Other Sources of Physics Challenges

Only a very few of the Duke Physics Challenges were invented by me, most are problems (or variations of problems) that I have heard or read about. The following are references and links to similar kinds of problems:

Volumes I and II of Physics for Entertainment by Yakov Perelman are enjoyable easy-to-read books that discuss many applications of physics to interesting day-to-day phenomena in a non-technical way. Volume I is available for free download here.

The book Mad About Physics: Braintwisters, Paradoxes, and Curiosities by Christopher P. Jargodzki and Franklin Potter (John Wiley & Sons, New York, 2001) is an excellent collection of about 400 science puzzles, most of them oriented at the high school and early college level. (Some of my Physics Challenges assume that you have taken some of the courses typically taken by an undergraduate physics major.) The book provides solutions and references for most of the problems.

At about the same level, the book Thinking Physics: Questions with Conceptual Explanations by Lewis C. Epstein and Paul G. Hewitt (Insight Press, San Francisco, 1981) can be recommended. This book has short koan-like problems that emphasize conceptual thinking rather than detailed calculations. These kinds of problems help to remind people that physics has insights that are distinct from (and sometimes simpler than) any related mathematics.

An outstanding collection of problems and questions can be found in the book The Flying Circus of Physics by Jearl Walker (John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1975). This book is particularly good at increasing one's awareness of the world all around and how scientific problems arise from this awareness. Readers of this book should be warned that many of the problems are not physics problems or challenges in the sense that they can be solved with a moderate amount of thinking or experiment. Many of the problems are in fact extremely hard and remain unsolved. Still, nearly every question is interesting and fun to think about. The author has provided references (many of them technical) for the problems.

The following are links to sites with similar kinds of scientific problems and puzzles:

• Boston Area Undergraduate Physics Competition
• Fermi problems.
  • Fermi problems of the Science Olympics.
  • UMD Fermi problems, require order-of-magnitude estimates to get some insight.
• Physics Challenges for Teachers and Students by Boris Korsunsky. This is a monthly column in The Physics Teacher journal, you can also find past problems with solutions at this webpage.
• Physics.of.the.outdoors (Steven van Roode).
• Physics Question of the Week (Dept of Physics, U. of Maryland).
• Physics Questions/Problems (Yacov Kantor).
• Problem Page of Nature's Physics Portal.

Miscellaneous other good sources of problems are:

• Problems on mechanics in the book An Introduction to Mechanics by Daniel Kleppner and Robert J. Kolenkow;
• Problems on electricity and magnetism in the book Electricity and Magnetism by Edward Purcell;
• Problems on special relativity in the book Spacetime Physics by Edwin Taylor and John Wheeler;
• Problems in astrophysics in the book Astrophysical Concepts, 3rd Edition by Martin Harwitt.
• Many interesting and elementary applications of physics to biomechanical problems are given in the delightful book Life's Devices by Steven Vogel.

My list of web sites related to physics education has many sites that discuss simple conceptual and experimental problems and projects.

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