How Can an Undergrad Find a Mathematical Physics Research Project?

[Nicholas Kasseinov]

Although I am an undergrad in mathematics and physics, I would place myself at a graduate level. I have gone through many textbooks on my own and currently I am studying the Landau and Lifshitz series. The reading and exercises are fun, but now I want to do something with it. More specifically, I want to do research on my own. I have done internships with professors before, but the jobs were of a different nature than what I want. They worked in applied science-- I'm interested in doing theoretical/mathematical physics. The problem is, I don't know where to begin! Any topic that interests me is much too complicated and would require many more years schooling or has already been investigated by somebody else. I am also the only STEM person in my family, so I am kinda lost.
I am looking for something publishable but not too major/difficult; something I could work on 3-4 hours a day in my free time and finish (hopefully) within a year. Something I could do alone. To repeat, I am looking for something mathematical in nature. Does anyone have any advice for how I would find/create such a project for myself?

 

[jtbell]

Are there no professors working in theoretical or mathematical physics at your university?

Even if there aren't, I suggest talking to some of your professors anyway. They may know theorists at other schools or institutes that might be interested in helping you, and be able to introduce you to them.

If I had ever received a request to work with or help a student from another school, I would be more receptive if it came by way of a professor there that I knew already, or at least had some professional connection with.

 

[radium]

Usually when a theorist starts research in grad school, their advisor suggests a project to them, which may or may not be that well defined, and then they go do the calculation themselves, asking for advice as needed (the level of involvement of the advisor depends on their style). When a student gets older they start to come up with their own ideas usually by reading papers or often after talking with others. Single author papers are not very common physics and they are very rare among grad students (at least good ones).

You shouldn’t expect to suddenly come up with an idea by yourself, especially at this stage. Most ideas don’t occur in vacuum, you get them after interacting with the scientific community in your field. Also, it is important to understand there is no timeline for research given that it is such a nonlinear process. You can never guarantee when you will finish something as there almost always is some delay caused by a problem you hadn’t anticipated.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

Although I am an undergrad in mathematics and physics, I would place myself at a graduate level. I have gone through many textbooks on my own and currently I am studying the Landau and Lifshitz series. The reading and exercises are fun, but now I want to do something with it. More specifically, I want to do research on my own. I have done internships with professors before, but the jobs were of a different nature than what I want. They worked in applied science-- I'm interested in doing theoretical/mathematical physics. The problem is, I don't know where to begin! Any topic that interests me is much too complicated and would require many more years schooling or has already been investigated by somebody else. I am also the only STEM person in my family, so I am kinda lost.
I am looking for something publishable but not too major/difficult; something I could work on 3-4 hours a day in my free time and finish (hopefully) within a year. Something I could do alone. To repeat, I am looking for something mathematical in nature. Does anyone have any advice for how I would find/create such a project for myself?

How are your programming skills? Odds are theoretical physics projects accessible to an undergrad are going to involve lots of programming.

 

[mfb]

If you don't need a guarantee that it becomes a project with some goal achieved (something you would need for a thesis): There are tons of mathematical things that are poorly studied that don't need advanced knowledge. A recent example: I found an interesting forum thread and explored that in more detail in my free time, wrote a bit of code and so on. The result was an article here. The result is not interesting enough for a publication, but with more time (more than two days) and if a publication would have been interesting, it might have been possible to write one.

PS: It could be that you have problems logging in. The administrator is working on it, see this thread.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/niches-publishable-undergraduate-research/

Note that your goal does not seem to be one of the niches in which I've seen successful undergraduate research projects.

Give the above article a read and consider why those niches are more accessible to undergrads, but your goals may not be. Then either shift your goals to something more accessible OR brainstorm ways to make your goal more accessible.