When Perturbations Aren't Small

Behold the rare quantum doggo, disrupting wave functions one lick at a time! That colorful 3D graph represents a mathematical wave equation (note the fancy partial differential equation at the bottom), and this good boy is creating ripples in the fabric of spacetime with each "schlop." Physicists spend years trying to understand these complex wave behaviors while this lab just walks up and tastes it. Graduate students everywhere are questioning their life choices right now. Next week: watch as this same dog solves Schrödinger's equation by chasing his own tail!

Content When the physics teacher tells you that friction can be ignored

Physicists love defining things with absolute certainty until someone asks them to actually explain what those things are . We can write equations for charge all day, but ask us to explain its fundamental nature and suddenly we're all awkward silence and angry eyebrows. It's like asking a mathematician what numbers really are—prepare for existential crisis in 3...2...1...

The engineering student's journey through mathematical hell is brutally captured in three acts. Starting with a wistful "Dear dairy..." at sunrise, followed by late-night studying with "I miss the time..." (and energy drinks, naturally), culminating in the mathematical nightmare below. Those equations aren't just complex—they're existential crisis material! The progression from hopeful journaling to "when maths didn't look like it just came outta my asshole" perfectly encapsulates the descent from optimism to mathematical trauma. The paper covered in physics equations and that yellow mechanical pencil might as well be torture devices. Engineering students don't solve problems—they survive them.

Engineers rounding π down to 3 while physicists casually setting Planck's constant (ħ) to 1 is the scientific equivalent of "my approximation is better than yours." Engineers need bridges that don't collapse. Physicists just need equations that look prettier on the blackboard. Both think they're being practical, but in wildly different universes. The real crime? Mathematicians silently judging them both from their ivory tower of exactitude.

That moment when your physics professor drops the bomb! You're happily solving a free-fall problem with those beautiful simplified equations, and then BAM—someone mentions air resistance. Suddenly your nice clean v = √(2gh) turns into a differential equation nightmare! The joy of introductory physics is the beautiful lie that air resistance doesn't exist... until it does. Welcome to the real world, where nothing is ever as simple as the textbook problems want you to believe!