The Student Room Group

Additional Further Maths Discussion Thread

Scroll to see replies

Reply 40
Man I think I should have picked this instead of computer science, didn't even knew such a subject existed, my friend who I thought was a troll said he was doing Maths, Further Maths, AFM and AAFM (Additional additional Further maths) lol. I think I might want to do S3 and S4 next year as it applies to me more than rubbish mechanics which I don't ever see myself doing in my life.
Original post by Dilzo999
Man I think I should have picked this instead of computer science, didn't even knew such a subject existed, my friend who I thought was a troll said he was doing Maths, Further Maths, AFM and AAFM (Additional additional Further maths) lol. I think I might want to do S3 and S4 next year as it applies to me more than rubbish mechanics which I don't ever see myself doing in my life.


S1-4, M1-5, C1-4, D1-2, FP1-3, thats 18 units and 6 is one Alevel. Wtf is AAFM...?

Posted from TSR Mobile
Reply 42
Original post by cooldudeman
S1-4, M1-5, C1-4, D1-2, FP1-3, thats 18 units and 6 is one Alevel. Wtf is AAFM...?

Posted from TSR Mobile

Lol he was trolling XD.
Original post by cooldudeman
If you apply for maths at Cambridge, you wont get an interview. You need like 95+ in all the units. And Oxford is mainly about the admission exam.

Posted from TSR Mobile


lol, no.
Reply 44
Original post by JerzyDudek
Well that's my fault that I didn't actually look into this A-level system. When I had to pick subjects, I just picked the ones that I was interested in (tbh I wouldn't mind doing 4 maths a day or 3 + 1 physics) and didn't even know whet these FM and AFM are :smile: However I can also say that I developed maths skills quite early, maybe due to good teaching in my home country. My teacher used to say that I've got a talent cause in around Year 7 I used to create some "theorems" like that of adding 2 fractions :biggrin:

Also I've never seen anything on Cambridge asking for FM in Year 12, otherwise I would teach it myself. Also it's weird that my school decided to do normal maths in Year 12 and then FM in Year 13, usually it goes mixed as far as I'm aware. Also why did you put money in bold? Do I have to be greedy? :smile:

I quite agree with you on the last paragraph. People often don't understand me and my appreciation of maths, although I have to admit it makes feel sort of special because they can't see the beauty that I can.

Thanks again for great reply. So yeah, are you going to stay in academia after uni?

Where are you from and have you only recently moved to the UK? :smile:

Sounds like a good sign for creativity. It won't even occur to most kids to generalise results and I think that's where the talent lies rather than just the ability to do it :smile:

I used to generalise everything I found to save time. Annoyingly though, even when I showed the teachers I had reduced loads of things to algebraic formulae (hence reducing months work of work to simply punching in numbers) they just ignored me and got me to punch in numbers. Then months letter we'd get to a new topic and the cycle repeats! I also saw really quickly the importance of proof! Like, when we were given this massive list of "Circle Theorems", I remember managing to prove them all in the course of the lesson, remarking that most of them were the same! The worst part is that when a random kid in a random maths class says he hates doing maths and wants different work, society is programmed to ignore them because it has become a social stereotype! It's generally accepted that everyone hates maths and that anyone who says otherwise is a geek and so is interested in things that others find boring. The problem is that, by the time people are free of that kind of education, the ones who have actually discovered that is it fun are doing things too advanced for everyone else to understand and so it becomes something that isn't socially acceptable to talk about... which sucks!

If you stopped a random person in the street and asked them about black holes, magnetism, evolution, etc.. (assuming they don't just think you're a nutter) a large proportion of people will know the key principle and readily engage with you in a conversation that will lead to one or both of you learning something knew and being enriched. If you stopped someone in the street and asked them what the Riemann Hypothesis is or even what differentiation is... or even a bloody quadratic equation, a very very small proportion of people would know and, the worst part is, they would literally not give a ****!

Oh right, if that's how your school does it then that would be perfectly acceptance :tongue: No, I was just suggesting that, if you're going to pursue a maths degree with money in mind then I'd imagine you would be unlikely to motivate yourself to commit enough time to it to succeed at somewhere like Cambridge. But, by the sounds of things, it sounds like you are beginning to get motivated :smile:

My pleasure. Well, I am certainly considering it. The drawbacks are that it means pretty much giving up your life in pursuit of knowledge, or at least until you get a stable career as a professor or whatever and the other is that it's stupidly competitive and I would have no idea how I compare to other people seeking an academic career! I suppose all I want to do is explore ideas and share ideas. If an option arises that would enables me to do this in the best possible way, I will take it in an instant :biggrin: I suppose the epitome of sharing ideas is lecturing and of exploring them is research so that certainly seems a good enough goal to set myself for the time being!

