Physics major but I don’t think she has what it takes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP. I would keep a little context in mind. High school physics teachers may vary widely in quality. I would not let a high school experience dissuade a student from trying a subject in college.

True but college professors also vary a lot in quality especially when it comes to teaching

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did she take AP Physics 1 in 9th grade? That class is a non-calculus based class so in a way for some students it ends up being harder than a calculus based physics class. Knowing calculus can make visualizing physics problems easier.

If you can't understand basic physics without calculus, you aren't understanding physics. Physics is more than math.

This is the half truth. Math helps make physics digestible and really clearly demonstrates complex ideas into forms that work with your intuition.

For example, you can qualitatively describe Schrödingers equation all day, but if you don’t actually know what an eigenvalue, commutator, an operator, or hermitian space is…you really can’t use any of this knowledge, nor can you build up your interpretation of quantum mechanics- which isn’t intuitive, at all.

Physics is an abstraction of mathematics. Many physics problems are inherently examples of mathematics used in a certain physical space. For many people the physics is only explained with the math.

I imagine plenty of born physicists might have been turned off on the field upon being thrown the SUVAT equations to memorize before even seeing a velocity-time diagram.

I know many physicists who believe introductory physics is harder to learn without calculus.

Because it is ridiculous to create a course where students essentially have to run purely off their physical intuition, because you aren't giving them the tools (mathematics) that drives that intuition. Calculus is such an important tool for physics that Physics 1 basically tests a very narrow set of what physics looks like,

Out 9th grade physics teacher taught us to derive the SUVAT equations from velocity time diagrams. Basically we did calculus on piecewise linear functions without knowing it, and it made the physics very intuitive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did she take AP Physics 1 in 9th grade? That class is a non-calculus based class so in a way for some students it ends up being harder than a calculus based physics class. Knowing calculus can make visualizing physics problems easier.

If you can't understand basic physics without calculus, you aren't understanding physics. Physics is more than math.

Sorry that is the biggest bunch of BS. How do you understand the relationship between position/velocity/acceleration without calculus? If you are taught this as equations you need to memorize, that really isn’t physics. Physics isn’t just math. But understanding physics absolutely involves math. Your understanding otherwise is very superficial.

You can explain the kinematic equations graphically without using calculus

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did she take AP Physics 1 in 9th grade? That class is a non-calculus based class so in a way for some students it ends up being harder than a calculus based physics class. Knowing calculus can make visualizing physics problems easier.

If you can't understand basic physics without calculus, you aren't understanding physics. Physics is more than math.

This is the half truth. Math helps make physics digestible and really clearly demonstrates complex ideas into forms that work with your intuition.

For example, you can qualitatively describe Schrödingers equation all day, but if you don’t actually know what an eigenvalue, commutator, an operator, or hermitian space is…you really can’t use any of this knowledge, nor can you build up your interpretation of quantum mechanics- which isn’t intuitive, at all.

Physics is an abstraction of mathematics. Many physics problems are inherently examples of mathematics used in a certain physical space. For many people the physics is only explained with the math.

I imagine plenty of born physicists might have been turned off on the field upon being thrown the SUVAT equations to memorize before even seeing a velocity-time diagram.

I know many physicists who believe introductory physics is harder to learn without calculus.

Because it is ridiculous to create a course where students essentially have to run purely off their physical intuition, because you aren't giving them the tools (mathematics) that drives that intuition. Calculus is such an important tool for physics that Physics 1 basically tests a very narrow set of what physics looks like,

Out 9th grade physics teacher taught us to derive the SUVAT equations from velocity time diagrams. Basically we did calculus on piecewise linear functions without knowing it, and it made the physics very intuitive.

It just makes more sense to use calculus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did she take AP Physics 1 in 9th grade? That class is a non-calculus based class so in a way for some students it ends up being harder than a calculus based physics class. Knowing calculus can make visualizing physics problems easier.

If you can't understand basic physics without calculus, you aren't understanding physics. Physics is more than math.

This is the half truth. Math helps make physics digestible and really clearly demonstrates complex ideas into forms that work with your intuition.

For example, you can qualitatively describe Schrödingers equation all day, but if you don’t actually know what an eigenvalue, commutator, an operator, or hermitian space is…you really can’t use any of this knowledge, nor can you build up your interpretation of quantum mechanics- which isn’t intuitive, at all.

Physics is an abstraction of mathematics. Many physics problems are inherently examples of mathematics used in a certain physical space. For many people the physics is only explained with the math.

I imagine plenty of born physicists might have been turned off on the field upon being thrown the SUVAT equations to memorize before even seeing a velocity-time diagram.

I know many physicists who believe introductory physics is harder to learn without calculus.

+100 My son did a lot of tutoring for AP Physics when he was in high school. He said he would have been lost if he hadn’t taken Calculus prior to the class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did she take AP Physics 1 in 9th grade? That class is a non-calculus based class so in a way for some students it ends up being harder than a calculus based physics class. Knowing calculus can make visualizing physics problems easier.

If you can't understand basic physics without calculus, you aren't understanding physics. Physics is more than math.

Sorry that is the biggest bunch of BS. How do you understand the relationship between position/velocity/acceleration without calculus? If you are taught this as equations you need to memorize, that really isn’t physics. Physics isn’t just math. But understanding physics absolutely involves math. Your understanding otherwise is very superficial.

It is not bs for intro level physics. Many students who are good at math use it as a crutch for physics even though their conceptual understanding may be limited

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did she take AP Physics 1 in 9th grade? That class is a non-calculus based class so in a way for some students it ends up being harder than a calculus based physics class. Knowing calculus can make visualizing physics problems easier.

If you can't understand basic physics without calculus, you aren't understanding physics. Physics is more than math.

Sorry that is the biggest bunch of BS. How do you understand the relationship between position/velocity/acceleration without calculus? If you are taught this as equations you need to memorize, that really isn’t physics. Physics isn’t just math. But understanding physics absolutely involves math. Your understanding otherwise is very superficial.

It is not bs for intro level physics. Many students who are good at math use it as a crutch for physics even though their conceptual understanding may be limited

I don’t see why you need to remove calculus out of it though. It is not a crutch to be good at math- it’s actually pretty damned important if you want to do any physics beyond intro mechanics and e&m.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did she take AP Physics 1 in 9th grade? That class is a non-calculus based class so in a way for some students it ends up being harder than a calculus based physics class. Knowing calculus can make visualizing physics problems easier.

If you can't understand basic physics without calculus, you aren't understanding physics. Physics is more than math.

Sorry that is the biggest bunch of BS. How do you understand the relationship between position/velocity/acceleration without calculus? If you are taught this as equations you need to memorize, that really isn’t physics. Physics isn’t just math. But understanding physics absolutely involves math. Your understanding otherwise is very superficial.

You can explain the kinematic equations graphically without using calculus

And to do calculations on those graphs, you need, drumroll, calculus. Why the heck do you think Newton had to invent calculus?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did she take AP Physics 1 in 9th grade? That class is a non-calculus based class so in a way for some students it ends up being harder than a calculus based physics class. Knowing calculus can make visualizing physics problems easier.

If you can't understand basic physics without calculus, you aren't understanding physics. Physics is more than math.

Sorry that is the biggest bunch of BS. How do you understand the relationship between position/velocity/acceleration without calculus? If you are taught this as equations you need to memorize, that really isn’t physics. Physics isn’t just math. But understanding physics absolutely involves math. Your understanding otherwise is very superficial.

It is not bs for intro level physics. Many students who are good at math use it as a crutch for physics even though their conceptual understanding may be limited

It is totally BS to say that if you can’t understand basic physics without calculus, you don’t understand physics concepts Many many people need to use calculus to really understand how things are connected.

[Anonymous]

get some tutors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about Harvey Mudd for physics?

? Not with those grades in physics. Are you serious?

Why? Is physics at Harvey Mudd more demanding than UMD/UVA?

Look at the acceptance rate. And that's despite the selection bias of it being a much more niche school than T20s

But UMD ranks very high in Physics.

[Anonymous]

Here again to say- maybe steer your kid to a college with good undergraduate teaching, OP. It doesn’t have to be the highest ranked or whatever- as long as the teachers take an interest in your child. Then they’ll know whether they want to pursue it, and have a good foundation for graduate school. Don’t dissuade them from pursuing it- high school science is so variable. Let her give it a chance in college!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here again to say- maybe steer your kid to a college with good undergraduate teaching, OP. It doesn’t have to be the highest ranked or whatever- as long as the teachers take an interest in your child. Then they’ll know whether they want to pursue it, and have a good foundation for graduate school. Don’t dissuade them from pursuing it- high school science is so variable. Let her give it a chance in college!!

This sounds good but if OP's kid gets a couple of Ds or Fs, good luck recovering that GPA in college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here again to say- maybe steer your kid to a college with good undergraduate teaching, OP. It doesn’t have to be the highest ranked or whatever- as long as the teachers take an interest in your child. Then they’ll know whether they want to pursue it, and have a good foundation for graduate school. Don’t dissuade them from pursuing it- high school science is so variable. Let her give it a chance in college!!

This sounds good but if OP's kid gets a couple of Ds or Fs, good luck recovering that GPA in college.

Colleges give you a lot of time for add/drop- if it turns out horrendous, drop it and go on to the next thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did she take AP Physics 1 in 9th grade? That class is a non-calculus based class so in a way for some students it ends up being harder than a calculus based physics class. Knowing calculus can make visualizing physics problems easier.

If you can't understand basic physics without calculus, you aren't understanding physics. Physics is more than math.

Sorry that is the biggest bunch of BS. How do you understand the relationship between position/velocity/acceleration without calculus? If you are taught this as equations you need to memorize, that really isn’t physics. Physics isn’t just math. But understanding physics absolutely involves math. Your understanding otherwise is very superficial.

You can explain the kinematic equations graphically without using calculus

And to do calculations on those graphs, you need, drumroll, calculus. Why the heck do you think Newton had to invent calculus?

You don't need calculus for piecewise linear functions. All the calculations on the AP physics 1 and 2 exams can be done without calculus. But learning it the "calculus way" (displacement is area under the velocity-time curve, etc) is very helpful and makes the subject intuitive, even if a student hasn't yet learned about limits or the power rule.