Should I self-teach myself Further Maths because I want to do physics at uni?

I want to do Natural Sciences at Uni, to do a combo of biology and physics.
I'm in y13 and I do maths, physics and bio
I have started the fm course and I'm wondering if it's worth learning it all. Thanks

Reply 1

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

It'd definitely be worth familiarising yourself with matrices and complex numbers in the summer before starting at uni, after your A-level exams. Not much point doing it now unless you plan to take the AS or A-level exam.

If you have more time or mental bandwidth learning the material on polar coordinates and any calculus or vector related material from FM would also be useful. Beyond that I think the benefit of studying the other bits might be more marginal...

Reply 2

ari1224

Oh thank you for responding!
As it happens I did teach myself fm pure y1, so I did learn those topics (complex numbers and matrices) :biggrin:

yayy wasn't a waste of time!
WHICH btw matrices is my fav topic in all of maths wow I can't believe I could've missed that out!!

I'll make a note to do polar coordinates and calculus.. because they might be in y2 fm?? I am working thru an online textbook
So I'll continue with that then thanks!

Would it also be useful to go through the mechanics side of FM or should I stick to pure?

Reply 3

Uni of Southampton Students

Official Rep

Original post by ari1224

Oh thank you for responding!
As it happens I did teach myself fm pure y1, so I did learn those topics (complex numbers and matrices) :biggrin:

Hi @ari1224,

Further maths contains a lot of really useful information for a physics degree (I'm not sure about biology) and matrices, complex numbers and polar coordinates definitely come up a lot. But any degree should teach you everything you'll need for the course and since not everyone will have done further maths I would expect that universities will treat those topics as new material.

Depending on which modules your course includes, mechanics can be very helpful, but again it should be taught if it's needed. For example, a first year module that I did at Southampton was Motion and relativity and half of that module was pretty much completely further maths mechanics and it was taught as new content. All other modules that required mechanics went beyond the scope the further maths mechanics so it wasn't very helpful after that point, in my opinion.

If you have the dedication to teach it to yourself I think that's great and will put you in a great place to start your degree, but it isn't necessary do to well in your degree. As a side note, I found further maths M1, M2 and M3 to be some of the most enjoyable topics that I studied at A-level so I'm glad I learnt them.

Megan
4th year physics student