A number of physics problems may be cast in terms of Hilbert-Schmidt integral equations. In many cases, the integrals tend to be zero over a large portion of the domain of interest. All of the information is contained in compact regions of the domain which renders their use very attractive from the standpoint of efficient numerical computation. Discrete representation of these integrals leads to a system of N elements which have pair-wise interactions with one another. A direct solution technique requires computational effort which is O(N{sup 2}). Fast multipole methods (FMM) have been widely used in recent years to obtain solutions to these problems requiring a computational effort of only O(Nln N) or O(N). In this paper we present an overview of several variations of the fast multipole method along with examples of its use in solving a variety of physical problems.