Problem solving of complex physics problem

[physics user1]

What kind of steps do you use when you need to solve a complex physics problem?
What kind of questiono do you ask yourself?

Richard Feynman said that you have to write down the problem and then think hard, but what thoughts and questions can help yourself find a creative solution?
Is creativity a random and lucky thing?

Which approach is the most useful, top down or bottom up? I think top down what about you?

In my opinion is important to make a drawing or a graph and imaginate the situation, eventually if the problem is too complex dividing it in parts, but sometimes is easy to make mistakes or not seeing the solution or in whitch way you need to divide the problem, or at least finding the best solution, the creative one that one that is elegant and clever, what questions and what steps do you need to follow in the solving process in order to help yourself to find ideas or to fully understand the problem, I mean seeing the problem by all the angulations, understanding the parts of the problem and not forgetting anything?

 

[chiro]

Hey Cozma Alex.

I guess it depends on how you "divide" things up - there are many ways to do so.

One of the things with problem solving is that there are many ways to organize and combine information in order to get some resolution to the problem itself.

The thing is that often new ways of doing this are needed to solve new kinds of problems. If you understand how things can be broken up then that can be quite useful.