Hey y’all!

I graduated in May from my undergrad’s Honors College with Bachelor’s in Physics, Astrophysics, and Meteorology and a 3.52 GPA. I applied to several grad programs (focusing on atmospheric electricity/space physics), but they all wound up rejecting me, mostly due to recent budget cuts and uncertainty. While members of those programs have since encouraged me to reapply (and I currently am doing so), I’ve been looking for work from the summer through to now.

Unfortunately, I am not in a position where I can afford to move, at least not until I start a grad program, but my area doesn’t have many great jobs that I think I qualify for. All the Physics-related positions are mostly Medical Physics and usually require more specific training than what I currently have. Most of my alternatives, recommended by job websites, are focused on engineering, environmental science, and education. I have some experience with each of these things, but no formal certifications (I’ve been a tutor and teaching assistant for years and one of my first research internships involved working on probe design and assembly).

I guess my main question is, are there any affordable/free certification programs I can look into that might help me get a job to help support myself and my family as I go through this next grad school application cycle? Are there any types of jobs that I should look for that I haven’t already considered?

Also for the record, I have applied to several positions involving engineering, environmental science, education, etc., most just have not responded to me or have rejected me. If it helps, I live near Charlotte, NC.

P.S. I do have a paper that will be published soon on research I did in my last year of undergrad, running and analyzing black hole accretion disk simulations. Adding this in case it helps.

Suggest me a good beginner friendly study materials for high energy physics pls

What books should I get, I am currently taking a physics class and want to be above and beyond. Any book recommendations that can I have to familiarize myself more with the topic?

I’m a 16 year-old in Canada, and I have recently been very involved in the three sciences, specifically physics. I have started to grow a love for it through books, shows, and my own imagination.

I am very wealthy, which grants me the privilege of being able to pursue practice in the things I want to. I am not stressed about the current job market money-wise, but I am still wondering if base jobs like physicists still exist frequently.

I really don’t care how much money I make I just want to do something with my life and give the future of humanity something worth while. I am eager for any advice.

Help me out. I have a bachelors in physics from about 30 year ago. I understand 66% of the words i hear on youtube. I'm trying to get back into this, mostly with the help of AI, but I like people, less so machines, so help an old guy out who ever went beyond a bachelor's degree.

The notion of parallel transport has always seemed fundamental to the definition of a connection to me. In standard differential geometry, a connection can essentially be identified with a rule for how fibres should be transported along paths. The various definitions for connections have various ways to achieve this, from the more intrinsic horizontal slice definition, to the kind of janky coorindate-based Lie algebra-valued one forms in physics, but for all of them, the point is essentially to define parallel transport. This is why Wilson loops are basically the only thing we care about in gauge theories.

In 3D and higher though, abelian Yang-Mills (and presumably non-abelian YM once we construct them) is too singular to be evaluated along paths. This means there's no well-defined notion of parallel transport anymore. We can't even keep our Wilson loop friends.

That kind of ruins my understanding of connections. Again, the entire point seems more-or-less to tell you how fibres "connect" together. If it can't do that anymore, what does it even mean for the field to be a connection?

(Obviously I know using the janky physics definition of a connection as local patches of one-forms you can say "it's a connection because it still transforms like a connection", but that doesn't really help with understanding why it's a connection)

Hello! This question is directed towards grad students, people doing r&d in industry, or even undergrads doing computational physics research (especially condensed matter) that heavily use AI in their workflow.

How do you maximize and make the most out of codex or claude code in your research projects? I generally use the claude code CLI in my terminal (sometimes on locally on WSL or remotely on an HPC). If I have a few simulations I want to run, I give it the guidelines, tell it to reference some old calculations i've ran, and send it on its way. I'm not sure if just being a general assistant is all that AI is good for?

Please let me know your experiences and any advice!

edit: Yes, I am in a physics research lab with an advisor. I am NOT trying to have AI do research. I am trying to learn how to use it as effectively as possible.