How about you? What things have you vaguely got in mind? :smile:
Original post by DJMayes
Replies in bold. Independently of the level of rigour of the course I would still recommend Additional Further to prospective Maths students. It's enjoyable (Most important and only necessary reason), a good way to test independent study, gives a broader flavour of Maths (As you have to branch out and try a lot of Mechanics/Stats/Decision), shows a strong commitment/passion for Maths and is more relevant to a Maths course than any other A Level past the first two Maths A Levels.

Hmm, you raise a very good point. I suppose I overlooked this because I had already developed the same independent studying habits/skills that doing it would have taught me.

Well, as I have already done FP3, I would not think it gives a broader flavour of maths. Rather it forces you into the narrow corridors extending out from the other modules. Where's the number theory, set theory, group theory (in Edexcel) and, most importantly, formation of arguments (to name just a few examples from pure maths)?

The two exam boards that offer it are Edexcel and OCR MEI. Edexcel vs AQA is an argument that could be made both ways but MEI is broadly considered to be a better and more challenging board than either.


This is not a random obscure fact, and you should actually have come across it before, such as when proving the product rule for differentiation.

You prove the product rule by taking e to the power of the natural logarithm of the product of n distinct functions and then split them up and then use the standard technique? :tongue:

Well if it is so simple and obvious then why is it that, you can have it with partial differentiation? Surely this proves some thought is needed :P

You are cherry picking topics here. For example, using integration to find moments of inertia in M5 has helped me to appreciate integration as the limit of a sum a lot more, and so yes, it has helped mathematical thinking.

Well yes, learning that is very useful, but it is taught in M3 and is the hardest part of it. My M3 exam required a derivation of centre of mass using limits!

The only things in Stats which I'm not 100% comfortable with are the derivations of the distributions (Apart from Poisson, I know that one) which I understand is potentially too difficult/time consuming to stick into an A level course for the typical student. It should also be said that S3 and S4 are not the modules that I took the course for, but I have enjoyed them.

Well surely that is a very good reason for not teaching the distributions at this stage. I would rather see combinatorics continue past S1 and would rather see neat tricks like the one from that STEP question you posted the other day with the "maximum" value thing (which I used to derive something that was given in one of the example in the S4, so cheers!) and stuff like transforming distributions to compare them to the normal distribution (i.e. evaluating e^-ax^2 integrals and the like).

Too much on sampling definitions etc.. in S3 for me to enjoy them that much :lol:

I spend a lot more time on the subject than that (Spent a week each doing all the questions in the M5/S3/S4 textbooks, and that felt fairly short) and do a couple of papers for each every week and I do not regret it. In addition, you can do AFM alongside, and not instead of, the other Maths you're talking about. I do a good amount of work for AFM and still have had time to do tons of STEP work.

Sounds like way too much though I'm sure I would do something like that if I didn't have English and Spanish classes to go to (even though I pretty much dropped out a month ago!) You've got way too much time on your hands bro! Though kudos for being motivated/passionate :smile:

No, AFM is not as challenging as some extension materials you can do, but that is because at the end of the day it as an A Level and not an extension upon A Level, like what you're probably thinking of (STEP, AEA).

Yes but surely it should be an extension (or at least a few modules should be) seen as very few students do all 18!

As stated above, M5 has already got me to consider more thoroughly the basic principles of differentiation and integration, and so this is an immediate "mathematical" gain. However, I feel that you're missing the most important point, which is simply that Additional Further Maths is a hell of a lot of fun. I've enjoyed every bit of it (FP3, M3, M4, M5, S3 and S4 are the modules I've gained from AFM) and, independently of what qualification I get or how much stronger it has made me mathematically, the fact that I've enjoyed it means it's already paid for itself.

Fair enough :smile: To be fair, with that combination, I'm sure I would be more motivated! M3, M4, M5 and FP3 are pretty decent and, although S3 is a turd, I'm started to realise S4 isn't too bad! :smile:

Firstly, there is such a thing as reading outside the confines of the syllabus. Secondly, I do not see how this makes AFM any less of an A Level than any other, as none have any emphasis on proof.

