PHYC10002: Physics 2: Advanced

Practical Work: 25%, Online Assignments: 15%, Final Exam: 60%

Now, this subject was on track to be my favourite. The first 6 weeks of the course are incredibly illuminating for those of us who have yet to formally wet our beaks in vector calculus and its myriad applications to physics and a very interesting extension on year 12 physics. Thermodynamics and fluid dynamics aren't super captivating, but you have to know them. What I took issue with was the teaching of the quantum physics and modern physics units, which were a little handwavey (and seriously, we're not GOING to understand quantum in first year, especially with the memorize-details-about-all-these-experiments and quantum numbers and ughhh tacked on), but this is no fault of Geoff Taylor's, just the structuring. I really liked him! Luckily, nuclear was a good finish. Additionally, the tutes and lectures aren't all that useful (not to say the lectures aren't enjoyable, but I'll get to that). In the case of the tutes it's just a lot of anti-social attempting 2 or 3 of the problems on the sheet, so that's why I gave it 4/5. As to only being my second favourite of the semester, well, it's not my fault linear algebra got so damn interesting .

The 2014 exam was pretty decent, but good god that 2013 exam... Melatos went very very hard that year and he certainly restrained himself this time. I think it was OK, if you study and look at the practice exams you'll be okay. Word to the wise though, it's not like Calc II or something where it's all standard questions, you have to be creative in the exam to answer the electromagnetism questions correctly. The rest of the exam is still tough, but manageable with study.

All in all, I would recommend this subject instead of the normal physics. There's still a hell of a lot of physics left, but at least you've learnt as much as you can so far, even if, for most of the cohort, it'll be our last physics subject. As for me, I'm still tossing up eng vs. science (yay for getting pressured into immediately going to uni after year 12 instead of like getting money and travelling), yet this subject made a strong case for physics!

Yep, recorded lectures, not that you'll be referring to them much

Dr. Andrew Melatos for electromagnetism, Prof. Geoffrey Taylor for the rest (tfw when no Jamieson right guys), one special lecture with Dr. Roger Rassool (tangent city)

Now to be more specific, Andrew Melatos took us for the first 6 weeks, and they were a wild ride. This is likely to be the first time most students have gotten mathematics really all up in their physics, so for first year it's a step up. Setting up all the various integrals seemed daunting at first, but it's really not so bad with a bit of practice and understanding. I found it be to quite fast paced, but I'm sure some of you will be more comfortable than me. If you've done UMEP maths and went straight into Vector Calculus you're gonna have a good time, I'm told. Anyway, it's all really interesting and fun here, Melatos makes sure of that with his excellent lecturing presence.

Geoff took over for the rest of the course, and he was great too. Again, I thought quantum and some of modern physics was really annoying to learn, but if you have the textbook it should be fine. Anyway, my issue with the lectures is that they still don't seem like the optimal way to learn, it's not like Calc II where you walk out with expansive and perfectly sufficient notes. You could definitely learn successfully from the textbook or internet, which is what a lot of people did, but why not take advantage of the cool lecturers and all that in addition?

I think these weekly assignments physics students endure are the single greatest factor increasing hangover intensity and unpleasantness at Melbourne uni, hands down. Weekly assignments sucked for me since I did four sciences this semester, so I'd have 3 - 4 assignments every weekend. THAT BEING SAID, some of the questions are very interesting. Mad props to James Richmond for choosing a bunch of (mostly) fascinating questions every week, albeit with some verbose wording. They range from sorta easy to pretty hard. Some of the answers are online too. If you go to lectures and do the assignments, you're learning the physics to a good standard, and it isn't tough to get close to 100% with a bit of focus. But yeah, these were like a painful back massage, in the end good, you can kinda get into it if you try, but a little rough at the time.

About 5 or 6 this semester, with brief answers

Since you've done Physics 1: Advanced, you know the drill. 8 x 3 hour sessions (well, our demonstrator cut us off at 2.5) with a lab partner (or a group of three in my case) and a hopefully amiable demonstrator. You get your pre-lab done on the train, and ask the boys something along the lines of "you guys read the lab manual for this one??" and you're good to go. I think loudly rapping along to phone-speakers Kanye West with my partners and disturbing everyone around us might be my favourite moment of the academic semester, haha. They're pretty interesting this semester, but I will warn you the Planck's constant prac is hell, and the flowing fluids prac is god tier. Usually the demonstrator will cut you off before a particularly difficult (in terms of time) to complete section of the prac, or Geoff Shute (this man is the king) will give you a printed out sheet of paper detailing what you should do if/when some of the equipment is defective. Pracs were fun this semester.

