Just finished 1st year physics, ask my anything :)
Hi all, what it says in the title really 
Ask me anything you'd like to know.
To be truthful I've just finished 2nd year, rather than 1st year, physics at the University of Edinburgh but second year at a Scottish university is equivalent to first year at an English one, and as most users here will be English I felt the way I titled this thread would give a more accurate sense of what I could tell people. I also did "direct entry" (I started the course in 2nd year) so my experience will be extremely similar to those who have completed 1st year at an English university.
Ask me anything you'd like to know.To be truthful I've just finished 2nd year, rather than 1st year, physics at the University of Edinburgh but second year at a Scottish university is equivalent to first year at an English one, and as most users here will be English I felt the way I titled this thread would give a more accurate sense of what I could tell people. I also did "direct entry" (I started the course in 2nd year) so my experience will be extremely similar to those who have completed 1st year at an English university.
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How was it? As in what did you enjoy what didn't you enjoy?
Did anything suprise you or really impress you?
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Did anything suprise you or really impress you?
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How much work was it?
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Original post by Ki Yung Na
How was it? As in what did you enjoy what didn't you enjoy?
Did anything suprise you or really impress you?
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Did anything suprise you or really impress you?
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It's been a little bit strange. I think it's fair to say that physics more than most subjects requires a lot of preparatory work before one goes deeper into it. This has been very much in evidence this year where we've had as many maths courses as physics courses. There hasn't been a whole lot of cross over between the two, so it feels a bit like school where you would be taking the two subjects separately. I've enjoyed learning the maths though; it really feels like we're being given a good set of tools to do things "properly" next year onwards. Also, the physics we've been taught has generally been done so in a much more mathematical framework than it was at school (a lot more calculus and vectors).
Next year in general is when things should get a lot more interesting, as we use the maths we've been taught this year and begin to see how the different areas of the subject relate and come together.
The only things I would say I definitely haven't enjoyed have been the first semester course on programming (it just doesn't come naturally to me) and our second semester course on classical mechanics & ODE's, which is infamous in the Edinburgh physics school for being one of the nastiest courses you'll encounter during your degree here.
One of my favourite things was seeing how Maxwell's equations lead to Special Relativity. You observe some not terribly interesting electromagnetic phenomena, mathematically codify them, rearrange them so they fit into the wave equation and BAM! You have that the speed of light is constant in all reference frames
That was pretty cool.Original post by SerLorasTyrell
Not very much. I had 10 hours per week of lectures in the first semester, and 8 in the second. 3 hours practical work per week. Then a bunch of tutorials/workshops on top of that.
We also had three to four problem sheets to hand in every week. Things could feel a bit tough if you left completing them until late, but with a decent study schedule this would rarely be a problem.
I haven't often felt like I haven't had time to go to societies or do what I want to do because of work, and when I have it's been more a consequence of my bad time management than anything else.
What are seminars like? Do you get much chance to talk to your tutors about their work? Did you have opportunities to get involved in extra curricular activities relating to physics, like day trips out?
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Original post by BJack
Why are you done already? We're only just in May!
I had my last exam yesterday.
What topics have you covered so far? How are you finding it?
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Original post by Harksar
What are seminars like? Do you get much chance to talk to your tutors about their work? Did you have opportunities to get involved in extra curricular activities relating to physics, like day trips out?
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By seminars I assume you mean teaching done on a smaller scale than lectures? We only really had one course which involved that and that was a basic maths course (revision of high school material with a couple of extra concepts thrown in). During workshops you're more than welcome to chat to tutors and ask them about their research; it's something I've done occasionally. AFAIK there isn't much scope for physics EC's, but that may be because I haven't looked hard enough. There's a physics society but it's poorly run and dominated by one clique of students so that puts me off it.
Original post by eddie1221
How different is it to A-level physics, and how much more difficult?
Also, how much maths do you actually learn?
I enjoy maths, so if I'm going to do physics I'm hoping for a lot of maths still
Also, how much maths do you actually learn?
I enjoy maths, so if I'm going to do physics I'm hoping for a lot of maths still
I never did A-level physics - I had to do a foundation year at Manchester, after which I transferred to Edinburgh. From what I've seen of A-level physics one of the main differences at degree level is the mathematical framework within which everything is formulated. For instance you'll see a lot more vectors, differentials and integrals used to encode concepts/ideas which you might have seen in a less formal way in high school.
At Edinburgh in particular you do a lot of maths, even if you're not a theorist. If you do 2nd year entry like me you'll have 4 compulsory courses, which is 80 lectures (and you can choose to take more). In 3rd year - equivalent to an English second year - you have 40 compulsory lectures. This is quite a lot more than what I've seen from other universities. In Manchester for instance, you only have around 40 compulsory maths lectures in 1st year and 20 in second year, although of course theorists at Manchester will take more.
