The Student Room Group
Just state what you start off with in the derivations and give enough information so someone could follow it without too much superfluous crap! "divide both side by.."

I think it's pretty necessary, i'm sure it says something about it in the underlying physics bit. Just make sure it's obvious you know what you're talking about.
Argh, not the answer I was looking for! :p:

The candidate information says that simply stating equations isn't sufficient and that understanding of the physics must be shown, and I was rather hoping that a good plain-English description would suffice. I suppose it wouldn't really show the link, though - derivations it is.

PS How on Earth are you meant to keep this between 2 and 2.5 thousand words?!
Plain english in conjunction with hardcore derivations is what I think works best and shows your physics skills succinctly in my opinion. There is no way round it really if you want to increase your chances of getting the marks.

I think the word limit for the amount of work required is ridiculous. Either they dumb the investigation down to chemistry level or they drop the 2000-2500 word boundary. I am someone who writes pretty much the bare minimum for everything at the same time as trying to do it well. My chemistry was short, all my english essays were 2-3 pages last year and now my behemoth of a physics investigation is 6000 odd words long, I feel so dirty!

/post script induced rant
Meteorshower
Plain english in conjunction with hardcore derivations is what I think works best and shows your physics skills succinctly in my opinion. There is no way round it really if you want to increase your chances of getting the marks.


Fair enough. It's not too tricky - but typesetting it in Word is time consuming and ugly (whereas typesetting it in LaTeX would be more time consuming but less ugly - which I might do for the final draft). :biggrin:

I think the word limit for the amount of work required is ridiculous.


Agreed, it's nonsense. I've not been overly terse, but neither have I waxed lyrical, and I'm still looking at ~4000 words.

--

Oh, if you want a laugh: one of my final results has an uncertainty of ±50%. :woo:
Do you have microsoft equation editor? I thought it came with word and it's pretty easy to use and efficient really.

That is a pretty big uncertainty! My girlfriend however has a random uncertainty of 300% for of her final results in chemistry though :p: And one of my friends has a 3500% uncertainty in the y intercept of one his graphs (although that's only because it's so close to 0, I still find it amusing)
Meteorshower
Do you have microsoft equation editor? I thought it came with word and it's pretty easy to use and efficient really.


I've got it on my computer upstairs, but I don't think I have it installed here (although upstairs is Word 07, and this is Word 03 - did it come with both of them?). I've not used it much (I tend to resort to LaTeX) but I might give it a twirl over the Easter holidays. I'd forgotten about it, and it would be easier to do 'inline', as it were, so thanks for that.

That is a pretty big uncertainty! My girlfriend however has a random uncertainty of 300% for of her final results in chemistry though :p: And one of my friends has a 3500% uncertainty in the y intercept of one his graphs (although that's only because it's so close to 0, I still find it amusing)


:p: Ah, that made me feel rather better!

Well, the first draft is done - pending a couple sketches. :cool: I'm now going to find something to do other than stare at this computer screen...
TheUnbeliever
I've got it on my computer upstairs, but I don't think I have it installed here (although upstairs is Word 07, and this is Word 03 - did it come with both of them?). I've not used it much (I tend to resort to LaTeX) but I might give it a twirl over the Easter holidays. I'd forgotten about it, and it would be easier to do 'inline', as it were, so thanks for that.



:p: Ah, that made me feel rather better!

Well, the first draft is done - pending a couple sketches. :cool: I'm now going to find something to do other than stare at this computer screen...


What is your investigation.

Word 07 in my opinion has a nice equation editor but it takes ages to get used to. The formatting of the size of the font is most annoying as well but it does look nice if you persist.

I derived pretty much every equation - one took four pages. I don't think its necessary but I would add some if you can. They look really good and all you really need to do is copy them out of a book and maybe pad them out a bit.

There are more important things to worry about though. Significant figures and uncertainties for one..God I hate them.
Meteorshower
Plain english in conjunction with hardcore derivations is what I think works best and shows your physics skills succinctly in my opinion. There is no way round it really if you want to increase your chances of getting the marks.

I think the word limit for the amount of work required is ridiculous. Either they dumb the investigation down to chemistry level or they drop the 2000-2500 word boundary. I am someone who writes pretty much the bare minimum for everything at the same time as trying to do it well. My chemistry was short, all my english essays were 2-3 pages last year and now my behemoth of a physics investigation is 6000 odd words long, I feel so dirty!

/post script induced rant


Too true. If I am marked down for doing too much, researching too much and going too deep I will write to the SQA. I have done it before and will do it again.
abstraction98
Too true. If I am marked down for doing too much, researching too much and going too deep I will write to the SQA. I have done it before and will do it again.


I'm not sure you'd be able to find out what you got marked down for if you did.

What did you write to them about before?
Meteorshower
I'm not sure you'd be able to find out what you got marked down for if you did.

What did you write to them about before?


Nono, not to get my marks back, just to tell them they're being silly.

Advanced higher english exam and the ambiguity of the wording last year. The SQA frequently dissapoint. I have found one ridiculous AH maths question which "doesn't really work" according to a teacher and one of the physics polarisation questions is a joke. (These are past papers)

Look in AH physics past papers (I think 2005). Its about a calculator and how the numbers work. Their definition of unpolarised light is wrong - it is more than one plane NOT all planes. In the next part, it can be argued the mirror is irrelevant since no light gets through to the crystal anyway. And the last question is completely wrong. The numbers wouldn't dissapear. They would all turn to 8's and then back to the original numbering.

It displays a complete lack of understanding from the SQA.
abstraction98
What is your investigation.


Wavelength of light - a comparison of traditional interferometrical methods for measuring it. It's a little weak, but I reckon I found a couple interesting things to say.

Agreed with the uncertainties and so on. It's moderately irritating, especially, that most of it is fairly contrived nonsense, statistically. Also, the lack of consistent treatment. For example: we'd been taught to give uncertainties to 1 sig.fig. - although I figured that this applied only to final results, otherwise you unnecessarily haemorrhage accuracy in intermediate stages. However, I came across a document saying that the exception to this is if the leading digit is a 1 (although it didn't then specify how many places to give it to in such a case). Asked the teacher, who said he hadn't come across it before. *shrug*

abstraction98
I have found one ridiculous AH maths question which "doesn't really work" according to a teacher

Out of curiosity, which one?
As far as i'm aware the uncertainty is to one significant figure and it's just the final result. What document said that? Unless it is part of what the SQA are currently saying i'd ignore it.
Meteorshower
What document said that? Unless it is part of what the SQA are currently saying i'd ignore it.


I can't remember if it was an SQA or third-party doc. I'll check it later.
It could be something that's out of date possibly
TheUnbeliever
Wavelength of light - a comparison of traditional interferometrical methods for measuring it. It's a little weak, but I reckon I found a couple interesting things to say.

Agreed with the uncertainties and so on. It's moderately irritating, especially, that most of it is fairly contrived nonsense, statistically. Also, the lack of consistent treatment. For example: we'd been taught to give uncertainties to 1 sig.fig. - although I figured that this applied only to final results, otherwise you unnecessarily haemorrhage accuracy in intermediate stages. However, I came across a document saying that the exception to this is if the leading digit is a 1 (although it didn't then specify how many places to give it to in such a case). Asked the teacher, who said he hadn't come across it before. *shrug*


Out of curiosity, which one?


Yeh. Significant figures in uncertainties are a minefield.

Erm, the sequences and series one at the end of one of the papers. Find the smallest value of n such that the geometric sum is twice that of the arithmetic sum. Somethign like that.

Using the iterative method works, but ultimately if I try to find it the otehr way, I get a horrible quadratic which gets v complex.