PHYC20012: Quantum and Thermal Physics

3 assignments worth 10% each and a final exam 70%.

This subject used to be called “Thermal and Classical Physics” however since 2016, it has had a whole quantum section added in conjunction with the previous thermal and classical components. This is a jam-packed subject and please be cautious taking this with other heavy science electives.

The first half of the course in my opinion is what let down this subject. David takes the thermal/classical component and the lecture slides are hard to read and follow along sometimes, especially for the classical section where there is a lot of maths. The first six weeks are the most intensive as there is a lot of new content that needs to be absorbed and many lectures slides to fish through. Tutorials are good and are where you learn how to apply concepts from the lectures. The textbook is essential as David’s notes can get quite messy the further the course goes in and there are recommended problems from the textbook you need to go through. The content is interesting but could be presented much better.

The quantum section which is the second half of the course is an absolute miracle. Jeff is lovely, and his teaching quality is excellent. He even visits the tutorial classes to help and even the second-year physics labs! His lecture notes are presented very clearly (just as clear if not clearer than maths lecture notes) and each week he has a 2-page summary of what was covered and what we need to know for the exam. He also has problem sheets for this half of the course and the tutorial sheets are of a higher quality and contain more relevant questions to the content. There is no need to use a textbook for this half of the course as Jeff’s teaching and provided material is sufficient.

There are 3 assignments that you have a month to complete and they can get quite hard. You NEED to put a lot of effort into these assignments as the questions you get are similar in quality to the exam and this is where you learn to do the application in the subject. You need to undertake your own research to answer some of these questions and they get quite tricky. Do not leave this till the last minute. The average mark for the first two assignments (from the people that submitted) was 68.8% and 65.8% to give you an idea. Provided you start early, explain every assumption you make and work hard, these can be easy marks to grab. For the assignments, I averaged around 97% so definitely possible to do well provided you think about and justify everything you write with either proofs or research evidence. Write your assignments in latex to make them easier to read for the marker. Tutorial-wise, Fred is the best tutor so get into his tutes!!

Exams are about the same quality each year, and this was no different. This year's exam did look intimidating at the start at first glance, however, once you got into it, it was about the same. There are no answers to past exams so you need some quality friends to go through exam answers with you, this is how you will learn. This subject will become extremely hard if you don’t have your own friend group in physics to discuss answers with so, please make some friends at the start of the semester!

TLDR; Quantum section carries this subject but the lecture notes for thermal and classical let it down. If you pick this subject, please be careful about the time commitments because it's definitely a lot more than you think.

Science: School of Physics

Yes, with screen capture

David Jamieson and Jeffrey Mccallum

6 past exams with no answers

4 Out of 5

The recommended textbook for the thermal part of the course “D V Schroeder, An Introduction to Thermal Physics” you must absolutely get. For the classical, I recommend David Morin’s Introduction to Classical Mechanics, however, do be cautious as this requires a strong foundation in maths and is more for Theoretical Physics 2. In the quantum part of the course you don’t need anything as the lecture notes are sufficient.

3 one-hour lectures + one tutorial every week

2022 Semester 1

H1