Pictures of Zurich Polytechnic (walked in the footsteps of Einstein). Visited Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy for the last few weeks. As a former physics student, this was breathtaking.

Enjoy!

Genuinely curious to hear what physicists think of new emerging evidence suggesting that dark energy may be “evolving” so to speak. Thoughts?

https://www.reuters.com/science/evidence-mounts-that-universes-dark-energy-is-changing-over-time-2025-03-19/

The Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics is awarded to thousands of researchers from more than 70 countries representing four experimental collaborations at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) – ATLAS, CMS, ALICE and LHCb.

The $3 million prize is allocated to ATLAS ($1 million); CMS ($1 million), ALICE ($500,000) and LHCb ($500,000), in recognition of 13,508 co-authors of publications based on LHC Run-2 data released between 2015 and July 15, 2024. [ATLAS – 5,345 researchers; CMS – 4,550; ALICE – 1,869; LHCb – 1,744].

In consultation with the leaders of the experiments, the Breakthrough Prize Foundation will donate 100 percent of the prize funds to the CERN & Society Foundation. The prize money will be used by the collaborations to offer grants for doctoral students from member institutes to spend research time at CERN, giving the students experience working at the forefront of science and new expertise to bring back to their home countries and regions.

The four experiments are recognized for testing the modern theory of particle physics – the Standard Model – and other theories describing physics that might lie beyond it to high precision. This includes precisely measuring properties of the Higgs boson and elucidating the mechanism by which the Higgs field gives mass to elementary particles; probing extremely rare particle interactions, and exotic states of matter that existed in the first moments of the Universe; discovering more than 72 new hadrons and measuring subtle differences between matter and antimatter particles; and setting strong bounds on possibilities for new physics beyond the Standard Model, including dark matter, supersymmetry and hidden extra dimensions. ATLAS and CMS are general-purpose experiments, which pursue the full program of exploration offered by the LHC’s high-energy and high-intensity proton and ion beams. They synchronously announced the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 and continue to investigate its properties. ALICE studies the quark-gluon plasma, a state of extremely hot and dense matter that existed in the first microseconds after the Big Bang. And LHCb explores minute differences between matter and antimatter, violation of fundamental symmetries, and the complex spectra of composite particles (“hadrons”) made of heavy and light quarks. By performing these extraordinarily precise and delicate tests, the LHC experiments have pushed the boundaries of fundamental physics to unprecedented limits.

After the extremely helpful response to my last post, I've decided to ask for assistance with this second Einstein manuscript in my collection. Supposedly workings towards a unified field theory made in 1950. Can anyone clarify more specifically what he's working on here? Thanks in advance!

just noticed this phenomenon where the colors of my phone case are reversed in the reflection. What is the reason for this?

Hello! I wanted to ask what resources and habits, other than obvious ones such as practice, have enabled you to "think like a mathematician" during your physics journey. Asking because as an undergrad taking mathematical physics courses, it's become a habit for me to get stuck on a problem, look up the answer, rework it myself, and during revision, rely on my memory to work out the answer rather than figure out new angles. I'm aware this is not the ideal approach to learning maths, and I'm actively trying to alter that. I've realised that it all comes down to unlearning the traditional approach to math that is used in schools (i.e, see the problem, apply the formula, and to just keep doing different types of the problems several times). Would love to hear some opinions

Pretty much the title. Let’s say you do bio phys and wanna do more quantum then maybe you’d wanna switch to QI

I have heard from a lecture series that the second chern number is given as an integral of the second chern character of gauge field over a closed 4-manifold, and it takes an integer value associated ONLY with the manifold the field is defined over. This seems to make sense since the second chern character is tr(F^F) which basically cancels our the lie-algebra indices (right?). However, in the case of the first chern number in physics, I know you can get different numbers for the same manifold based on the berry flux, like in the quantum Hall effect, despite the manifold not changing. From what I understand in the 4d QHE, the second chern number can be taken from an integral in k-space there too, to give either a trivial (0) or non-trivial value, and I don’t see how this can be conceptualized as changing the underlying 4-manifold. The physics explanation that seems to work to me is that singular (topologically non-trivial) gauge transformations can introduce a sort of vortex or winding that changes the second chern number, which makes sense intuitively thinking about the simple example of a magnetic monopole in a sphere, but that seems to be in conflict with the math.

