Prof Brian Cox got a D in a-level maths!

People who don't want Maths/Physics dumbed down, people who care about the integrity of the subject and the integrity of those who study it. For those who don't want the subject tarnished for 'popularity' from the masses. A professor who gets a D in Maths A-Level is a tin-pot academic.

There's little more inherently fraudulent than people who aren't bright, flunked school because it was too hard, then started paying fees at 3rd rate institutions to become a 'professor'. Now he's got a TV show and interview; well at least he's played the system well, given his lack of talent.

The glory and so forth should be going to people with real talent and ability; not tin-pot academics like him. This doesn't just apply to him, but so called teachers, graduates, professors etc who can't hack pre-uni based questions/exams.

A lot of what I said isn't based on his flunked A-Level either, but what I've read about him, watched of him, his dumbed down TV shows, etc.

People who don't want Maths/Physics dumbed down, people who care about the integrity of the subject and the integrity of those who study it. For those who don't want the subject tarnished for 'popularity' from the masses. A professor who gets a D in Maths A-Level is a tin-pot academic.

There's little more inherently fraudulent than people who aren't bright, flunked school because it was too hard, then started paying fees at 3rd rate institutions to become a 'professor'. Now he's got a TV show and interview; well at least he's played the system well, given his lack of talent.

The glory and so forth should be going to people with real talent and ability; not tin-pot academics like him. This doesn't just apply to him, but so called teachers, graduates, professors etc who can't hack pre-uni based questions/exams.

A lot of what I said isn't based on his flunked A-Level either, but what I've read about him, watched of him, his dumbed down TV shows, etc.

You are too funny. A D back then is good.

Manchester Physics department is really good. Two professors where awarded the nobel prize for work on graphene that is likely to replace silicon in the future. Even without his TV show he would still be a good scientist.

You know everyone disagress with you? Pre uni Maths is crap indictation of any skill or intelligence.

His TV show isn't dumbed down. Just popular science that isn't that bad. Pretty sure he can't say look at this TISE and if you solve this you get the energy of electron in a steady state.

A D back then is not 'good'. If it's supposedly good, what are the A, B and C people up to these days? Even back in the day, clever students were expected to get As and keep afloat on the Special Papers. DFranklin is a similar enough age to him, and he would never even consider the thought of a D. And he wasn't that hard a worker either. DFranklin deserves a TV show etc far more than this guy.


I hope those professors managed to hack A-Level Maths before playing around with materials and then claiming prizes. Popular science is dumbed down science, that's exactly what it is. Maybe they should talk about TISE etc rather than keeping the masses happy. But it's about the money, never the education.

The BMO/IMO is a great indicator of skill and intelligence. Those who go to the IMO are the cleverest in the world. Nobody could do what they do.

Been pointed out many times in this thread. D back then is probably an A now

Not entirely true. As much as people love saying this statement, the syallabuses over the years cannot be compared. We're clearly learning different topics from those in the 80s and so on, therefore grades can't really be compared

Not true for Maths. You are learning the same thing, but Maths just got dumbed down so everything vaguely Mathematical is pushed into Further Maths.

Now if you want I can get some past papers. But, it's not the syallabuse that has changed as Maths you are taught in A levels is still hundreds of years old, it's just that it's been dumbed down.

What makes him better than any other physics professor, other than the fact that he's also a TV presenter, which has no bearing on his ability to do physics? I'm not saying he isn't, I'm just curious as to why the public hold him in such high regard when, as far as I know, he hasn't actually contributed major to physics (other than publicising it).

People who don't want Maths/Physics dumbed down, people who care about the integrity of the subject and the integrity of those who study it. For those who don't want the subject tarnished for 'popularity' from the masses. A professor who gets a D in Maths A-Level is a tin-pot academic.

There's little more inherently fraudulent than people who aren't bright, flunked school because it was too hard, then started paying fees at 3rd rate institutions to become a 'professor'. Now he's got a TV show and interview; well at least he's played the system well, given his lack of talent.

The glory and so forth should be going to people with real talent and ability; not tin-pot academics like him. This doesn't just apply to him, but so called teachers, graduates, professors etc who can't hack pre-uni based questions/exams.

A lot of what I said isn't based on his flunked A-Level either, but what I've read about him, watched of him, his dumbed down TV shows, etc.

I did A levels in 1990, there were no modules then and everything was on about four exams (per A-level) at the end of the two years. There were no resits either!

Still got four As though Although that said, it was unusual then and got me in the local papers.

''Brian Edward Cox, OBE (born 3 March 1968) is a British particle physicist, a Royal Society University Research Fellow and a professor at the University of Manchester. He is a member of the High Energy Physics group at the University of Manchester, and works on the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland. He is also working on the R&D project of the FP420 experiment in an international collaboration to upgrade the ATLAS and the CMS experiment by installing additional, smaller detectors at a distance of 420 metres (1,380 ft) from the interaction points of the main experiments.[1]''

from wikipedia

People who don't want Maths/Physics dumbed down, people who care about the integrity of the subject and the integrity of those who study it. For those who don't want the subject tarnished for 'popularity' from the masses. A professor who gets a D in Maths A-Level is a tin-pot academic.

There's little more inherently fraudulent than people who aren't bright, flunked school because it was too hard, then started paying fees at 3rd rate institutions to become a 'professor'. Now he's got a TV show and interview; well at least he's played the system well, given his lack of talent.

The glory and so forth should be going to people with real talent and ability; not tin-pot academics like him. This doesn't just apply to him, but so called teachers, graduates, professors etc who can't hack pre-uni based questions/exams.

A lot of what I said isn't based on his flunked A-Level either, but what I've read about him, watched of him, his dumbed down TV shows, etc.

So rather than judge him on his body of research work in particle physics you want to judge him on his A-level maths grade? You expect people to take you seriously?

Sounds like a lot of old men patting him on the back, giving him 'prizes' and playing around with cool toys and materials. He got a D in A-Level Maths; lets be real here. He's lucky to have had the opportunity to travel to CERN, be in these projects and so forth, but I'm not going to be fooled into thinking he's clever.

Give him an IMO/IPO paper, or even a BMO/BPO paper, then we'll see.

I left school at 15 with no Alevels/highers and terrible GCSEs. And I have a law degree at one of the best unis for the subject in Britain.

Teachers really need to stop putting the fear of god into people, it just makes people crash under the pressure.

Seriously, don't bother. You are getting trolled. PE is the best troll I know on this forum. According to him, Uni Maths is useless and that STEP is the best measure of Mathematical ability.

So rather than judge him on his body of research work in particle physics you want to judge him on his A-level maths grade? You expect people to take you seriously?