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

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

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

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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. [/quote]

If you can't understand basic physics without calculus, you aren't understanding physics. Physics is more than math. [/quote]
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.[/quote]
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.[/quote]
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,[/quote]
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.[/quote]
It just makes more sense to use calculus.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics