How did you discover Physics Forums

[ArcanaNoir]

I had to do a project on orthogonal matrices, and was forbidden from consulting other professors. Whoops, I guess some of you guys are professors! Oh well, it was micromass who helped, and he's not a prof yet. :P

I got some stellar help on probability from ILikeSerena recently.

Since I live an hour from campus and I work all day and only go to classes at night during the fall/spring terms I have very few opportunities to get help from classmates, and practically none to see profs during office hours. PF is a life saver.

 

[gneill]

I came across PF whilst searching for physics problem sets to occupy some idle time. Every now and then I prowl the web for some practice midterm exams, or homework assignments from university courses to see just how well my university did its job in penetrating my thick skull.

Previously I'd come across a site called "Physics24/7" which had lots of problem sets and answers. It didn't take long to determine that not a few of their "answers" were, shall we say, a tad shy of perfect. While the administration of the site was welcoming of updates and corrections (I eventually went through all of their problem sets and submitted not a few errata that were acknowledged and applied), the whole experience was rather "dry" in terms of interaction. It didn't strike me as being a resource that would be able to help a student to understand the subject matter if they were being tripped up by some simple misconception or misunderstanding. Not at all the right approach, in my humble opinion.

Physics Forums is a horse of a completely different hue. The dynamic interaction with students who are new to the topics and are genuinely working towards an understanding of the subject matter is wonderful. You can almost see the fog clearing. Occasionally it brings to mind a few personal "aha!" moments when what was murky suddenly snapped into focus, and the conceptual triggers that made it happen. Is there such a thing as gnostalgia?

Requiring some effort on the part of the querents (and sticking to that principle) is laudable. I also like the fact that other more knowledgeable helpers and mentors are there to seal up the leaks and cracks in my own understandings, and can catch the (hopefully only very occasional) misfires that I commit.

The international flavor is nice, too. Help comes in timezone waves! (And as I am led to believe, there may be fish of many types in some of those waves).

PF has a genuine feeling of community about it that other sites lack, and the depth and breadth of its (volunteer!) human resources is quite remarkable. Kudos to the whole shebang! Long may PF reign.

 

[BloodyFrozen]

I was lured here during my free time.

 

[Integral]

I had been posting at a large computer related forum,Anantech. I realized an error in using my real name and the post counts of the old timers there were intimidating 10,000+. So was looking for a different, smaller, forum when I followed a link to these forums. Here it was a completely different story, the top posters only had around 200 posts and there was a clear need for even my level of knowledge. Before signing up I put some thought into a user name and Integral was born. That was nearly 10years ago, Dec 2001 . It was just a few weeks after I started posting that I received a PM from Greg inviting me to be a mentor.

Initially I think that there was 1 other member with a degree in Physics, so I was able to help quite a bit. I do recall frequently refreshing, for sometimes hours, waiting for a new post.

I am not, now, nearly as active as I used to be, about all I do any more is browse and scoot misplaced homework to the correct forum. I continue to be amazed at the success and growth of these forums. I take some pride in having established policies and standards which evolved to the current state. It has been a joy to be part of it.

 

[lobel]

I found it while searching solution for math problem

 

[DrClapeyron]

Before my first semester of college (2005) I was lurking the web for science sites. When I first joined the internet circa 1999 it was an innocent time. Forums were very small, flame wars were kept to a minium, and a general lack of trolling. I origanlly went by the handle Plastic Photon. Rejoined a couple years ago.

 

[Kurdt]

Way back when I thought 'wouldn't it be cool if there was a physics forum'. I searched Google and there was one.