physics

Physics Essays

Physics Essays is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Physics Essays rather than just read about it. In short: Physics Essays is a quarterly journal supposedly covering theoretical and experimental physics. It was established in 1988 and the editor-in-chief is Emilio Panarella.

Key takeaways

Physics Essays belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Physics Essays to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Physics Essays from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Physics Essays is a quarterly journal supposedly covering theoretical and experimental physics. It was established in 1988 and the editor-in-chief is Emilio Panarella. The journal has a reputation for being a "free forum where extravagant views on physics (in particular, those involving parapsychology) are welcome". The journal has been accused of charging authors for publication without disclosing the fees up front. In the 1990s, the journal was published by University of Toronto Press. Beginning in 2009, and for some period of time, the journal was affiliated with the American Institute of Physics, which managed subscriptions. In 2003, the journal published a paper describing Randell Mills' hydrino theory, which is at odds with quantum mechanics and widely rejected by physicists. In 2004, the journal published a paper claiming proof that the usual mathematical expression of mass-energy equivalence was not valid in general, a claim the author said was being ignored by the wider scientific community. In 2017, the journal published an article from an amateur physicist who claimed to redefine the elementary charge and eliminate the fine structure constant, directly in contradiction to mainstream physics.

Abstracting and indexing The journal is indexed and abstracted in the following bibliographic databases:

Chemical Abstracts Service EBSCO databases Emerging Sources Citation Index The journal was indexed in Current Contents/Physical, Chemical, and Earth Sciences and the Science Citation Index Expanded until it was dropped in 2015. Its last impact factor, according to the 2014 Journal Citation Reports, was 0.245 for 2013. Scopus similarly dropped its coverage in 2017. As of 2022, it is included in the Emerging Sources Citation Index with a 2023 impact factor of 0.6. In 2024, the Norwegian Scientific Index downgraded the journal from a level-1 journal to level 0, meaning that publication there no longer counts in the official academic career system or towards public funding of research institutions.

References

External links Official website

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Physics Essays

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Physics Essays claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Physics Essays before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Physics Essays ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Physics Essays

In research: Physics Essays appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Physics Essays in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Physics Essays is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Academic journals established in 1988, English-language journals, Fringe science journals, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Physics Essays outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Physics Essays in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Physics Essays means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Physics Essays out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Physics Essays in simple terms?

Physics Essays is a quarterly journal supposedly covering theoretical and experimental physics. It was established in 1988 and the editor-in-chief is Emilio Panarella.

Why does Physics Essays matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Physics Essays?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Physics Essays.