My personal opinion is that this is too much, that we could do things quicker and not spend so much time on certain topics. But YMMV. If you're really into the mathematical aspect of physics, you might enjoy the Mathematical Physics course at Edinburgh. It's designed from the start to prepare you for the really theoretically heavy areas of physics. Here's the course description: http://www.ph.ed.ac.uk/studying/undergraduate/our-degrees/mathematical-physics
http://www.drps.ed.ac.uk/13-14/dpt/cxphys11042.htm
Original post by goku24
The physics topics will be the same as those covered during 1st year at any decent English university (or 2nd year at a decent Scottish one). Classical mechanics, waves, special relativity, elementary electromagnetism, matter, data analysis/programming and practical work. There's the option to take something like astronomy or choose an extra course from outside the physics department (I chose astrobiology).
For maths (excluding revision of high school material) we've mostly covered Linear Algebra, Vector Calculus and Dynamics. Linear Algebra is mostly focused on vectors and matrices, which quickly become very complicated. In Vector Calculus you cover topics like 2D and 3D integration, partial differentiation, changing variables and co-ordinate systems, surface, volume and flux integrals, vector operators, Gauss's theorem and Stoke's theorem. Dynamics deals with differential equations and also covers classical mechanics but from a much more mathematical perspective than your typical 1st year mechanics course.
If you're interested here are the lecture notes for my second semester maths courses:
http://www2.ph.ed.ac.uk/~bjp/vc/
http://www2.ph.ed.ac.uk/~egardi/Dynamics/
Wait you can do astrobiology? Oh please tell me about this
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Thanks for the great reply!
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Original post by SerLorasTyrell
It's pretty cool
The course is mostly bits and pieces of various disciplines such as biology, chemistry, geology, astronomy and so on. The course tended to focus on what we know about life and how it started on earth, and the conditions that make it favourable and how to look for this in other planets, but also how it might differ elsewhere, how differing conditions might give rise to fundamentally different organisms, how those organisms might develop, and some societal implications of the possibility of contact with alien life. Then we had an alien visit us for a guest lecture! Some classmates maintain that it was the standard lecturer in a costume, but I have my doubts.Original post by JuliusDS92
It's pretty cool The course is mostly bits and pieces of various disciplines such as biology, chemistry, geology, astronomy and so on. The course tended to focus on what we know about life and how it started on earth, and the conditions that make it favourable and how to look for this in other planets, but also how it might differ elsewhere, how differing conditions might give rise to fundamentally different organisms, how those organisms might develop, and some societal implications of the possibility of contact with alien life. Then we had an alien visit us for a guest lecture! Some classmates maintain that it was the standard lecturer in a costume, but I have my doubts.
The course is mostly bits and pieces of various disciplines such as biology, chemistry, geology, astronomy and so on. The course tended to focus on what we know about life and how it started on earth, and the conditions that make it favourable and how to look for this in other planets, but also how it might differ elsewhere, how differing conditions might give rise to fundamentally different organisms, how those organisms might develop, and some societal implications of the possibility of contact with alien life. Then we had an alien visit us for a guest lecture! Some classmates maintain that it was the standard lecturer in a costume, but I have my doubts.Hahaha that's brilliant! Sounds really interesting too, what do you hope to do/specialise in after your degree?
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Original post by JuliusDS92
One of my favourite things was seeing how Maxwell's equations lead to Special Relativity. You observe some not terribly interesting electromagnetic phenomena, mathematically codify them, rearrange them so they fit into the wave equation and BAM! You have that the speed of light is constant in all reference frames That was pretty cool.
One of my favourite things was seeing how Maxwell's equations lead to Special Relativity. You observe some not terribly interesting electromagnetic phenomena, mathematically codify them, rearrange them so they fit into the wave equation and BAM! You have that the speed of light is constant in all reference frames
That was pretty cool.Just coming from a second year physics student here, I'm not sure that you are following this correctly, but magnetism (and therefore some of Maxwell's equations) is a consequence of special relativity rather than the other way round - it's quite fun applying special relativity to moving electric fields to prove that magnetic fields exist
Also, with special relativity, Maxwell's equations reduce to two equations which is nice.Original post by natninja
Just coming from a second year physics student here, I'm not sure that you are following this correctly, but magnetism (and therefore some of Maxwell's equations) is a consequence of special relativity rather than the other way round - it's quite fun applying special relativity to moving electric fields to prove that magnetic fields exist Also, with special relativity, Maxwell's equations reduce to two equations which is nice.
Also, with special relativity, Maxwell's equations reduce to two equations which is nice.Maybe saying that Maxwell's equations "lead" to relativity was a poor choice of words. What I meant was that the result that light is constant in all reference frames (i.e. SR) can be arrived at mathematically by observing electrical and magnetic phenomena, and then codifying them as Maxwell did and then plugging these results into the wave equation.