Anyone would provided they spent 5 minutes looking at their syllabus past the textbook. I agree that perhaps some of the derivations given aren't sufficiently rigorous but I'm comfortable that the key content is correct.

Well I do not believe that! Of course we can deduce that the topics are correct because, if they weren't, they would have been noticed by the professionals. But in order to check something is valid, you must see the derivations etc.. and the problem is the worst in the statistics and decision modules in my opinion. If someone changed a since page of one of your 18 a-level textbooks with something that was incorrect, we would not notice it. They could easily tells us about a distribution denoted by any random letter of the alphabet that they have made up and we would use it unconditionally!

Debatable. AFM is a very niche qualification but it's good to specific courses (Maths, maybe Physics and Engineering).

You have misunderstood! I meant that both AFM and critical thinking are not highly regarded in terse of university entry (not as subjects themselves)!

Are you high?

:sexface:

There is a monumental difference between the likes of FP3 and M5 in terms of difficulty. Whilst it might be less apparent to someone who has not struggled with the modules it is still there.


Hmm... difficulty is an incredibly abstract concept... :tongue:
Original post by rfs127
you guyss.. please help me.
I did AS level edexcel maths c1, c2 and s1.
next year, i'll do A level: c3, c4 and s2.

plus im also taking further maths AS and A level in one year. but i'm not sure what other units i should do (other than stated above). i need you guys to recommend me. since i don't take physics im not sure i can take m1 or m2. here's what im thinking:

AS further maths: fp1, D1, D2 A level further maths: fp2, s3, s4. are s3, s4 and d2 hard ? compare to mechanics ? please suggest :smile: bigg thankss :smile:

Well M1 and M3 (though not M2) are almost identical in content to one of each of the AS and A2 physics modules respectively (though it's easy to think they are different at a glance but, when you realise how diverse mechanics is, you will realise they are teaching the same content) :smile:

I would recommend getting a diverse grounding in maths regardless of what area you go in to.

S3 would be useful for social-science-type things where you need to know about sampling. S4 is as useless as an IQ test (unless you're going to be a statistician and want to pre-memorise topics before understanding them it is essentially an exercise in learning for the sake of assessment!) D2 is similar though Game Theory is an extremely useful concept :smile:

FP3 is very interesting and will give you a head up on the kind of content that will be involved in the first year of any undergraduate maths course that involved a pure aspect.

The way I see it, your sensible options are as follows:

AS: (FP1), (M1), (D1). A2: (FP2), (FP3 or M2), (D2 or S3). :smile:
Original post by cooldudeman
If you apply for maths at Cambridge, you wont get an interview. You need like 95+ in all the units. And Oxford is mainly about the admission exam.

Utter nonsense. What on earth has led you to believe that? :s

Perhaps you have got the 95 from the fact that Cambridge offer 95% of mathematics applicants? :lol: (which is basically everyone!)

And, for Oxford, if you didn't have 95 and then got full marks in the admissions exam you wouldn't get an interview? Good logic :lol:

Though perhaps you are a victim of the belief that a-level marks accurately reflect intellectual ability. Would a 95UMS student be better than that of a 90UMS student? The answer is going to be around 55% of the time... if that!

As you seem to know enough about Oxbridge mathematics to discourage applicants, I'm sure you won't need dive into your S1 book to interpret the fact that the Spearman's rank correlation co-efficient for a-level success and university success in mathematics is estimated to be around 0.3/0.4. Correlating with GCSE results would drop this to almost 0. As a comparison, the subject-wide average is estimated to be around 0.7/0.8. STEP is over 0.8 (and interview performance would have a high correlation as well I'd imagine) so clearly the universities aren't going to benefit form risking turning away who might potentially be some of the students with the best potential.

My GCSEs are far below that of the average mathematics applicant and I certainly had a good chunk of my module score below 95UMS and yet my STEP mock results would put me in the top 1-15% of offer holders (allowing for a large variance). Should Cambridge have not given me an interview? :lol:
Original post by Jkn


My GCSEs are far below that of the average mathematics applicant and I certainly had a good chunk of my module score below 95UMS and yet my STEP mock results would put me in the top 1-15% of offer holders (allowing for a large variance). Should Cambridge have not given me an interview? :lol:


Really? From what I have read on tsr it seened to be like that. Guess not then. And I know, for Oxford, its mainly about the admission exam so they don't look at ums at all. Im an Oxford reject lol.