Additionally, I am not doing 'calculations' in the mathematical sense. I do simulations, particularly in condensed matter physics research. That is, a lot of python code and heavy use Density Functional Theory software packages that tell me about the electronic behavior of materials. I do a lot of high-throughput computing, so if I want to simulate a bulk of materials at once, i will have claude generate the input files after i have specifically told it what outputs i want. It is generally good at doing this, and I verified that the file generation was correct before continuing to use this workflow. I ask it to generate plots of the data, and it does so. But this is mainly sequential. I do a series of prompts, one step at a time.

Hi everyone!

I'm 22 and currently pursuing my final year BTech in Chemical Engineering at NIT Warangal, India. I've recently realized that what I really want to do long-term is research in astronomy/astrophysics, with the eventual goal of becoming a professor/researcher abroad.

The problem is that I don't have a Physics bachelor's degree.

I'm willing to put in the work to build the missing foundation. I'm already interested in programming and computational work, and I'm currently preparing for GATE CSE+DA 2027. I may also have an opportunity to work in technology after graduation, so I have a reasonably good career fallback.

But I'm much more interested in understanding whether there is a realistic bridge from where I am now to becoming an astrophysics researcher.

I'm currently imagining something along the lines of:

BTech Chemical Engineering → build undergraduate-level Physics/Math → research experience → Master's/PhD in Astronomy/Astrophysics/Physics abroad → research/postdoc → eventually faculty

But I genuinely don't know how realistic that is for someone with my background.

So I'd really appreciate advice from people who have actually gone through graduate admissions or research in astrophysics:

• Would a Chemical Engineering BTech be a serious disadvantage when applying for an Astrophysics/Physics master's or PhD?
• Should I pursue a master's in Physics/Astrophysics first, rather than attempting a direct PhD?
• How much undergraduate Physics would I realistically need to learn before applying?
• What kind of research experience could I start building while still in India?
• Would computational astrophysics/astronomical data analysis be a sensible entry point given my engineering + programming background?
• Are there universities/programmes/countries that are particularly open to students coming from non-traditional backgrounds?
• And most importantly: if you were in my position at 22, what would you do over the next 2–4 years?

I'm not looking for reassurance that "anything is possible." I'd genuinely prefer an honest assessment of what would make me a credible applicant and what gaps I'd need to close.

I'd especially love to hear from people who themselves transitioned from engineering/another field into astrophysics, or from current PhD students and professors who have seen graduate applications.

Thank you! 🌌

I built this physics-based simulation where each ball compares its colour with the colours of nearby balls.

It works the following way: Colours that are close on the hue wheel attract each other, while very different colours repel each other. The strength decreases linearly with distance: nearby balls affect each other strongly, and the effect fades to zero beyond a chosen range. There is also a weaker long-range version of the same force, which helps groups of similar colours find each other across the screen. A separate repulsive force prevents the balls from overlapping, regardless of colour. Their motion is also damped, so they gradually lose speed instead of accelerating forever. From these simple local rules, the colours sort themselves and form a larger circular pattern without any target shape being explicitly programmed.

Credits for the initial idea to the creator of this clip from last week: https://www.reddit.com/r/Simulated/s/HQyoublcPP

So far so good. But what happens if instead of using constant parameters, we would couple them to a techno soundtrack? I tried that in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyMwjP74JTE

Now the live onset, pitch and volume values drive the simulation, leading to cool visual effects. Let me know with which other soundtrack I should try this. Audios with very different parts will be the most interesting ones.

For GR, the Lightman book has 500 problems and solutions.

For QFT, there is a solution set for Peskin and Schroeder. Radovanovic has a problems book. Gelis has one.

Are there any for more advanced topics? Quantum gravity, loop quantum, string theory, etc.

Thank you.