I've heard bits and pieces of how magnetism follows from applying SR to electric fields, but I don't really know anything about it. I'm looking forward to learning, though
Original post by JuliusDS92
It's been a little bit strange. I think it's fair to say that physics more than most subjects requires a lot of preparatory work before one goes deeper into it. This has been very much in evidence this year where we've had as many maths courses as physics courses. There hasn't been a whole lot of cross over between the two, so it feels a bit like school where you would be taking the two subjects separately. I've enjoyed learning the maths though; it really feels like we're being given a good set of tools to do things "properly" next year onwards. Also, the physics we've been taught has generally been done so in a much more mathematical framework than it was at school (a lot more calculus and vectors).
Next year in general is when things should get a lot more interesting, as we use the maths we've been taught this year and begin to see how the different areas of the subject relate and come together.
The only things I would say I definitely haven't enjoyed have been the first semester course on programming (it just doesn't come naturally to me) and our second semester course on classical mechanics & ODE's, which is infamous in the Edinburgh physics school for being one of the nastiest courses you'll encounter during your degree here.
One of my favourite things was seeing how Maxwell's equations lead to Special Relativity. You observe some not terribly interesting electromagnetic phenomena, mathematically codify them, rearrange them so they fit into the wave equation and BAM! You have that the speed of light is constant in all reference frames That was pretty cool.
Not very much. I had 10 hours per week of lectures in the first semester, and 8 in the second. 3 hours practical work per week. Then a bunch of tutorials/workshops on top of that.
We also had three to four problem sheets to hand in every week. Things could feel a bit tough if you left completing them until late, but with a decent study schedule this would rarely be a problem.
I haven't often felt like I haven't had time to go to societies or do what I want to do because of work, and when I have it's been more a consequence of my bad time management than anything else.
Next year in general is when things should get a lot more interesting, as we use the maths we've been taught this year and begin to see how the different areas of the subject relate and come together.
The only things I would say I definitely haven't enjoyed have been the first semester course on programming (it just doesn't come naturally to me) and our second semester course on classical mechanics & ODE's, which is infamous in the Edinburgh physics school for being one of the nastiest courses you'll encounter during your degree here.
One of my favourite things was seeing how Maxwell's equations lead to Special Relativity. You observe some not terribly interesting electromagnetic phenomena, mathematically codify them, rearrange them so they fit into the wave equation and BAM! You have that the speed of light is constant in all reference frames
That was pretty cool.Not very much. I had 10 hours per week of lectures in the first semester, and 8 in the second. 3 hours practical work per week. Then a bunch of tutorials/workshops on top of that.
We also had three to four problem sheets to hand in every week. Things could feel a bit tough if you left completing them until late, but with a decent study schedule this would rarely be a problem.
I haven't often felt like I haven't had time to go to societies or do what I want to do because of work, and when I have it's been more a consequence of my bad time management than anything else.
Thanks for the detailed reply! The observation to codification into wave equation sounds quite damn exciting
My next question was going to be about programming - hope you don't bad mouth it too much
But yeah what language(s) are you learning?
How much time did you spend with it?
What sort of things are you doing with it, like are you guys just being taught some of the basics atm and not really using it for much else or maybe your doing some sort of basic applications like a model of some kind? Or is that the sort of thing you do 2nd year onward as you mentioned now's the time to nail the basics?
Are you English? If so what's it like? I mean do you get along well with the fellow Scots? Are there many English students - particularly in physics?
Original post by SerLorasTyrell
Hahaha that's brilliant! Sounds really interesting too, what do you hope to do/specialise in after your degree?
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I've got no idea at the moment - it sort of changes every day. Maybe GEM, maybe something financial, maybe something completely unrelated like opening a bakery
I guess it's unlikely to be the latter. I used to want to do a PhD but I'm not so sure that when it comes to it I'll want to commit to several more years of study/research when I could start paid employment as well. By this time next year I hope I'll have a much clearer idea.Original post by Kybear1
I'm just finishing my highers this year and I'm stuck on whether to do chemistry, physics, chemical physics or something similar. Would you recommend physics? or do you think it would be interesting to do with chemistry, I just want to hear your thoughts...
Hmm...difficult question. I settled on physics because I loved using maths to solve problems and to see how it related to physical concepts. If you feel similarly then I would recommend physics. But I can't tell whether it would be better for you than chemistry. Regardless of what you pick, during 1st year in university in Scotland you'll have the chance to take both chemistry and physics courses, which will help you with your final decision.
Original post by qno2
It's quite intresting to see quite how different Edinburgh's 2nd year is to how it is here at Heriot Watt though since I'm doing Mathematical Physics, it's probably more like what you've done than the standard physics students
That is interesting
I know someone just about to graduate with an MPhys from Heriot Watt Quick Reply
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