IA (HL) Topic choice help needed

[Arnau]

Hey,

I'm currently working on my IA. I'm kinda lost with regards to idea choosing. I was thinking about doing something related to the Mathematical methods used in Physics, namely Integration used in Thermodynamics. Is this adequate? How should I manage it to avoid falling into too much Physics instead of Math?

And if you have any other suggestions please do post them. Thanks!

[Thrashmaster]

The standard fallback for math IAs is to explain a proof. That's pretty much it. Find a proof, hopefully related to some application, and go through it, step by step, explaining each step in detail. You can't just copy and paste the wikipedia proof in

Yours sounds doable. To avoid making it too physics related, just make sure that you are talking about the integration. Do example physics problems. Don't just talk about the thermodynamics. That part should be brief.

[Rigel]

The standard fallback for math IAs is to explain a proof. That's pretty much it. Find a proof, hopefully related to some application, and go through it, step by step, explaining each step in detail. You can't just copy and paste the wikipedia proof in

Yours sounds doable. To avoid making it too physics related, just make sure that you are talking about the integration. Do example physics problems. Don't just talk about the thermodynamics. That part should be brief.

You can indeed copy-paste a proof if you alter the words carefully or find some variations in the steps required to get to the actual answer. Some IAs don't really require proofs, for example regression analysis doesn't require much proofs (as you have to compare two different quantities and try to develop a model that describes the relationship lying between them).

It is hard to obtain a dividing line between Physics and the Mathematics used for it. In most cases, the Math used for the problems can be quite hard, even though it is not the main part of the problem (such as finding electric fields by treating the object as a charge distribution, and then integrating over the object in question). I would prefer to steer away from those topics and choose one that is related to more "pure math". A fact is that often mathematicians have to develop new techniques and deduce theorems that come from questions asked by physicists. It would be better to develop that technique or method in particular, and then briefly stating that it can be used for topics such as Electromagnetism, Mechanics, Relativity and so on.