Ask HN: Tips/Guide for thinking like a physicist?

2 points by dmn 16 years ago | 1 comment

The title says it all, I'm having a hard time in a physics class (studying electricity)... and I just have a hard time wrapping my head around the application of formulas and how to "attack" the problems.

It's pretty much just felt like a dead weight for me, and usually I love problem/puzzle solving... but I guess not this time.

Thanks

hga 16 years ago |

The approach I used is called physical intuition. Specifically, you try to envision using some sort or set of metaphors of what's going on. For electricity (what level? DC, AC, AC with calculus?), e.g. moving electrons, for AC add the propagation of current. Try to connect visual plots of voltage and so on to that.

Then see how the formula apply to your visualizations. And/or use the formula to help produce them ... i.e. the formula says "at this point, voltage will be X and rising" ... how does that translate into current and electrons moving? Or try to visualize fields.

Also seek out other explications of this. If you have trouble with the calculus as it's taught today, look into infinitesimal calculus (one free on-line book, one Dover reprint of a good MIT Press book). Maybe The Manga Guide to Electricity would help. Or Purcell's Electricity and Magnetism; yeah, it's an advanced, "honors physics" treatment (e.g. it derives magnetism from electricity using Special Relativity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativistic_electromagnetism), but maybe it'll give you some useful approaches. (If you can't find a copy to look at, try to get the Tata McGraw-Hill Indian edition ISBN-10 0-07-066729-2), it's not in print elsewhere and copies are $$$).

Talk to other people and see if they can wave their hands in ways that make sense. Etc.

Good luck.