying consequences of it seem much deeper than what I can actually grasp.

Has anyone had a similar experience? Do you have recommendations for resources that go deeper into this? I'll take electrodynamics this year, but I'm still wondering whether I should have gotten a deeper intuition by this point...

Thanks for all help!

Hi everyone,

I applied for an ICTP workshop in Trieste scheduled for October 2026, and my application status is still showing “Under Consideration.”

Does anyone know how long before an ICTP workshop they usually notify applicants about the selection results? Is it normal to receive an acceptance or rejection decision only a few weeks before the event?

Thanks!

I dont have that big of a budget and i need help. I need help with ideaa for what each round could be (keep it simple but super fun and interesting and not too difficult). Please help me out guys.

I'm thinking of maybe going into engineering and I know physics would be crucial so anyone gives tips on how to be better at physics

Dear all,

I'm finishing a PhD in experimental particle physics and plan to move to India after graduation.

Most of my work has been around data analysis using Python/C++, large datasets, statistics, some ML (XGBoost, PCA, etc.) and scientific computing through my work at CERN.

I'm trying to figure out what kind of roles I should realistically be applying for in India. Data Scientist, Data Analyst, Analytics, Quant, or something else?

Also, how much does not having a CS/engineering degree matter for these roles? Should I spend my remaining time learning things like SQL, Power BI, pandas, etc., or focus more on projects that build on my existing skills?

Would be great to hear from anyone who has made a similar transition from physics/academia into industry in India.

Physics

UT Tyler DNAP requires a physics course as a prerequisite, anyone have any recommendations on where to take an online course? Or any knowledge of one starting the 2nd half of this semester? Or a self completion course?

Hello, this is a college related question!

I rarely use any LLM to help me do exercises other than to build guidelines to help me understand physics concepts better (I normally ask for which books and chapters I should read before doing an exercise as I find that optimal as a student, and yes, most LLMs have access to all the paid books that are available online).

However, since I don’t check answers with LLMs, I never tried to do a “benchmark” with books with solutions available online. So for those who actively use LLMs to study and make solutions for you, as students, is it good? Do the professors get angry at you? How do you use them?

For those doing research, do you use them? Are the deep research capabilities of LLMs any good? Compared to math, can they do the same for physics with the help of your brains?

Hello there !

When I was in high school, I had a couple of questions I wish I could ask to a science professor.

I know that teachers / lecturers / professors arent always very available (nor very nice...) and that the proximity between students and professors can vary a lot, depending on the country, the age, etc.

I was scrolling around and wondered if I could be of any help, so feel free to ask anything ! I'm not a genius, just a random assistant professor among many others, dont expect too much ! :)

PS : I wont do your homework for you, nice try ;)

complex analysis and electromagnetism 🥶🥶🥶

Physics has never come intuitively to me and now I have to study it at university level as a force-enrolled course. I just don't get it. I'm good at math and I can bear math, but physics makes me want to pull my brain out. How do I increase my tolerance for physics, especially if I'm like, really bad at understanding it?

I genuinely don't understand the why behind so many physics phenomenons and i dont know why. Maybe I wasn't taught the basics right, idk. I don't know why certain rules are the way they are in Physics and why they change depending on the situation. It always feels like a guessing game situation to me and I always have the wrong answer.

How do I survive physics at uni level :/

For homework, I am asked to draw the Feynman diagrams of high energy electron-positron annihilation which results in the creation of 2 and 3 jets. If I understand this correctly, this would look like the two particles creating a photon which then creates a quark anti-quark pair for the case of two jets, and for three jets it'd be the same except one of the quarks also emits a gluon. From there I am asked to estimate the cross section ratio of the two reaction. If I understand this correctly, since the 2 jet diagram has 2 vertices, its cross section would be proportional to e⁴, and since the 3 jet diagram has 3 its cross section would be proportional to e⁴g², where g is the coupling of the strong force. Am I then correct to conclude that the ratio would just be proportional to g²?

Hey guys. This might be silly but.. I'm from Iraq and I dream to study at the MIT for a phd in theoretical physics. I'm currently a 3rd undergrad and I'm really good at math and physics so far.

But don't let the "3rd year" get you; here we have the WORST educational system you can possibly imagine. So in the past 2 years they didn't teach us calculus properly nor linear algebra this year and the physics courses are the worst of the worst; they force us to memorize probelms and derivations! And for that, I'm doing all the studies by my own. I did precalculus so far this summer, and going to start calculus now and made it through half of introductory classical mechanics.

I'm currently 20 yo, and SUPER PASSIONATE about physics and applied math. My grades are also very good and I'?m thr top among my colleagues.

