Physics Self-Study Circle

Who the Circle Is For

This room is for the student who is ready to do the reading and drive their own learning, someone who cares about understanding physics, not just getting the answer.

Some are teaching themselves from the book, a few chapters in or just about to start. If you would rather understand why something works than memorize that it does, and you like to stay with a problem until it makes sense, you will feel at home.

Some who join are already well into accelerated or AP physics. If that is you, you have covered a lot of ground, and fast. The circle is where you go back and reason it out, at the pace understanding actually takes. Moving quickly through physics and understanding it deeply are two different things, and if you can reach the answer but sometimes feel you went too fast to really see why it works, this is the room for that.

What matters is the intention, not the level. A beginner just opening the book is as welcome as someone deep into it.

What the Circle Is

Once a week, the circle meets in a small online room. You bring the questions and problems you want to understand more deeply, and the room reasons through them together and talks them out.

A student who already understands an idea explains it to the one still working through it. A real physicist works alongside, joining the reasoning, catching errors, and adding the insight no one in the room has yet. It stays a small group with real continuity, and its value rests on the physicist and the quality of the discussion.

You read on your own, at your own pace, on your own chapters. The circle is part of the Physics Lyceum. It is not here to cover a syllabus or unblock homework. It is here to help you understand the concepts deeply, see how they connect to the real world, and get genuinely good at solving problems. Underneath all of it, it builds the rare skill of learning physics from a real book on your own.

Inside a Session

One fixed weekly time, sixty minutes, online, up to five students. Everyone arrives on their own chapter, having done the reading, with something they want to understand better or talk through.

One shared book. Everyone works from one edition, so we can all point to the same problem and the same page: Giancoli, Physics: Principles with Applications, sixth edition, the algebra-based text.

One student is on projectile motion, another on circuits, another on lenses. That spread is the fuel: because you are all at different places, someone is usually a step ahead and can explain.

From there it is a conversation. A question or a problem goes up, whoever understands it best takes the first pass at explaining, and the physicist steps in to confirm, correct, or go deeper. What a session looks like depends on what people bring that week.

Explaining a concept is the hardest test of understanding it, and a real scientific skill in its own right. So every question teaches twice: once for the student who asks, and once for the student who explains. As you gain independence, your role shifts: you become the one explaining more often than the one asking.

Who Leads the Room

Sessions are led by Dr. Sergey Samsonau or other expert physicists. The leader guides rather than lectures: letting the room reason first, then stepping in with the correction or the insight only a physicist can add. See who leads the Lyceum.

Joining the Circle

The circle is for students teaching themselves physics from the book, so we start with a short note rather than a signup button. Email us at team@teenscientists.org and tell us two things: why you want to join, and where you are in your physics right now, whether that is a few chapters in or just about to start. A few honest sentences are plenty. If it is a fit, we will send you the link to subscribe.

The room works because everyone arrives ready. You have done the reading, and you bring a specific question or problem you want to dig into. It is a place to think together, not to have the chapter taught to you.

If you want to go even deeper in physics and are ready to commit more time and effort each week, the Lyceum courses and Deep Physics are the step up.

What It Costs

Two charges, easy to keep straight: $10 a month to be a member of the circle, plus $50 for each session you attend. You only pay the $50 on the weeks you come.

The monthly membership is what makes you part of the room; the session fee covers the session itself. The room runs at its fixed weekly time whether five seats fill or one.