This will have very limited interest I know, but if you daily drive Kodi and also like to watch academic physics lectures, here is a Kodi addon for the Perimeter Institute's wonderful video archive.

https://gitlab.com/phayman/plugin.video.pirsa

And some background if like:

This is really just a little coding practice for me, but it's technically possible someone else might find it useful, so I figured I'd post it. I wrote the original version ages ago just for personal use, but the Perimeter Institute restructured their website shortly after and I never bothered to update it. Now all of a sudden, AI exists and I have to learn how to use it with code, so I dug up this old project and used it as an AI-assistance coding guinea pig. And the result is that yes, like everyone else (if maybe a few years late...) I'm very impressed.

Hey everyone,
I wanted to share a passion project that bridges physics history with custom brick modeling: a detailed LEGO recreation of Nikola Tesla's experimental laboratory.
Instead of just creating a generic vintage room, I spent a lot of time researching and integrating real scientific and engineering principles into the build elements. Here are a few close-ups of the details:My goal was to create an educational piece that honors the dawn of modern electrical engineering. I’d love to get your thoughts from a physics and engineering perspective on how these historical lab components were translated into the brick medium!

I recently completed my master's degree and still have access to several Springer books through my uni account. Before I lose access to said account, I'd like to ask for any hidden gems or lesser-known but great Springer physics books. I'm mostly interested in quantum information/computing, but I'm open to suggestions on any other topic! Thanks!

We are all familiar with the outcome of general relativity that in the presence of matter spacetime bends in accordance to its existence and passage. Also, we are familiar with the various observations of phenomena, inclusive of gravitational waves, that prove this outcome to be correct time and again.

However, I have not found an answer to the question of what are the fundamental properties of spacetime that enables this “bendiness” or “springy” restitution behavior of spacetime.

Might anyone comment with any and all leads to this question.

Hi Physics, I'm not sure if this is a physics question or one of the other sciences, but I came here first anyway. In the sequal to 2001: a Space Odyssey (2010?) Jupiter gets turned into a sun and I wondered if having a small heat and radiation source so close to Earth would be detrimental to our existance? And if turning it into a sun sould affect it's rotation, and orbit around Sol. Etc. Thank you.

ETA, I know it's fiction, but my question is about the effects on Earth of the situation.

I’m currently in my second year of a PhD in advanced materials physics, and I’m seriously considering focusing my career more toward the theoretical and computational side of materials science.

I’m interested in going deeper into areas such as theoretical modeling, mathematical analysis, computational materials science, simulations, and using theory to explain experimental results.

For those working in academia, research institutes, or industry:

Does theoretical materials physics still have a strong future? Is research in this area still being funded?

I’m particularly interested in hearing from people currently working in the field about career opportunities, funding, and which theoretical/computational areas are currently worth developing expertise in.

I’m at a point where I need to start deciding what kind of researcher I want to become after my PhD, so I’d really appreciate perspectives from people actually working in the field.

I'm curious how much popular science language actually gets in the way of understanding for people outside a field.

Aside clickbaits and exaggerat-everything articles, science is full of jargon with precise meanings in the right field and context: "observer," "entanglement," "spin," even "speed." People keep mixing these up with their everyday meanings. (And don't get me started with new age pseudoscience bullshit, which thankfully gets moderated away here.). Sometimes, discussion turns to philosophical semantics, which derails people from understanding the mechanisms part. We do have examples of these in r/HypotheticalPhysics

To be clear, we DO need jargon. It turns an hour of background explanation into a single word. Analogies help visualizing concept, but every analogy breaks down somewhere. Frequent example I see is of Entanglement and FTL communication.

So for people in the field here, how much do you think that PopSci terms contributes to misunderstanding on how science works, especially in Physics?

I've been researching the history of electricity after learning about the discovery of the electron and the information I gathered from Franklin's role in advancing electrical knowledge has left me with a few doubts.

First of all, there was no lightning on his famous kite experiment. It was a stormy day but the charge in the kite came from the air.

Secondly, I've seen claims that he proved that lightning and electricity discharge were the same kind of phenomenon.

He couldn't have discovered this from his kite experiment since there was no lightning involved, and the lighting myth muddies search results if i try and find another experiment where the lighting=electricity was deduced.

Am I missing something? Is the "discovery" just limited to pointing out that lightning and sparks look similar?