Deep Physics

The teaching methodology behind the SoTS Physics Lyceum

Gifted students working on advanced physics problems, an iceberg metaphor showing deep understanding of waves, electromagnetism, optics, circuits, and cosmic physics

Deep Physics: An Evolution of Physics Education

Deep Physics is the SoTS original teaching methodology behind the SoTS Physics Lyceum.

In Deep Physics, students work through theory, problem solving, and experimental design as one integrated process. They tackle problems that require long, deep thinking, deriving results from first principles, building intuition, and designing their own experiments. The Lyceum provides all necessary equipment required in physics courses.

Research opportunities are available from the start. Students can join our research labs in their first year, with no need to complete coursework first. The Physics Tournament lab is open to students with a year of physics behind them.

What it is built on

Deep Physics builds on four proven teaching traditions. Each tradition solved one piece of the puzzle. We add our own research to address what was missing.

Drag any of the five glowing sources — sideways to change their spacing, along the beam to shift its phase — and watch the pattern rebuild.Tap any of the five glowing sources to see which tradition it carries, and use the controls below to change the pattern.

5 ways curiosity shines

Every one of the five radiates on its own, in every direction. Because their phase relationship stays fixed, the pattern stays put: they reinforce along a few bearings, and the same light carries far further.

CuriosityWork put in

Sources

USA, 1956

Physical Science Study Committee (PSSC)

Depth of understanding over ground covered

The Physical Science Study Committee was convened at MIT in 1956 by Jerrold Zacharias and Francis Friedman, who judged that school physics had hardened into a poorly integrated pile of topics with the reasoning left out. Their answer was to give each idea the time it actually takes to understand: physics as one connected subject resting on a few deep principles such as the conservation laws, with laboratory work as open-ended exploration rather than verification of a result already given. Covering less ground was the means, not the goal. It was a whole package, not a book: textbook, lab guide, purpose-built apparatus, ten tests across the year, more than fifty films, and a paperback Science Studies Series. By the 1964 to 1965 school year about half of all United States students enrolled in high school physics, roughly 200,000 students and 5,000 teachers, were using PSSC materials.

USSR, 1963

Physics-mathematics schools

Results derived from first principles

Specialized schools attached to major universities, with curricula written by working scientists. Graded problem sets made expert reasoning visible, and results were derived from first principles rather than described. Students trained in this tradition have gone on to become Nobel and Fields Medal winners, scientists, and engineers working at the forefront of their fields. Dr. Samsonau was trained in it in Belarus. Dr. Deshko was trained and then taught in this tradition.

Britain, 1962

Nuffield Science Teaching Project

Laws reached by investigating, not by being told

Pupils reached a law by investigating rather than being handed one and asked to prove it. The approach was dominant in British school physics through the 1970s. SoTS strategic advisor Matthew Pearce taught Advanced Level Physics the Nuffield way at Latymer Upper School in London, where he was also Head of Physics.

France, since Napoleon

Classes préparatoires

Reasoning examined out loud, one student at a time

The colle: twice a week, alone or in a group of about three, a student spends twenty minutes to an hour in front of a professor, answering questions and working problems aloud. Physics runs at roughly ten hours a week alongside twelve of mathematics. Napoleon created these classes, and French students still sit colles today. It is a tradition that has held for two centuries because the format works.

Real Research

Modern development on top

Research and learning integrated from day one

Research and learning are integrated from day one. The traditions above leave original research for university, so students spend years preparing for work they cannot yet do. We changed that: coursework gives students the tools, while the research labs and Physics Tournament let them decide what to point those tools at.
Guiding research is a teachable craft, not a personal gift. Dr. Samsonau and Matthew Pearce make this case in their paper The Research Guide: From Informal Role to Profession (arXiv:2604.19961, 2026). We make an expert’s approach to open-ended problems visible, scaffold it for students, then gradually remove the scaffolding as they develop. The answer stays genuinely unknown.
Talent development designed for the whole path, from grade 7 to professional R&D.Our middle school courses, high school courses, research in the labs and Tournament, and contributing roles on teams in the Research Residency form a complete pipeline. Each stage exists because the next stage of real work requires it.
We set the standard from the work itself. We know what working research scientists need to be able to do, and we build toward that. Our target is the capability itself: not a college admissions office, not a testing company’s exam syllabus, not state or national standards, not competition requirements. Each of those measures something narrower than the ability we develop.
The approach is published research. Our methodology has been openly documented since 2018: Integrating Science Through Authentic Research in Secondary Schools (IEEE ISEC, 2018); Preparing students for authentic research through open-inquiry laboratory courses (2018); Computer simulations combined with experiments for a calculus-based physics laboratory course (Physics Education, 2018); Artificial Intelligence for Scientific Research: Authentic Research Education Framework (2022); and From EdTech to HumanDevTech (EdArXiv, 2026).

PSSC produced its own films. Watch Frames of Reference (1960) film to get a sense of how one can think about physics phenomena.

How Deep Physics Is Different from the General Physics Path

Talent development in music or sports follows a clear path: identify ability early, then build skills through deliberate, structured training. Physics can follow the same model.

However, standard school physics often prioritizes breadth, with courses built around curricula and exams that reward memorization and formula application, an approach that would allow most kids to learn at least patterns. In the USA, such courses are called honors physics, accelerated physics, AP physics.

Deep Physics takes a different approach. It starts from the assumption that talented middle and high school students can understand physics deeply. For students with the right aptitude, this method sparks genuine engagement and lasting understanding.

The methodology is primarily algebra-based by design. Calculus-based physics can shift the challenge from understanding concepts to mastering mathematical technique. By staying with algebra, we keep the focus on the physics itself: what is happening, why it happens, and what follows from it. Depth comes from the reasoning, not the mathematics.

Where the physics of a course genuinely calls for calculus, a student needs to arrive with it, since the Lyceum teaches physics rather than calculus. Each course states its own math prerequisites on its page.

See the Lyceum programs