4/5

Physics for scientists and engineers; recommended.

These weren't for me so I'll keep it brief; I only went to one. WARNING, if you have a low-ish work ethic you will almost certainly not do the sheets in your own time, but if you don't go you should definitely attempt to work through them, even in swot vac.

3 x 1 hour lectures per week, 8 x 3 hours practicals, 1 x 1 hour tutorial per week (#goingtotutes lol)

2014, Semester II

Still waiting, hopefully north of 75 this time.

The big question is whether taking advanced physics is worth it. I don't know the answer, I didn't take regular physics 2. But I do know that everything we covered in this subject was covered to a pretty deep standard. I don't have any questions regarding the content, after making notes on all the stuff we were introduced to. The assignments and the exam tested this knowledge deeply and the pracs explored some of the concepts to give us a feel for the physics.
Topic covered were largely the same as the regular stream afaik, but with a focus on problem solving, derivations and the calculus behind things. Topics include:

• Electric fields and forces due to electric charges
• Magnetic fields and forces due to moving charges
• Tying electromagnetism together in Maxwell's equations
• A first principles approach to circuits beyond just Kirchhoff's laws covered in VCE, plus capacitors and inductors
• Fluid mechanics
• Introductory thermodynamics
• Historical experiments and physics surrounding the transition from classical to modern physics
• Finally leading to an introduction to 1D quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principle and the shrodinger equation
• Nuclear physics; nuclear processes including fusion, fission and radioactive decay
• I think we were meant to do atomic physics and spin but ran out of lectures

The pracs, though a tad disorganised at times, were relatively easy to score well in if you managed to write everything that was asked about even if you didn't fully understand it all. Writing so much made the pracs pretty hectic and rushy, but was worth it for the 10/10's. this would vary by demonstrator, most likely.

The weekly assignments and their accompanying practice assignments actually saved me. Every weekend I would watch the lectures, do the practice assignment and then very slowly answer the questions on the real assignment. By the end I had gone from knowing nothing about the week's content to close to mastery of it. I'd then, over the next week, attempt to solidify that understanding in the form of comprehensive written notes. Some friends said they easily found the answers to most of the assignment questions with a verbatim google search, or at least answers with different numbers in the question, but I highly recommend learning the content even if you then check with a quick google before submitting each answer. The practice was invaluable and the assignment questions were great in guiding my study without the textbook.

The exam was tough, but study paid off. You get a really muddled formula sheet and it has a heck of a lot of unexplained letters and symbols on it so I recommend going through and sorting out what's what BEFORE going into the exam. Identifying all the formulas on the two-page sheet actually took me a whole day, some of them were obscure and used letters I wasn't used to, or no vector notation, etc, and there are zero labels or ordering to the formulas it's literally a free-for-all.
Practice exams only have numerical solutions so it was tough to mark practices since there are always a lot of explanation questions, but I guess going back to the lecture notes or a textbook to see if there was anything you forgot in an explanation would be the way to go here.

Overall, I enjoyed the challenge of the advanced stream and I'm glad I decided to keep it up despite not getting any extra credit. I feel like the derivation/calculus rich approach sets me up for physics subjects next year, and the content was definitely interesting enough to make it worthwhile for me.

Asc. Prof. Andrew Melatos for electromag and Prof. Geoffrey Taylor for the rest

Plenty, 4 of which are given with numerical solutions on the LMS and more stored online if you're after more questions (can even look in the non-advanced stream and in some of the old first year physics subjects - same stuff, different unit names)

5 Out of 5

I think it's like college physics or something but I never bought/saw a copy. I preferred to do my own research online using hyperphysics, khanacademy, etc.

3 x 1h Lecture + 1 x 1h tutorial per week, plus a 3 hour practical in 8/12 weeks of the semester.

2014 Semester 2

92 (H1)