This may be a silly question and you are okay to flame me.

How much has physics progressed over the last 70 years?

I am curious would someone with a masters in theoretical physics know more about physics than Oppenheimer

I am not saying they are smarter than Oppenheimer ( although some may? )

Hello, I am looking for an experienced person (and not an AI) to help me understand a phenomenon of second harmonic generation (GSH) by frequency doubling. My pump laser has unstable polarisation and, with an injected power of 9 W, I only get 0.8 W of converted power. However, with the same assembly but a different pump laser, I get 1.5W in a single pass. I am not sure of the impact of polarisation on this result. I measured a polarisation extinction rate (PER) of 14 dB, but as it is unstable, it is difficult to determine its influence. If anyone has any advice, a theoretical explanation would be welcome. 🙏

We all saw the demo. The specs show that the car weighs 3,700 lbs. Wouldn’t the air tank to generate enough thrust to lift and flip the car be bigger than the interior of the car? Has anyone run the numbers assuming a very efficient thrust mechanism?

I get how mathematically divergence of curl and curl of divergence are 0 but why doesn't curl of a vector field diverge and why does gradient of a vector field not curl/swirl.

I realize that an object rotating in space is forcing charged particles to accelerate and thus generates electromagnetic waves, even if the loss of momentum is miniscule.

Do rotating objects, no matter how small of relatively little mass, generate gravitational waves? Or are there principles that limit the energy that can be carried away by gravity, the way electromagnetic waves are quantized?

I've always been interested in the natural sciences on some level, but I've never studied them formally nor read about them on any serious level. I've been reading philosophy (mostly Aristotle, Hegel, a bit of Kant, though I find him rather boring) for a while, but I've come to believe that I have a very one-sided education and that I'm ignorant about the natural sciences (physics, biology and so on). I'd like to remedy this fault by beginning to read about physics, which one could consider, along with mathematics, as a kind of foundation in science or something close to it.

I dislike philosophers who make grand philosophical claims, staking their 'systems' on one or another currently popular physics field. On a closer inspection, their work is often based on misunderstandings or contentious reasoning. Quantum physics is probably that field which is most referred to by all kinds of mystics, who try to find places for (in my view) naive Cartesian understandings of consciousness, god, etc.

Another thing that encourages me to try and understand this field is my disappointment with the humanities and the social sciences, much of which seems to be overly pretentious and made of straw. So, on some level, I detest my own background. I value physicists, chemists, medical researchers and biologists far more than social scientists, 'critical theorists' and followers of all kinds of fashionable 'theory'. One of the few fields in the humanities I do value is philosophy, although I see it as more of a historical foundation on which you build your understanding of other topics and that most issues within philosophy are completely irrelevant today, apart from logic and other such things.

What I want is to get not a popular science understanding of one phenomena or another, or a series of isolated facts, such curiosities. I'd like to get something deeper, which is understanding. To make it a bit more clear, what I want is to understand this field on a deeper level. I've no practical use for any of this, but I would like to understand the world and as much of it as possible. Like I said, I also have the feeling that my understanding is far too one-sided. I don't seek a career in this field.

What would one do to achieve this? So far, with other interests of mine, I simply have relied on textbooks (for learning languages, a big interest of mine), secondary literature (primarily for philosophy) and primary literature.

Hello, I am looking for an experienced person, not AI, to help me to understand . I’m working on SHG by frequency doubling. My pump laser has unstable polarisation, and with 9 W injected, I only get 0.8 W of converted frequency. However, with the same assembly but a different pump laser, I harvest 1.5 W in a simple passage. I’m not sure about the impact of polarisation on this result. I measured a PER of 14 dB, but as it is unstable, it is difficult to determine its influence. If anyone has any advice, I am taking a theoretical explanation 🙏

It’s a flashlight shining on fog, pics on iPhone 17. Why are the droplets linear?

I'm posting here because this game is all about physics. As a game developer, I created this app to help with testing specific scenarios with in-game physics. In the process, I've discovered that this is almost a game in itself - and I find myself spending time just experimenting with what I can do with this pile of little objects (cubes or spheres). If this were a "real" game, I suppose it would be a physics sandbox where you drop lots of small objects into the environment and then apply various forces to them - creating mesmerizing displays and patterns.

Anyway, I'm just trying to find out if anyone would play something like this.

i was going through a lecture about weight yesterday, when a thought came into my head. when i came home i made this elaborate thought experiment where i compared the weight experianced by a guy in space.

i thought about how in a rotating ship the perceived gravity is outward, but gets smaller as i get closer to the center. then the thought came into my head that if a space ship is uniformly accelerated through space linearly then a person is on the inside of it he would experience normal gravity upwards.

i went to show my professor this the next day. he listened to the experiment and commented, " its nice that you are able to make thought experiments so early, but the effect youre talking about is just einsteins equivalence principle"

he explained it to me and i was like "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-"

cus i genuienly thought i made an original thought experiment smh

(note that i had never thoought about weight in motion other than rotational nor the equivalence principle before this"

For someone who is a statistics major

I was thinking about this laying in bed at 1am, in space, how far could a radar system theoretically detect somthing like a planet or rock or somthing? Like if theres nothing to stop the signal all i can think of to stop it is how long the return signal would take?

After watching the Demo of the roadster, Elon gave an explanation of how the suction system that held it to the semi circle track, could be used for additional downforce in racing. I saw it working when the car is still or driving slowly, but how effective would 2G of suction with a race car traveling at race speads around corners

* Not an actual physics student, just wanted to hear from someone who would understand the physics better than I. would it be possible to create a substancial increase in downforce

Note: Im a Pakistani Olevels/IGSCE student (currently in 9th Grade)

hi yall, i want to get in ipho really bad and lowkey im kinda loving physics cuz its so fun! As im from Pakistan, there isn't much competition for ipho (cuz of students having lack of guidance). It might be also reason of pakistan not winning much in olympiads.

If you have some advices for IPHO that will help me get a silver or more (in future) that will be appreciated. And those whom are similar with IGSCE or OL physic syllabus please do also tell me what shall i do next, ill be completing this school physics as fast as possilble.

Funfact: Pakistan in its history has won only 1 silver medal in ipho (2008)

Hello, how are you guys doing? This is my third video on the channel, and unlike the previous two videos, this video features a mix of math and astronomy set in a historical story format.

Of course, I'd love to hear your feedback on the video and what needs improvement, and of course, I'm counting on you: if you like the video, show some love for it and the channel ❤️

Note: There is an English Audio Track and also English subtitles

What are your thoughts on this recent preprint, 2610.16733? They seemed to show how Frontier AI agents tackled unpublished research-level theoretical physics problems, and suggest such problems might no longer be suitable as first projects for PhD students.

I'm especially curious how this will overall affect prospective grad students and early-career researchers in theoretical physics.

Also, recalling Dr. Schwartz (u/VibePhysics) saying in his Anthropic post Vibe Physics:

It is worth it, however, to consider the role of education going forward. In the deep future (~10 years), when AI is truly smarter than all of us and capable of outperforming us in every domain, what will be the role of higher education? I think some things will persist—those things that are essentially human. I can easily imagine theoretical physics becoming like music theory or French literature: an academic discipline appealing to people who just enjoy thinking through a certain lens. It's a bit ironic that the last 30 years have seen the growth of STEM fields, displacing the humanities, and in the end it may be the humanities are all that survive.

Do you agree with him on this specific thoughts? And what concerns or hopes do you have about where our fields in theoretical physics are heading?