Basically I just thought on a 2D manifold, having a closed manifold like a sphere enforced a quantization condition integrating over closed loop that forced the chern number to be SOME integer, and other constraints on the configuration of the gauge field were needed to determine WHICH integer. And then I assumed in 4D the same applied- the quantization to integers was inherent to the manifold, but there were different possible values separated by singular gauge transformations.

Any help is appreciated, I know a lot of what I just said might be wrong lol.

Many of us non-traditional students want to live our dream life of being a scientist. Can this be done? Yes but.... if you want to do any legit research and be taken seriously, you'll need a PhD. In any case, you'll want to start by make sure you're math is good. I would pull the curriculum from any University and follow it by getting the textbooks and reading them. It's likely that you will need a teacher to ask questions to. Personally, I prefer going the traditional college route because if you need help you have access to an actual professor when you have questions. But not everyone is like me, and some can do it completely by reading books and watching youtube videos. It's almost impossible though. I don't have the patience to wait 3 days for an answer to a question.

I am trying to figure out how they got to G(k, iw_n) = [iw_n - h(k)]^-1. A good start would be what they even mean by omega in the first place. I feel like there is something simple I'm missing, but as a new QFT student I can't figure out what I'm supposed to do.

Ever since I started my new job in data entry (it’s mind numbing and incredibly boring), I’ve started studying physics as a way to keep my mind sharp and I’ve fallen in love with it. As a result, while I’m doing my electrical apprenticeship at my local community college, I’m going to major in physics because not only will it look great on a resumé, I’ll have practical experience in the trades.

I’m pretty stoked tbh.

I was going through some renormalization stuff in QCD. I was told that QED has yielded very precise results (i.e., experimental and theoretical values match), whereas in QCD, the coupling constant at low energies is strong and perturbation theory fails. My question is: Does QCD have precise tests? Does it yield good results? How much of it don't we know? ( what energy scale do we work, what energy scale does the coupling constant can be treated pertuabtively)

i was studying about organ pipes and decided to make them in desmos. i kept everything simple. Hope you like it!

The thought popped into my head as I saw the thread on which physicists aren't as well known as they should be, as Noether was mentioned. She's always (rightfully) brought up when people ask what's the most beautiful theorem in physics, so it got me thinking...

What's the absolute goddamn ugliest result/theorem/whatever that you know? Don't give me the Lagrangian for the SM, too easy, I'd like to see really obscure shit, the stuff that works just fine but makes you gag.

I know this question is more tailored to people on r/ApplyingToCollege , but I figured I could use the wisdom of people who've already gone through the processes that I'm going through right now.

Context: I am a pretty solid applicant from Atlanta. Private school unranked (~100 students) but i'd say im somewhere around 3rd. 35 ACT, 4.26 W and 3.97 UW (my school has an AP limit of 6 but I took more than that), 7 APs and 2 semesters of GaTech dual enrollment Math. Physics research at Georgia Tech, camp counseling, competitive minecraft speedrunner (yes, i know how that sounds), 4 years of cross country, run chess club and in math club. National merit commended, my school's junior book award for spanish, and some other small awards. Generally I'd say like an 8/10 applicant but idk anymore. I think, by the end of the year, I can graduate with 1 B in AP Comparative government (not related to my focus.)

I didn't shotgun because I want to go somewhere rural so I wasn't gonna apply to Harvard or the other top urban schools. I regrettably didn't ED anywhere. Rejected from yale REA (w/ 3 generations of legacy on my dad's side, so I guess I just wasn't good enough), cornell (didn't put enough effort into application because I didn't think I'd get in), and princeton (same problem), and duke (same problem). Those last 3 were just kinda hail marys but I actually thought I had a shot at yale.

Accepted into:

UMD honors college (I hesitate because its so urban, and I think I might want to go to a smaller school than UMD).

UVA (hesitate because reportedly horrible food and mid physics program)

GaTech (don't want to go because I want to get out of the Atlanta city, and for other reasons).

Colgate (a little too small of a town for me, and I'm worried I won't have a lot of opportunities to stand out. I'm not sure they have a super strong physics program anyways, just because they are so small.)

Rhodes college.

