Physics Forums Featured Threads

I am trying to analyze the game of tennis. I started very simply by analyzing just the ground strokes, ignoring the serve, and calculating the odds of winning a single point given the odds of returning each ground stroke. I got a surprising (to me) result showing that the player to goes first always has a lower probability of winning the point than the opponent...

This is something many of us instructors have to deal with, something that was never an issue when I was still in college. Students now come to class equipped with notebook laptop, tablets, and of course, the ubiquitous cellphones. Different instructors have different policy on the use of the electronics, ranging from an outright ban, to "I don't care if you use these during class session as long as you don't distract...

I'm having trouble in studying. I am studying full time from Monday to Monday but I just cannot get focused all the time, I realized that more than half of the time I'm sleepy or struggling to maintain my focus. I'm doing my degree in physics and I feel like I need to study full time, but I just can't do it, what should I do?

The dramatic collapse of a bridge in Italy with many fatalities has been the big item of news all over Europe. I just wonder if the qualified people here can throw any light not on the specifics which would be hard for them to know, but in general...

From the Vice article: "Who doesn’t like a pretty idea? Physicists certainly do. In the foundations of physics, it has become accepted practice to prefer hypotheses that are aesthetically pleasing. Physicists believe that their motivations don’t matter because hypotheses, after all, must be tested. But most of their beautiful ideas are hard or impossible to test. And whenever an experiment comes back empty-handed..."

What I am struggling to come to grips with is how knowing physics, the topics typically taught in a high school intro course, can be useful in everyday life. I am not looking for everyday examples of physics concepts. I mean real actual examples of using Newton’s laws or momentum in real life purposefully. Can you think of a time when you actually used your physics knowledge in everyday life?

As the title says, what makes a decision problem NP complex? Is it application of the definition (as in: solvable in polynomial time by a non-deterministic Turing machine)? Also, if P does not equal NP, does it mean that NP problems can only be solved in O(exp(n)) time/steps?

We are all members of an amazing community of science and math passionate people from all over the globe. However, "amazing" doesn't just happen over night or by itself. "Amazing" happens when members take pride and responsibility for the health of the community...

Summer is coming and brings a new basic math challenge! Enjoy! For more advanced problems you can check our other intermediate level math challenge thread!