Current Topics in Theoretical Physics for Your Graduation Thesis

[Monalisa]

I am almost finishing my graduation course, just more 6 months, I tried to work with biological physics for one and a half year, but I did not like, anyway, I need to write my thesis to present at the end of my course, my professor told me to think in something current in theoretical physics, he works with solid state physics, and also a lot of things related to electromagnetism. I have no idea, there are so many things in physics, that I am lost.

Some ideas would be really useful

thanks

 

[jedishrfu]

How is your programming skills?

Perhaps a computational physics problem would be good.

Is this for an undergraduate thesis or a master's thesis? in physics right?

 

[Monalisa]

Yes, an undergraduate thesis

 

[berkeman]

I am almost finishing my graduation course, just more 6 months, I tried to work with biological physics for one and a half year, but I did not like, anyway, I need to write my thesis to present at the end of my course, my professor told me to think in something current in theoretical physics, he works with solid state physics, and also a lot of things related to electromagnetism. I have no idea, there are so many things in physics, that I am lost.

Some ideas would be really useful

thanks

What were your favorite subjects/classes? Do you read any physics journals or publications regularly? Have you seen what others have done for their undergraduate thesis subjects in the past?

 

[jedishrfu]

You could tackle a fun project like:
- the flight of a frisbee, aerobee, boomerang, baseball...
- simulating bicycle configurations to show stability
- simulate a motion of a skateboard or a particular movement of a skateboard like an ollie

With respect to the skateboard, there's a commonly cited master's thesis that may give you some ideas by Sarah Hummel:

http://biosport.ucdavis.edu/researc...ation-and-throw-biomechanics/HummelThesis.pdf

Some of these topics may be very complex and you'll have to decide how far you get into them. Bicycle movement can be a very complex topic to analyze as many experts disagree on why the bike works the way it does.

For bikes here's a discussion on of the physics:

http://www.explainthatstuff.com/bicycles.html

Other things could be analyzing the physics of a Ring World. This was popular when I was in school:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringworld

and you might something here:

http://www.larryniven.net/physicsinscifi/

or you could analyze the Mars Direct mission ideas:

http://www.marssociety.org/home/about/mars-direct

There's a video on YouTube that describes some of the history too.