Btw just looked at your profile, you're doing like 6 alevels... wtf. How do you get time to do anything else but study.
Posted from TSR Mobile
(edited 10 years ago)
Original post by Jkn
Good lad! Done any past papers for S3/M4 yet?

Re-sitting?! Dangerous... :| Oh wait, you're coming to the end of a gap year aren't you... :rolleyes:

Mmhmm, did them last june! Not great :lol:

I really enjoyed them and so did all the past papers in each and out of the 20 or so mocks share amongst the two I must've dropped only 2 or 3 marks! :tongue: Ended up with 87 on FP2 and 85 on FP3 (as well as a lucky save from my 100 in M3 :lol:) I was quite stressed last june though, I had something like 15 exams and they were all crammed in to a really tight period.

On top of this I still had to attend all my other AS classes and so didn't get any study leave, which probably didn't help... :tongue: Have you already tried June 2012 as mocks? I'm sure you'd get full marks. My error on FP3 was due to an arithmetic error on an incredibly trivial vectors question right at the start :facepalm: which must've filtered through the entire question and something similar on FP2! Much of the problem was that my writing is/was fairly illegible and so I would read my own writing incorrectly and 0s would turn into 6s and cotangents would turn into cosines :facepalm:


No I haven't started on past papers yet. How many papers are there in total for FP2,FP3,S3 and M4? I can only find 4 papers for each, from 2009-2012. Where can I find the solomon papers? I'm worried 4 papers won't be sufficient preparation :/

Last June my timetable was crazy. I had 13 exams lol! Thankfully this year I don't have that many, and none of them matter any more, in terms of meeting my offer. I feel sorry for you peeps who have a lot at stake with these exams :tongue:

Btw, can we use this thread to ask for help with AFM questions we get stuck on? :lol:
(edited 10 years ago)
Original post by Jkn
Where are you from and have you only recently moved to the UK? :smile:

Sounds like a good sign for creativity. It won't even occur to most kids to generalise results and I think that's where the talent lies rather than just the ability to do it :smile:

I used to generalise everything I found to save time. Annoyingly though, even when I showed the teachers I had reduced loads of things to algebraic formulae (hence reducing months work of work to simply punching in numbers) they just ignored me and got me to punch in numbers. Then months letter we'd get to a new topic and the cycle repeats! I also saw really quickly the importance of proof! Like, when we were given this massive list of "Circle Theorems", I remember managing to prove them all in the course of the lesson, remarking that most of them were the same! The worst part is that when a random kid in a random maths class says he hates doing maths and wants different work, society is programmed to ignore them because it has become a social stereotype! It's generally accepted that everyone hates maths and that anyone who says otherwise is a geek and so is interested in things that others find boring. The problem is that, by the time people are free of that kind of education, the ones who have actually discovered that is it fun are doing things too advanced for everyone else to understand and so it becomes something that isn't socially acceptable to talk about... which sucks!

If you stopped a random person in the street and asked them about black holes, magnetism, evolution, etc.. (assuming they don't just think you're a nutter) a large proportion of people will know the key principle and readily engage with you in a conversation that will lead to one or both of you learning something knew and being enriched. If you stopped someone in the street and asked them what the Riemann Hypothesis is or even what differentiation is... or even a bloody quadratic equation, a very very small proportion of people would know and, the worst part is, they would literally not give a ****!

Oh right, if that's how your school does it then that would be perfectly acceptance :tongue: No, I was just suggesting that, if you're going to pursue a maths degree with money in mind then I'd imagine you would be unlikely to motivate yourself to commit enough time to it to succeed at somewhere like Cambridge. But, by the sounds of things, it sounds like you are beginning to get motivated :smile:

My pleasure. Well, I am certainly considering it. The drawbacks are that it means pretty much giving up your life in pursuit of knowledge, or at least until you get a stable career as a professor or whatever and the other is that it's stupidly competitive and I would have no idea how I compare to other people seeking an academic career! I suppose all I want to do is explore ideas and share ideas. If an option arises that would enables me to do this in the best possible way, I will take it in an instant :biggrin: I suppose the epitome of sharing ideas is lecturing and of exploring them is research so that certainly seems a good enough goal to set myself for the time being!

How about you? What things have you vaguely got in mind? :smile:



I'm from Ukraine. Moved only 3 years ago (and started doing GCSE).

