PHS1011: Physics

There is an online 'Mastering Physics' assignment every few weeks, which is essentially just questions which contribute to your final mark - they can be quite challenging, but every question has 'hints' which sacrifice marks for help, if the first hint doesn't help you can use another which will be more in depth than the last, but more costly of marks. There were two actual assignments. The first was just a set of questions which was on Mechanics and was easy marks (Finished it in half an hour). The second was a lab report on an experiment you and your partners will do sometime in the first few weeks. This was worth 5% but was quite large. There is some good resources on moodle to help you with this; an example of a bad lab report with annotations telling you why it was bad, along with an example of a good lab report.

I enjoyed this subject a lot. Mechanics was pretty much a coming together of specialist maths with VCE Physics, plus some additional Physics definitions. After that we did Thermodynamics, which I really enjoyed. Kevin took these topics, then we had Tim for Simple Harmonic Motion and Waves/optics. SHM was interesting, and Waves covered theory for all wave types in general. We finished with Special Relativity with Kevin, which while being very interesting, I felt it was rushed and was annoying that it was at the end of the course very close to the exam because it was quite difficult.

Make sure you read the texbook BEFORE you go to lectures, it helps sooooo much, especially for labs. I would advise you do some textbook questions before each lab if you want to do well in them. The 3 hour exam is 180 marks and, if you understand the theory and have done a couple of previous papers, then you will do well in this subject.
Also, I believe 2013, sem 1 was the last time PHS1011 will be have it's labs run in the way they have been the last few years. Next year the new $280 million dollar Physics building will be finished and first year labs will be done there with an entirely new lab structure.

Kevin Pimblett and Tim Peterson. I only went to Kevin's lectures, but Tim came in to a few of Kevin's at the end. Kevin is an incredibly engaging lecture, he makes everything interesting and fun, and is able to explain things well. He is also very enthusiastic. From the little experience I had with Tim's lectures, I liked him a lot as well. Could explain things well and was entertaining.

Yes, back to 2006 with solutions.

4.5/5

Yes.

PHS1011/1022 directly follows the Randall D. Knight textbook. I got the 3rd edition which only came out a month or so before I got it. I highly, highly recommend it, it is very well written, thoroughly comprehensive and interesting. It has questions at the end of every chapter with answers to every second question.

3x1 hour lectures per week. 1x3 hour lab per week.

2013, sem 1

Yes, solutions are scarce

4/5

Yes

2012 Semester 1

79 D