PHYC20009: Thermal and Classical Physics

5% - Mid semester test on thermal physics
5% - Thermal physics assignment
5% - Classical physics assignment (the classical section of the previous year’s exam)
20% - Lab reports, prelabs and performance
65% - 3h exam in exam period, (roughly 35:30 thermal to classical ratio)

Yep! Recordings which capture the thermal slides, but classical has no slides. Also all derivations were done on a whiteboard (for some reason they decide not to use a document camera despite Jamieson routinely complaining about whiteboard lighting in one of the theatres). The classical lecture recordings are therefore purely audio but Melatos covers the provided lecture notes basically verbatim so you can follow along from home.

David Jamieson for Thermal and Andrew Melatos for Classical

Somehow, 94 (H1)

Yes, 2009-2014 but no solutions. I recommend having a Facebook group like we did where the cohort collaboratively solves most problems and reaches some consensus on answers.

2/5

Thermal:
Highly recommend the Thermal Textbook D.V.Schroeder’s ‘Introduction to Thermodynamics’ because it’s awesome and actually teaches you the material, unlike the lectures.
Also there’s a lot of overlap with the first half or so of MIT’s propulsion course which has an online textbook (some symbol conventions may vary)
I didn’t get a chance to read the thermodynamics sections of the Feynman Lectures on Physics but I wish I had. I’m trying to read them from start to finish though and thermodynamics is near the end of the first volume.

Classical: no need for a textbook if you spend the time with Melatos' notes, but they do assume a lot so maybe you'll wanna try the Feynman Lectures sections on Rotation and Principle of Least Action.
Melatos also recommends two classical physics texts, one by Landau and one by Goldstein, but they're quite terse mathematically and cover material at a depth beyond what's needed for this subject.

3x 1h lecture, 1x 1h tutorial, 1x 3h lab (every second week)

2015 Semester 1

One written assignment per module (5% each); One 30 minute mid-semester test covering Thermal Physics (5%); Six laboratory reports (total 20%); One 3 hour examination (65%) - N.B. Passing the practical component (>50%) of the course is a hurdle requirement, as is attending, and submitting a report for, at least 5 out of 6 practicals.

(General) The tutors are pretty good and are helpful - we had the same set of tutors for both modules. Like all subjects it is advisable to attend tutorials... The practicals are much more interesting than in first-year physics. Pray that you get amiable demonstrators, though, and also that the equipment works; otherwise your time in the lab will be hellish. Nevertheless you get to replicate famous experiments such as the measurement of the charge-mass ratio of the electron and the value of g.

(Thermal Physics) This module covers introductory classical thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. After recapping first-year thermodynamics, you learn about equipartition, heat, work, enthalpy and the first law. Then you go in the opposite direction, in a journey through the basics of statistical mechanics, culminating in the second law and (finally) definitions for entropy. You then bring the statistical picture and the thermodynamic picture together to get proper definitions for temperature, chemical potential etc. After using these to analyse the Carnot cycle, and heat engines in general (in greater detail than first-year), the module ends in a frenzied rush as the lecturer hurriedly discusses Gibbs and Helmholtz free energies, as well as phase transitions. Frankly, Thermal Physics is fairly easy if you buy the textbook, attend the lectures and self-study (if only a little). It takes up (by far the easier) half of the exam, and in 2012 it wasn't particularly testing. Finally, the lecturer was boring but effective, as were his notes.

(Classical Physics) This module is horrifyingly difficult. Abandon every notion you have of classical mechanics merely being applications of Newton's 2nd law of motion, because here overconfidence will certainly result in disaster. In fact the second law is somewhat of a rude word in this module as the module in fact serves as an extended introduction to Lagrangian mechanics, which is definitely much more sophisticated and elegant than the second law. After some comments on the principle of least action, the lecturer dives headlong into Lagrangian mechanics. Do not be intimidated by the maths, because memorising the Euler-Lagrange equation is enough. Then your notion of angular motion is shattered in his discussion of Euler angles and the moment of inertia tensor. This is about where most students' heads exploded... Finally, as per usual, the last section was rushed, which was a pity since it covered Hamiltonian mechanics which is perhaps even more important than the Lagrangian formulation. Don't worry though, the Hamiltonian formulation was not assessed. What can I say about the assignment? It was virtually impossible to do by yourself. The lecturer encourages you to collaborate, and in fact he doesn't really expect you to do spectacularly well because he is generous with marks. There is a point of enlightenment though that arrived for me in the last week of the semester, which did allow me to do fairly well in the exam. The (huge) saving grace of Classical Physics is that the lecturer, Andrew Melatos, is brilliant. His lecturing style is great, so much so that I do wish more lecturers were as concise and clear as he was. In addition his lecture notes were the best lecture notes I have encountered so far at university.

(Summary) Be prepared for trauma in Classical Physics, but after the lightbulb switches on this is a very, very good subject.

Yes, with screen capture. However, both lecturers (but particularly Andrew in Classical Physics) generally preferred to do their calculations on the whiteboard.

Thermal Physics - A/Prof. Martin Sevior. Classical Physics - A/Prof. Andrew Melatos.

Yes, from 2009 onwards. However for Thermal Physics, there are exams for 640-223 Quantum Mechanics and Thermal Physics from 1999 - 2008, and for Classical Physics there are exams for 640-234 Further Classical & Quantum Mechanics over the same period since these were the predecessors of the current course. N.B. Do not attempt the exams for the "Advanced" version of 640-223 unless you want a challenge - believe me, you won't!

5 Out of 5

D V Schroeder, An Introduction to Thermal Physics, Addison-Wesley Longman - very useful, do buy it.

There are a handful of suggested references for Classical Physics, chief among these being Goldstein's wonderful classic 'Classical Mechanics', but frankly none are needed. Consider buying Goldstein's tome for graduate study...

3 x 1 hour lectures per week; 1 x 1 hour problem-solving class per week; 6 x 3 hour practical classes per semester (every alternate week - one can schedule these to be in the same timeslot, but alternating with, those for PHYC20010)

Semester 1, 2013

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