Skidmore

CU Boulder

Waitlisted at:

Davidson

Williams

Bates

Haverford

I plan to take a gap year to move somewhere where I can live away from technology and focus on preparing myself for college, because my study habits have never been good and I'd like to focus on forming good habits in health and mental focus as well. I also plan to work very hard at rock climbing. The main goal, however, is to get ahead and prepare for college by reading textbooks and self-studying introductory physics, history, and philosophy, seeing how successful I can be by just reading for hours every day and doing practice problems. Anyways, I have no shortage of things to fill that year with, but my biggest gripe is that I need to find a social/community outlet which I haven't figured out where to find yet.

I guess, my question is what to do in general. My goals are to enjoy my undergraduate and to pose myself to get into a top physics PhD program. What should I do during my gap year? Should I try to transfer to a better school after good research and academic performance at a school I already got into? Should I re-apply by schools during my gap year? I could ED to somewhere like Cornell, Northwestern, WashU, UC schools, John's Hopkins(?), Brown(?), or a SLAC like Williams. There's so much conflicting information about what physics program is actually good and if rankings matter at all, and I'm looking for some guidance on that. My school's admissions counselors are not up-to-par with this information.

I know there's a big misunderstanding about how people think electrons and particles behave because of the double slit experiment saying we live in a simulation or something lol. But genuinely what do they mean by electrons change when we look at them, does the universe actually know were observing it? Or is observing just a bad word to describe it.

I want to view the originally published work (maybe for even less popular physicists) like Konigs' Theorem. Are there any websites online from where I can find the original works? Do we still have the bit of paper where Newton wrote his laws?

Wires are completely enameled and non-exposed, no short circuits :)

So I just finished yr 12 of school in AUS and I'm very interested in physics and want to contribute something great. I did pretty solid in school however I don't want to go to university because it isn't the best environment for it, at the moment at least.
Is it possible for me to still become a "Physicist" even without going to uni and still be taken seriously and still contribute something new to the world?

Any advice or guidance means the world :)

To keep it short, I have my GI Bill and my Master's degree would be entirely paid for, I would owe nothing. I am graduating in the Fall from a very small physics program in Wisconsin and I am currently moving to California (I am able to finish my last semester remote as it's only 2 courses). California does not allow second bachelor's degrees at any of the universities I can apply to. My GPA is sub par at ~3.3, and I have ~2 years of research with one publication pending, multiple posters presented.

I feel like my stats are not good enough for PhD programs, especially given the funding situation going around. I've emailed three potential PI's asking if they were taking students -- all three said that for the next cycle they are not.

Would I potentially be in the weird circumstance where a Master's degree would benefit me? As I said -- my degree would be 100% covered and I'd be making ~$3800/mo from my GI Bill while attending a program. My goal would be to do extremely well in the Master's program, get into some grad level research and attempt to network, and see if that can lead me into a PhD program.

This discord server has likewise people learning Physics/other subjects. You can join calls with people with your camera/screenshare on to stay productive/not get distracted! There are also scheduled sessions with hosts who share their camera/screen to study together :)

Hey y'all, just wanted to run something by you. Kinda aerodynamics related.

I'm designing a STOL AG aircraft capable of taking off in <1000ft at a gross weight of ~15000lbs, and as such, our flap system is similar to that of a Boeing 737 (tripple flaps). My concern is this; my drag is higher for takeoff than it is for landing, which is counter intuitive. I think this is because my flap chord deflection is the same for takeoff and landing to obtain the required maximum lift coefficient to meet performance requirements. I also know that aircraft are designed to have minimalistic drag during TO, so this makes no sense.

I think this is due to the fact that my effective lift coefficient during takeoff is higher than that of the landing lift coefficient, even though the maximum lift coefficient during landing is higher. Since the effective lift coefficients are computed using speeds during landing and TO set by CFR-137, being V_TO =1.1 Vs and V_LA = 1.3 Vs (Vs = stall speed), the induced drag during takeoff is much higher, and as a result, gives higher takeoff drag.

Have I messed something up here? Please feel free to leave your advice :)

I know that since the velocity changes direction, a force must have caused it, but what? My best guess is cohesive forces between each streamline but I didn't think cohesive forces were even close to strong enough to do this.

Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask this, but I was curious as to how much knowledge/skill remains from the common curriculum after physicists branch into either theoretical or experimental (or computational) physics for the PhD or beyond.

Would a theorist be able to keep up in the lab? Would an experimentalist still remember enough math to quickly pick up QFT for example, or give an undergraduate theory lecture with minimal preparation?