A Tiny Devil Vitrified In A Prism Of Glass. In The 18th Century, The Imperial Treasury Of Vienna Attested

for days of hauling books

the physics students

as requested by the wonderful @starferns

the chalkboard at the front of the lecture hall, covered in equations and graphs

visualizing a problem in your mind, step by step

cold water with ice cubes and a slice of lemon

diagrams drawn hastily on the corner of your paper, scribbled lines and half formed thoughts

replicating famous experiments and demonstrations

watching youtube videos late at night, picking apart complex theories

having an instinct for force diagrams and direction of motion

rushed, messy handwriting

finding beauty in motion and calculation and precision

seeing the universe as unimaginably small and unimaginably large at the same time

a well-worn grey sweater, frayed a little at the sleeves

equations scribbled on your arm until you know them by heart

studying newton and meitner and plank, all those who went before

talking with your hands, forming the shapes of arcs and trajectories as you work through a problem

long hallways and cold, sunny days

late night study groups

staring up at the sky, knowing exactly why and how the planets move as they do

trying einstein’s thought experiments

an old grandfather clock, pendulum measuring the passage of time

pages filled with calculations and precise strings of digits

dark academia in computer related courses:

spilt coffee on messy arithmetic and algorithm notes.

continuously pressing alt + tab to read classics on your computer during class.

code blocks reflected on your anti-radiation glasses.

black sweaters because it's cold in the computer laboratory.

coding websites with dark academia color palettes.

encrypting and decrypting secret letters written in codes/ciphers.

lowkey creating a game which is actually a murder plan (and which is actually inspired from fyodor dostoevsky's crime and punishment too).

sketching and editing your secret society's logo on photoshop.

messy scribbles of java codes on paper.

listening to classical music on spotify.

hacking your principal's computer to retrieve documents that you can later on use against the school system (especially because you're hoping for a change in cafeteria food).

downloading free pdf or epubs of your favorite classic books because you are on a budget.

creating groupchats where you all discuss the possibilities of a bacchanalia.

lowkey sending trojans to classmates you don't like and think of it as a modern trojan war in and of itself.

achilles as your wallpaper.

eyebags from sleepless nights trying to find the error in the code.

joining forums where people are pretentious and anonymous (oooh, you mean reddit?)

purchasing oxford shoes online.

creating collages of your favorite greek gods, mythical creatures and heroes.

editing aesthetic academia look books on your editing application of choice.

suggesting revolution through digital arts.

animating little-known histories from around the world.

learning a language on duo lingo.

binge watching documentaries on youtube because learning is a principle.

borrowing chemicals from the stem laboratory to stage a suicide of your classmate's murder inside the computer lab.

staying up all night in the library reading shakespeare's hamlet or plato's the republic instead of making your capstone project.

There should be no boundaries to human endeavor. However bad life may seem, while there is life, there is hope.

A cup of tea would restore my normality.

— William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

from eileen by ottessa moshfegh

when will someone make a sapphic dark academia book WHEN??

Leah Raeder, Black Iris

Learning to like Physics

I actually cannot believe how much I used to hate Physics until last year, but then I actually took the time and effort to understand it and?? it’s so cool and fun and easy?? unreal.

It literally seemed impossible for me and I legit thought I wouldn’t be able to graduate because I was never gonna pass Physics (I’m a Math major so we actually have 4 required Physics courses). I don’t know what the point of this is but, don’t be afraid of Physics guys!! (or any other subject!!) yes it’s frustrating as hell and you feel dumb for not having a clue about what is happening or how to work out the problems but I swear once it clicks for you (and it will) it’s gonna be great.

So if anyone needs a step by step (for college/uni), here’s one:

Google is your best friend, the internet has plenty of videos/papers/worked out problems for you to check out. The most important thing to look for is drawings and videos that help you visualize what’s going on. In most of general physics, the key is to see what forces are acting, and from that follows everything else.

Know your core equations. Honestly it’s always the same ones in the end.

For mechanics: you absolutely gotta know Newton’s Laws, Work and its relation to Kinetic/Potential Energy. Momentum is also important.

For thermodynamics: First and Second Law of Thermodynamics; pV = nRT, Boyle/Gay Lussac etc (note that they’re all connected), Carnot’s Cycle.

For electromagnetism: Maxwell’s equations. This is as far as I’ve gotten in my studies.

Understand where the formulas come from, rather than learning them by heart. For me, this was necessary because my memory is absolutely shit so there was no way I could remember every variation. But most of the formulas actually do make sense, and once you’ve drawn out a diagram of what’s happening, you can work them out yourself.

For the previous point, I suggest you watch and rewatch your professor’s explanation until you get the gist. Don’t get discouraged if it’s not immediately crystal clear, seek out other explanations if you need to. Then try to do it yourself.

ASK. FOR. HELP. I cannot stress this enough, do not feel ashamed about asking questions in class or during office hours. There are no stupid questions, and you’re paying thousands every year for people to teach you. Also physics is hard, so you’re pretty much expected to not understand immediately. Moreover, I can guarantee there’s at least one other person in the room with the same question who’s too afraid to ask. I was that person, and I failed the class because of it. Don’t be me.

Practice until you’re able to do most variations of standard problems. Once you’re able to do a certain problem, try to change it and see what happens. You don’t have to crunch the numbers all over again, go with your intuition first. Then you can calculate everything and see if you were correct.

This is all I’ve got at the moment. It applies to General Physics because I’m still pretty shit at Mathematical Physics (Rational Mechanics?) lmao, which is why I don’t talk about Lagrangians and such here.

If anyone has any other tips (for Mathematical Physics as well!) , please feel free to add them. Note that I’m from Italy, and this is what it was like for me. Other countries might have different ways of testing or focus on some formulas that I haven’t included. Do what works for you, obviously.

Good luck STEM students, I know it’s hard, but hopefully worth it in the long run :)

A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud.

George Eliot // Edward Young // Malcolm Liepke // Marcel Proust // Kahlil Gibran // Thomas Aquinas // Holly Warburton // Taylor Swift // Arnold Lobel // Ralph Waldo Emerson