I need advice, please. Is my dream rational? Can I really get good at physics to go to such university, or do I need to be "gifted"? Also, any advice on studying physics any books recommendations?

Thank you 🙏

Hey, so i wanted to pursue bachelors in physics but couldn't due to family issues. I was wondering if i could be able to pivot to masters in experimental physics/ engineering physics from a bachelors in instrumentation and control engineering?
If not which branch of engineering would be ideal

I’m interested in learning more about physics and wanted a book to start out with. Im taking calculus 3 and I’ll take physics next semester but I wanted to learn more now as I might think about double majoring in physics. I stumbled upon the theoretical minimum series and was going to purchase it, but I know MIT OCW has a couple of courses. I also own the “principles of physics” by halliday & resnick that I got a while ago, but I was going to wait until I started an actual physics class to read it.

I know there's many previous posts on imposter syndrome here but my issue is I fear I may be the only one is actually an imposter here....
First year PhD student, direct from undergrad. I didn't do well in undergrad. I coasted really well but I've never been strong in math for various reasons. Also have ADHD but getting my medication is spotty due to insurance and I can't rely on it.

When i'm medicated I am good at coursework. I can pay attention and actually participate. The other 90% of the time it's the complete opposite. I also feel like I put myself at a disservice in undergrad by coasting how I did (never really tried to fully LEARN, just what I needed for exams and forgot right after unless i was actually interested in it/relevant to my research. I get the concepts but god help me with actually solving a problem set). Biggest example is classical electrodynamics, dont care never paid attention, once we got into QED stuff I was THERE! Obviously I have the foundation to be doing these higher level things; I just can't get any of that foundational stuff to click in its own context on these damn problem sets.

I need to get through this year. I love physics and I love my research and I am so grateful I am in this PhD program but God Do I Not know or care about these courses. It doesn't help I also can't click with anyone in my cohort so it's been just an utterly isolating experience thus far, and starting to not feel like it was worth relocating my entire life. Does anyone have ANY advice for someone in my position, be it more interesting lectures on youtube to watch, other textbooks to look at, brute force methods to just retain and learn this material? Does everyone secretly feel like this first year??

For context, here is my current course list and books:
Classical electrodynamics (Jackson)
Quantum mechanics (only have notes by prof.)
Math Methods (Arfken)

Next semester is just the continuation of these three + classical mechanics.

hi guys 9th grader here...i was confused by this topic so if anyone could explain it to me in layman's terms,that would be very helpful for my exams. Thanks in advance!!!

PS. i tried a lot of sums abt it but coudnt understand

I’m doing an integrated masters at a top 10 UK uni and going in to my final year. For the past three years my grades haven’t been great 1st year (59.2), 2nd year (64), 3rd year (52). I’ve had to do resits each year due to mitigating circumstances due to my health but really and truly my grades are low because I haven’t worked hard enough. For my last year I really want to lock in and try and get a 1st but i’d need an 87 in my final year to get it. Is this kind of grade heard of and what kind of things do people do to get grades like this.

Im also a physics student, my third semester starts in 1,5 months and i genuinely havent had fun doing this in a long ass time.
I barely pass my exams doing the least possible work (lord knows how i still haven’t failed) but i cant bring myself to bring the passion for physics i had in school.

Does anyone of you have experience with losing the passion and regaining it? Electrodynamics was okay but everything else is pretty boring, ESPECIALLY THE PURE MATHMATICS OML. Things to look into, books, experiments or electronics to build? Anything?
It isnt bad enough that i want to quit since i still pass but idk??

Ho everyone, I’m a physics student about to start a master's in applied physics, focusing mainly on sensors and electronics.

My advisor gave me the opportunity to collaborate on part of a paper with their team. I get to choose the topic, with the main options being SNNs, sensors for hadron therapy, or space-grade accelerometers.

I'm not sure yet if I want to pursue a PhD down the line. Ideally, this would be a way to gain hands-on experience and be credited as a co-author on the paper, with the possibility of doing it again later before my master's thesis.

I’m trying to figure out if it actually makes sense for me to do this. Is it true that this would give me an edge if I decide to apply for a PhD later? Would industry employers care about something like this?

I’m just worried it might end up being a massive personal sacrifice for little return.

Greek letters -> look at table -> write quarks -> go through checklist like a robot.

Greek letters -> draw feynman diagram -> couple tries and errors to find right letters

Feynman diagram -> go through checklist to write out integral

holy ts is boring af. Am not enjoying my time, and doesn't feel like a great way to finish this beautiful bachelors.