Problem of the Week
Here I will be posting curious physics and math problems: one new each week. Some of them will be standard while others less standard, but none of the problems will require knowledge beyond typical undergraduate curriculum. The idea and some of the problems have been borrowed from a very nice collection of problems by David Morin.
You are welcome to stop by my office (EPS 214) to discuss them.
For theoretically minded students - here is a list of problems, a good portion of which you must be capable of doing by the end of your graduate program. Working on those problems is a great way to learn something new and refresh what you have forgotten: Arnold's Mathematical Trivium.
Archive with answers ( and sometimes solutions).
- Problem 52 (Hitting the woodwork)
- Problem 51 (Plain duster)
- Problem 50 (Birthday Logic)
- Problem 49 (Making space)
- Problem 48 (N by NW)
- Problem 47 (Counteract bottom)
- Problem 46 (Cobweb of Resistors)
- Problem 45 (Ladder envelope)
- Problem 44 (Integration 101)
- Problem 43 (Viewing the spokes)
- Problem 42 (Ice age hockey)
- Problem 41 (Bandwidth of VW van)
- Problem 40 (Elevator ghost)
- Problem 39 (Flea and tree)
- Problem 38 (heated sphere)
- Problem 37 (spaghetti dinner)
- Problem 36 (oscillator integral)
- Problem 35 (e**pi OR pi**e)
- Problem 34 (serpentine slide)
- Problem 33 (puck on conveyor)
- Problem 32 (derivative)
- Problem 31 (combinations of capacitors)
- Problem 30 (rolling down random pipe)
- Problem 29 (loop and sleeve)
- Problem 28 (montana duck hunters)
- Problem 27 (bug vortex)
- Problem 26 (dent in capacitor)
- Problem 25 (scattering on a wire)
- Problem 24 (current on a sphere)
- Problem 23 (coin and gaussian)
- Problem 22 (rope and water)
- Problem 21 (network of R’s)
- Problem 20 (moment of a fractal)
- Problem 19 (ants on a stick)
- Problem 18 (small plate attraction)
- Problem 17 (enough precision?)
- Problem 16 (wormhole travel)
- Problem 15 (iso-T equator)
- Problem 14 (falling emptiness)
- Problem 13 (semi-circle waveguide)
- Problem 12 (Bubble up)
- Problem 11 (Bug on rubber band)
- Problem 10 (Double factorial)
- Problem 9 (Gas and Spring)
- Problem 8 (Puck curve)
- Problem 7 (Fun in Trig)
- Problem 6 (Semi-sphere Coulomb)
- Problem 5 (Sharing a birthday)
- Problem 4 (Clay Earth)
- Problem 3 (Bead on a string)
- Problem 2 (Rope around Earth)
- Problem 1 (Bug climber)