When I talked about money, I meant they do not matter to me and the most important thing is to do what you like.

I fully understand you there. Sometimes things I discover for the first time just blow my mind, like the formula for a number in the Pascal's triangle (or binomial coefficient). Or even suvat equations. You only need 2 to get all 5. Also when I noticed that acceleration is a derivative of velocity (which is a derivative of displacement) I was quite excited. When the teacher decided to tell us that later, very few appreciated it.

As I've said, I'm still not 100% sure. Maths is my main passion but I'm very keen on physics and technology too so I'll have to make a hard choice.
Original post by Dilzo999
You people are crazy, I can barely do M1 without crying my eyes out XD.


What im thinking while readig this thread , i spend ages on M1 trying to undestand some tricky questions and concepts because im no good.

How many hours do people spend if their doing all these higher level modules !?! And doing past papers for each must be a killer
Original post by strikerextreme
What im thinking while readig this thread , i spend ages on M1 trying to undestand some tricky questions and concepts because im no good.

How many hours do people spend if their doing all these higher level modules !?! And doing past papers for each must be a killer


Well, AFM is three A Levels worth of work so that's the amount of time it would be recommended for people to spend. However, it's worth noting that a lot of people doing all 18 modules by now will have accumulated enough UMS points in order to be able to let some of the modules slide. For example, I technically do not need above 50 UMS in M4 or M5 to be able to come out with an A* in Additional Further and so could allow these modules to slide a bit if I wanted to.
Reply 50
Original post by Mastermind2
No I haven't started on past papers yet. How many papers are there in total for FP2,FP3,S3 and M4? I can only find 4 papers for each, from 2009-2012. Where can I find the solomon papers? I'm worried 4 papers won't be sufficient preparation :/

Last June my timetable was crazy. I had 13 exams lol! Thankfully this year I don't have that many, and none of them matter any more, in terms of meeting my offer. I feel sorry for you peeps who have a lot at stake with these exams :tongue:

Btw, can we use this thread to ask for help with AFM questions we get stuck on? :lol:

Well that makes me feel better at least :biggrin: I'm just starting! I'm not sure they will either, but I don't really have the time to do loads :/ www.freeexampapers.com :smile:

Well, I haven't got a lot riding on my a-levels but if you're referring to STEP then I definitely agree that I have a lot at stake :lol:

Yes! That's the idea :biggrin: Go for it! I learn well by having to explain things to other people (forces me to think deeply) and, if I can't answer, DJ Mayes will swoop in like a hawk and we'll both benefit :tongue:

In terms of the modules I've already done though I'm sure I would have no problems answering questions so don't hesitate whatever :tongue:
Original post by JerzyDudek
I'm from Ukraine. Moved only 3 years ago (and started doing GCSE).

When I talked about money, I meant theyit* dodoes* not matter to me and the most important thing is to do what you like.

I fully understand you there. Sometimes things I discover for the first time just blow my mind, like the formula for a number in the Pascal's triangle (or binomial coefficient). Or even suvat equations. You only need 2 to get all 5. Also when I noticed that acceleration is a derivative of velocity (which is a derivative of displacement) I was quite excited. When the teacher decided to tell us that later, very few appreciated it.

As I've said, I'm still not 100% sure. Maths is my main passion but I'm very keen on physics and technology too so I'll have to make a hard choice.

Oh wow, awesome! Your English is great considering you've come from so far away and have only lived here 3 years! :biggrin:

Oh right, I must've misunderstood you, yes I certainly agree! A very good view to have!

Funny you should say that, I came across pascal's Triangle in year 8/9 and I remember getting obsessed with it and coming up with shortcuts to calculate the numbers! Like looking at different patterns that arose when drawing a straight line form the tip downwards (though I wasn't too sure why the patterns were there and was in no position to rigorously prove me findings!) I found loads of links with it to other things though like expanding brackets (though I didn't realise at first that it worked when you got to really high powers because I was unsure given the fact it was hard to verify) and noticed the link with powers of 11 :biggrin:

Well you don't really need two, you can deduce them immediately from their calculus definitions I do believe :smile: and yeah, I never realised that until I did M2/M3 (which was when I really started to understand calculus outside of the context of the differentiation algorithms we are taught).

Well Physics is basically maths! I'm still undecided about which to chose myself so you're certainly not alone there :lol:
Original post by cooldudeman
Really? From what I have read on tsr it seened to be like that. Guess not then. And I know, for Oxford, its mainly about the admission exam so they don't look at ums at all. Im an Oxford reject lol.

