Hi guys, geologist here!

I am wondering if you would know a formula for the cooling of an infinitely long but finitely thick hot slab from one temperature to another. I would like to apply this to the cooling of a basalt lava flow to try and approximate a velocity of this flow.

Please delete if not allowed and thanks in advance!

In his novel The World Set Free, published in 1914, Wells imagined a small bomb with immense destructive power, a concept that would later inspire scientists, most notably Leo Szilard in the development of the atomic bomb, who later developed nuclear chain reaction. https://onepercentrule.substack.com/p/hg-wells-dream-boldly-but-build-responsibly

Hi everyone! I graduated about six months ago with an MSc in experimental high-energy physics from a Canadian university. I’m struggling to land a job and am feeling pretty lost about which fields might give me the best chance.

I’ve considered data science and software engineering, but it feels like most companies are looking for candidates with computer science degrees, even though I did some machine learning in my research. For technician-level jobs, I feel overqualified, but for research positions that carry a “Physicist” title, I often seem underqualified.

For those who have recently graduated, what paths have you found? Are there specific skills or certifications you’re focusing on? Any advice on where to look or how to pivot into roles like data science, applied research, or industry positions would be greatly appreciated!

I'm going to break cover. My name is Matthew Richter. I'm the son of Burton Richter. Today, SLAC had a one day 50th anniversary of the Psi/J discovery and the November Revolution.

For some disclosure: I too am a physicist. BA from UCSD, PhD from Stanford. I did STM and photon sciences. Went off to industry, mostly optical measurement and process control in semi, but those are stories for a different day. This isn't about me. I'd like to share something I wrote to a dear friend who's not a scientist about my impressions of today's symposium.

Now, my dad was cremated after his death and I poured most, but not of his ashes, into the SF Bay. This is because Dick Taylor had signed up with the Neptune Society, and my dad saw how easy they made it for the survivors. Small bits more of his ashes were cast into paperweights for me, my sister and my mom as well as his sister Phoebe. It would be nice to say that today his remaining ashes were spread on a hillside overlooking SPEAR, but deposition human remains out side of cemeteries is illegal, and as SLAC is a Federal National Lab, it's probably be a Federal felony to leave his ashes there. Let's just say it's a nice thought and I'm out of ashes. And to be explicit: this is in no way an admissions that I spread any of my father on the hills of SLAC above his baby.

The tribute speech given by JoAnne Hewett and some of the other stuff today got me more than I expected. I added some comments after the tribute speech and after the thing finished, several people came up to me with comments and stories.

When one of the physicists kids was diagnosed with cancer pops used all his pull to get him into Stanford cancer center. The past deputy director called him a father figure. Pretty much everyone commented on his drive and vision. Also how he was always accessible, and would offer help and his insight to anyone, from the lowest of grad student to the top of the physics food chain. If one took a tenth of his career, that was more than most did in a lifetime . Hearing it all in a 40 min presentation was mind-blowing.

From approval of funds for SPEAR to first physics took 21 months. That is unheard of now. From big result to acceptance of the paper was 3 days. Published less than 30 days after measurements. Normally peer review takes months. 34 significant papers came out in about two years. It was a field day for High Energy Physics. It changed our understanding of how the universe is assembled to a view that still stands 50 years later. One speaker talked about how exciting a time it was to be in high energy physics, and in the mid seventies, the center of the high energy physics universe was SLAC.

The woman who gave an overview of my father's career (JoAnne Hewett) said she didn't really understand the depth and length of his vision. He was always thinking about what is next for SLAC and for physics. Everything the lab did from when he built his ring till basically now has his fingerprints all over it, even though he "retired" 20 years ago. She's now the director of Brookhaven on Long Island. She said that only when she put together this talk did she understand how powerful a force he was as well as how visionary and how hard he fought for the future and the ongoing success of the laboratory as well as the field (actually several fields) while most were clueless about these efforts, being occupied with their small slice of the pie.

Honestly, in the history of science there are very few people who have ever had that type of reach, drive and impact.

Every high energy physics detector in the world shares the same basic design as the very first one his team built. The rings as CERN are the size they are because of a paper he wrote while on sabbatical. Most of what is known as photon sciences matured at SPEAR. There are probably about ten photon sciences laboratories around the world that can trace their roots to Dad's work.

While he was building this experimental world, he learned to do his own theoretical calculations on the side, what would be a career in itself in Theoretical Physics for most men. And he chaired the American Physical Society, the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, Served our nation as a member of JASON for 24 years (he had every security clearance under the sun). He chaired National Academy of Science studies, was the nations leading expert on the nuclear fuel cycle, spent ten years working on how to deal with nuclear waste, and for the heck of it, became an expert in energy policy and climate science.

He used the very same bound laboratory notebook for his notes his entire career from the late 50s till his death (thank God the publisher of these lab books stayed in business) there were between 100 and 200 of them. Each one had the start date and the end date written on the spine and front cover in White Out. That's a record of his work that spans 50 years.

I'm very smart. I did some things. He was a mountain, I'm but a pebble.

Honestly, if this stuff weren't so esoteric to the average person, he'd be held up as on of the level of very best of the field with the likes of Feynman, Einstein and Newton. Almost no one has ever had his reach.or impact.

The team at SLAC was amazing. Some of the originals are still there, many are not, or like my father, have passed away. While the quality of the talks varied, they all have information that will surprise and astound. The symposium was recorded. If it's not up on the slack site, it will be soon.

On a side note, a name often mentioned is BJ Bjorken. He's the man that taught my dad how to do theory. He passed recently and on Saturday there's a memorial for him at SLAC. Another of the Dream Team at SLAC has passed.