Btw just looked at your profile, you're doing like 6 alevels... wtf. How do you get time to do anything else but study.

Well TSR is a strange mash-up of opinions, it's hard to really trust what people say because many have vested interests to exaggerate. For example: someone with an offer might want to boast about how high UMS scores you need to try and make it seem inaccessible/exclusive (rather than academically elite which is surely a better sort of exclusive?) and someone who had missed an offer might want to exaggerate the emphasis on a-levels to try and make it seem like they never really had a fair shot! Also, so many people have high UMS that those that don't tend not to be great, but this is purely circumstantial :tongue: They do look at it though :tongue:

6 and a half actually! I was going to do 7 (finishing off critical thinking) and an extended project because they would have required virtually no work but college were suggesting I would have to go to 5 hours lessons a week in A2 critical thinking (LOL!) and would have to do loads of supervisions for the EP that wouldn't involve any maths or physics anyway (so would be tedious and bureaucratic) which is a shame because I probably would have enjoyed them both!

Well I find them all pretty easy so I don't have to do that much for each! :biggrin: No idea how I still have time! Outside of exam season (when I stay in 24/7), I've still got time to go to gigs, clubs, festivals, random road-trips! It's like a balancing act! :lol: I'm not sure how well I will do this year though, I have my English and Spanish exams in exactly one week and I haven't seen past papers let alone been to the classes the last 2 months :/

So I suppose, in that sense, I haven't really been able to reach my full potential in all the a-levels even though I have managed to do them. I'd say I was capable of an A* in English but that would mean 93% UMS in my exam and yet all I need is 59% UMS (D+) for an A. For Spanish I'm in a similar situation where I would need just over 80% UMS for an A and yet just over 60% UMS for a B. As a result of this, since the difference between one grade in each subject is a hell of a lot of work and commitment, I'm sort of just doing the bare minimal :/
Reply 51
Original post by Jkn
Hey everyone,

I don't think there are any threads on here to discuss additional further maths and yet there are literally dozens for each of the popular modules which seems unfair!

Hopefully I'm not the only one... :lol:

So anyway, how are people finding it so far? I'm the only people at my school doing the exams I'm doing and I'm having to teach myself. This makes for a very tedious exam preparation. Is anyone else having the same experience?

What modules is everyone doing? Which ones do you find tedious and which ones do you enjoy?

I'm doing Statistics 3, Statistics 4, Decision 2, Mechanics 4 and Mechanics 5. Can't say I find any of them particularly enjoyable unfortunately atm; I'm just doing it all a bit last-minute to meet my offers :/

Hi there, what exam board are you doing?
I'm doing M5 and FP4 as extra modules (AQA), glad I'm not doing 5 extra though!
How are you finding M5 so far?
Original post by Jkn



In my situation, asking a question like "if space-time stretches faster than the speed of light, which is hypothesised, then we wouldn't not be able to see the majority of the universe anyway and so this offers no evidence for the big bang theory"



I don't understand your logic. Can you explain please? If everything is moving further away from us, it is a fair assumption that the universe is expanding. I'm sure you've heard the raisin-bread analogy of expansion before.
Reply 53
Original post by GeorgeL3
Hi there, what exam board are you doing?
I'm doing M5 and FP4 as extra modules (AQA), glad I'm not doing 5 extra though!
How are you finding M5 so far?

I'm on Edexcel. Not too bad... did a mock a few days ago and have now realised I need to revise Impulse and stuff like that (though the a* boundary was only 60/75 :eek:) It also took me around 2 hours instead of 1:30 :frown:

How are you getting on? Which topics does you M5 cover? :smile:

Mine's got: "Applications of Vectors in Mechanics", "Variable Mass", "Moments of Inertia of a Rigid Body" and "Rotation of a Rigid Body about a Fixed Smooth Axis". :tongue:
Original post by ThatPerson
I don't understand your logic. Can you explain please? If everything is moving further away from us, it is a fair assumption that the universe is expanding. I'm sure you've heard the raisin-bread analogy of expansion before.

Well I as not attempting to convey anything logic, just to give an anecdotal example of the kinds of things I would ask in class.

This specific example is more to do with Olber's paradox :tongue:

My teacher said something that amounted to:
Big Bang Theory\RightarrowUniverse is expanding\RightarrowObservable universe is expanding.