One thing that shown through all the talks: what an amazing time. What an amazing group of people. Yes, my father lead the SPEAR group. But it was a team effort. And the team was larger than his group. It spanned the entire world. In both collaboration and competition, this was the birth of the Standard Model. Explosive growth in machine physics, detector design and photon sciences. And so much more.

I miss him more than anyone can know.

Any errors in this area mine alone.

There's the joke about fusion constantly being 50 yrs away. But with all this research going into it, there's bound to be at least some useful research done that could benefit other fields right?

I don't have the knowledge to be caught up on the current state of research, so I'm wondering if there're any experts who can give some insight here.

This is a thread dedicated to collating and collecting all of the great recommendations for textbooks, online lecture series, documentaries and other resources that are frequently made/requested on /r/Physics.

If you're in need of something to supplement your understanding, please feel welcome to ask in the comments.

Similarly, if you know of some amazing resource you would like to share, you're welcome to post it in the comments.

This is a dedicated thread for you to seek and provide advice concerning education and careers in physics.

If you need to make an important decision regarding your future, or want to know what your options are, please feel welcome to post a comment below.

A few years ago we held a graduate student panel, where many recently accepted grad students answered questions about the application process. That thread is here, and has a lot of great information in it.

Helpful subreddits: /r/PhysicsStudents, /r/GradSchool, /r/AskAcademia, /r/Jobs, /r/CareerGuidance

Just the title :)

My friend is a second year undergraduate in Physics, and I would like to get them a gift that will be useful for their academic life as this is what they have requested.

Is there are good recommendations for such a gift?

This thread is a dedicated thread for you to ask and answer questions about concepts in physics.

Homework problems or specific calculations may be removed by the moderators. We ask that you post these in /r/AskPhysics or /r/HomeworkHelp instead.

If you find your question isn't answered here, or cannot wait for the next thread, please also try /r/AskScience and /r/AskPhysics.

Hi all,

As part of a class I'll be teaching I coded up a interactive simulations of a few standard statistical physics models --- so far I've made a page for Ising-like models and for a model of flocking, and I'll be adding new ones to this page as the course progresses.

While I primarily made these to complement my lectures, I thought I would share them in case anyone finds the ability to explore how these different models behave in different parts of parameter space helpful! They are (of course) hardly the first such web simulators to be made publicly available. If nothing else, though, perhaps you'll enjoy the ability to easily adjust the aesthetics of your Ising-model images --- share your best (or most garish) spin configurations!

Hey r/Physics,

I’ve recently developed a basic tool called ICBM Simulator, and I wanted to share it with the community. This open-source simulator lets you explore the trajectories of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) from a scientific perspective.

About the Tool:

The simulator is straightforward—it allows you to input some basic launch parameters and see how an ICBM might travel through the atmosphere and along its trajectory. While it’s not highly advanced, it’s a solid starting point for anyone interested in the basic science behind missile trajectories.

What You Can Do:

• Basic Trajectory Simulation: Visualize the missile’s flight path based on simple input parameters.
• Impact Estimation: Get a rough idea of where the missile might land based on the trajectory.
• Educational Purpose: This tool is purely for scientific curiosity and learning about missile trajectories.

Why I Made It:

I created this simulator to help people understand the fundamentals of missile trajectories without getting too technical. Whether you’re a student, educator, or just curious about how these things work, I hope you find it interesting.

Open Source & Feedback Welcome:

The project is fully open source, so anyone interested in contributing, exploring, or modifying it is welcome to do so. Check out the source code on GitHub: ICBM Simulator on GitHub. I’m still working on improvements, so I’d love to hear any feedback or suggestions! If you have ideas for making it more useful or educational, please let me know.

Check it out at icbmsimulator.com and let me know what you think.

I have a classmate at the university who has played over several thousands hours of Hearts of Iron (i don't know which one). It seems like his HoI experience alone had a huge impact on his knowledge of history and geography. I'm under the impression that he knows literally anything about the governments, small and big, that existed at a time period of WWII - their rulers, various minor representatives of the government, goals, ideologies, possible alternative fates of these countries, had they made certain decisions at that time period.

He also played a lot of God of War and is quite well versed in Scandinavian mythology. Of course his sources of knowledge are not limited to just games. But it makes me wonder, are there any games that would have similair impact on my understanding of physics? That would have been lovely. Just imagine the amount of stuff one can learn through HoI alone.

If you had any such experience, please share with me. And not just games, any other entertaining way of boosting my knowledge by doing something besides educating myself directly via books, videos and the university itself (i study theoretical physics).

However, I would ask you to exclude shallow or popular science from your suggestions, like big bang theory or something.

This is a thread dedicated to collating and collecting all of the great recommendations for textbooks, online lecture series, documentaries and other resources that are frequently made/requested on /r/Physics.

If you're in need of something to supplement your understanding, please feel welcome to ask in the comments.

Similarly, if you know of some amazing resource you would like to share, you're welcome to post it in the comments.

Hi r/Physics,

I wasn't sure if I should use the weekly post for this, so I'm going to try and make a post.

I'm currently in my 3rd year of a PhD, and I just can't get over the feeling that I just don't have the aptitude for physics as a career. Sure, I can do the classes, and I can pass the exams, but doing research seems like a completely different task. I have an advisor who's pretty nice and supportive, and the field I'm working in is interesting enough, but despite this, I feel that I am unable to climb the mountain of literature I need to read, and even if I was able, I wouldn't have the insight I need to make any kind of meaningful contribution to my field.

I suppose that my feelings are pretty well summarized by imposter syndrome, which I know pretty much every graduate student struggles with. But I can't shake the feeling that what I'm feeling is unique, and a symptom of something bigger.

For those of you who are father along the academic path, does this feeling ever go away? Is the solution to keep reading and keep working until you truly feel like you're the expert you're supposed to be, or do I need to learn to make my peace with how I'm feeling?