We observe that the observable universe is expanding and so the Big Bang Theory is supported.

He then basically claimed that this was because the universe is finite, that this deduction is valid.

However, in order to know that the universe is finite, we were assuming that the Big Bang Theory is correct, hence forming a circular argument :tongue:

Though certain assumptions can be made and the logic tweaked, it is still not obvious and you still need to consider such things fully.

The general attitude to such things is summed by this amusing anecdote:
In his lecture, a mathematician formulated a theorem and said: "The proof is obvious". Then he thought for a minute, left the lecture room, returned after 15 minutes and happily concluded: "Indeed, it is obvious!" :lol:
Reply 54
Original post by Jkn
I'm on Edexcel. Not too bad... did a mock a few days ago and have now realised I need to revise Impulse and stuff like that (though the a* boundary was only 60/75 :eek:) It also took me around 2 hours instead of 1:30 :frown:

How are you getting on? Which topics does you M5 cover? :smile:

Mine's got: "Applications of Vectors in Mechanics", "Variable Mass", "Moments of Inertia of a Rigid Body" and "Rotation of a Rigid Body about a Fixed Smooth Axis". :tongue:

Yeah it's easier than I had expected, it probably helps the grade boundaries that hardly anybody does it.
AQA M5 is mostly oscillating systems with simple harmonic motion and forced/damped motion etc. then a bit on motion with variable mass, stability and using polar co-ordinates in motion.
I started it thinking it was really difficult but now I've gone through it all I realise there's only about 5 equations that are new to learn and the rest is just basic mechanics. It does however include almost all of the FP3 modules (loads of differential equations and polar co-ordinates) so I guess anyone who hadn't done that would find it much worse.
FP4 on the other hand is pretty crappy, I don't understand most of it :s-smilie:
Have you been teaching yourself?
Reply 55
Original post by GeorgeL3
Yeah it's easier than I had expected, it probably helps the grade boundaries that hardly anybody does it.
AQA M5 is mostly oscillating systems with simple harmonic motion and forced/damped motion etc. then a bit on motion with variable mass, stability and using polar co-ordinates in motion.
I started it thinking it was really difficult but now I've gone through it all I realise there's only about 5 equations that are new to learn and the rest is just basic mechanics. It does however include almost all of the FP3 modules (loads of differential equations and polar co-ordinates) so I guess anyone who hadn't done that would find it much worse.
FP4 on the other hand is pretty crappy, I don't understand most of it :s-smilie:
Have you been teaching yourself?

Sounds like a mixture between our M4 and M5 so that's good :smile:

We don't do any polar co-ordinates in mechanics though :tongue:

Yes, have you been? :smile:
Reply 56
Hey guys, could someone lend a hand...

Basically question 6 (M5) on this paper. Mark scheme here.

From looking at the marks scheme I can see that it works easily using the conservation of angular momentum, but what do you have to do for conservation of energy :confused:

I said kinetic energy of particle before = kinetic energy of particle and disc and observed that the change in potential energy was instantaneously zero. How can this be remedied to give the same answer?

And if it can't and you must use conservation of angular momentum, then why? :tongue:
Reply 57
so i was wondering.....how hard is AFM??

I want to do it next year!! - well the alevel in year 12 and 13

......

i have read all the above comments and i would want to direct you people to feynmens lectures on physics,.... i doenloaded these a couple weeks ago and have only read through the first few pages ... but i think you people who are debating if AFM is worth it..should read it!

oh i uploaded a clean copy of the pages aswell since my highlighting skills are not the best :colondollar:...... oh and i know it is physics but the same concept applies

i agree with the guy... it would be way to ard for the average john doe to learn some shizzz... but the basic laws are required to learn the rest of the stuff
..well we are not all as smart as Jkn

anyway .. i want to try it!
so how hard is it??

i have attached some of his comments to this post btw...

thanks in advance

Ryan
Original post by cooldudeman
If you apply for maths at Cambridge, you wont get an interview. You need like 95+ in all the units. And Oxford is mainly about the admission exam.

Posted from TSR Mobile


Does that mean if I get below 95 in one of the units I'm screwed? :frown:
Original post by Jkn
I'm sure you won't need dive into your S1 book to interpret the fact that the Spearman's rank correlation co-efficient


Sorry bro, but Spearman's rank is in S3 not S1 :nah:

Quick Reply