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Advanced Higher Mechanics?

Has anyone done AH Mechanics? What's the course like? :P

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Reply 1
It's a great course. My favourite AH that I did.

Mechanics is the branch of physics concerning the motion of bodies under the influence of forces. More simply, at AH it's basically just maths applied to real world situations where stuff is moving in some way or another. This made it the most fun subject that I did - you really gain some sense of power when you look at the things you can calculate about real-life situations (how fast/slow a car can travel round a bend to not go off the track, how fast a disc must spin for an object on the disc not to slip, incorporating air resistance into calculations, calculating the bearing that a ship must travel to intersect another ship...).

I found that it was more focused on problem solving than core maths, i.e. more hard questions. In terms of the course content, AH mechanics is much easier to learn than AH maths. Core maths has significantly more material to plough through. But as far as the examination questions go, mechanics is probably more difficult (more problem-solving).

You should look at the course arrangements for the new (and maybe also the old) course. The new one is a distinct subject called 'Mathematics of Mechanics' whereas the old one is branched, with Statistics, under 'Applied Mathematics'. There is very little difference between the new/old courses. I think the new one has a little extra content on torques / moments of inertia. Also look at some past papers for the type of stuff you'll be solving, it's pretty cool.

Another thing you'll probably like to hear is that if you do AH physics and AH maths, a lot of the AH mechanics content will already be quite familiar to you. From this year's exam, I found that someone with only AH physics and maths knowledge could have got 52/100 marks if they managed to get everything right. (This is never going to happen in reality though; mechanics questions are very different to maths/physics questions.)

I highly recommend you do the course! It has significantly improved my maths in general and it's very enjoyable.
(edited 8 years ago)
Reply 2
Original post by Ecasx
It's a great course. My favourite AH that I did.

Mechanics is the branch of physics concerning the motion of bodies under the influence of forces. More simply, at AH it's basically just maths applied to real world situations where stuff is moving in some way or another. This made it the most fun subject that I did - you really gain some sense of power when you look at the things you can calculate about real-life situations (how fast/slow a car can travel round a bend to not go off the track, how fast a disc must spin for an object on the disc not to slip, incorporating air resistance into calculations, calculating the bearing that a ship must travel to intersect another ship...).

I found that it was more focused on problem solving than core maths, i.e. more hard questions. In terms of the course content, AH mechanics is much easier to learn than AH maths. Core maths has significantly more material to plough through. But as far as the examination questions go, mechanics is probably more difficult (more problem-solving).

You should look at the course arrangements for the new (and maybe also the old) course. The new one is a distinct subject called 'Mathematics of Mechanics' whereas the old one is branched, with Statistics, under 'Applied Mathematics'. There is very little difference between the new/old courses. I think the new one has a little extra content on torques / moments of inertia. Also look at some past papers for the type of stuff you'll be solving, it's pretty cool.

Another thing you'll probably like to hear is that if you do AH physics and AH maths, a lot of the AH mechanics content will already be quite familiar to you. From this year's exam, I found that someone with only AH physics and maths knowledge could have got 52/100 marks if they managed to get everything right. (This is never going to happen in reality though; mechanics questions are very different to maths/physics questions.)

I highly recommend you do the course! It has significantly improved my maths in general and it's very enjoyable.

Thanks so much for your post! It sounds really interesting :biggrin:

Yasss more problem solving will be great. Always wanted to do more stuff on real-life situations. My favourite part of Higher Physics was mechanics by far, so think it would definitely be something I'd enjoy.

Yeah I just had a quick look at the 2014 paper and it does look pretty cool :cool: Managed to do the first question but it was pretty similar to some Unit 1 Higher Physics questions. Btw do you know if schools are obligated to do the new advanced highers instead of the old ones this year? Our school is doing AH Mechanics for the first time this year - pretty sure it's the new Mathematics of Mechanics one they're running.

Ah that sounds good then! Originally I'd picked AH Maths, Biology, Chemistry & Higher Modern Studies cause I was interested in medicine, but now I've realised that I like physics/astrophysics/geophysics too much haha so hopefully changing to AH Maths, Physics, Chemistry & Mechanics. That's really interesting - so around 50% of the course content in AH Mechanics is covered in AH Maths & Physics? Less to learn definitely, but yeah, as you said, more problem solving in the exam :biggrin:

How did all your exams go? :tongue: Must've been hard doing some AH exams straight after the higher ones! What is it you're hoping to study at uni? Thanks again for all the help :smile:

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Reply 3
Original post by chopinfan
Thanks so much for your post! It sounds really interesting :biggrin:

Yasss more problem solving will be great. Always wanted to do more stuff on real-life situations. My favourite part of Higher Physics was mechanics by far, so think it would definitely be something I'd enjoy.

Yeah I just had a quick look at the 2014 paper and it does look pretty cool :cool: Managed to do the first question but it was pretty similar to some Unit 1 Higher Physics questions. Btw do you know if schools are obligated to do the new advanced highers instead of the old ones this year? Our school is doing AH Mechanics for the first time this year - pretty sure it's the new Mathematics of Mechanics one they're running.

Ah that sounds good then! Originally I'd picked AH Maths, Biology, Chemistry & Higher Modern Studies cause I was interested in medicine, but now I've realised that I like physics/astrophysics/geophysics too much haha so hopefully changing to AH Maths, Physics, Chemistry & Mechanics. That's really interesting - so around 50% of the course content in AH Mechanics is covered in AH Maths & Physics? Less to learn definitely, but yeah, as you said, more problem solving in the exam :biggrin:

How did all your exams go? :tongue: Must've been hard doing some AH exams straight after the higher ones! What is it you're hoping to study at uni? Thanks again for all the help :smile:

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I'm pretty sure the new advanced highers are mandatory this year, yeah.

I wouldn't say 50% of the course material is covered in maths/physics. Just that, at a push, you could answer about 50% of the questions with only AH maths/physics knowledge (if you were very, very good at adapting to unfamiliar situations). That being said AH maths and physics are indeed extremely useful. In fact the only reason I picked up mechanics was because I realised how much of it I could already do from maths/physics, and figured it wouldn't be too much work. It was quite a bit of work in the end, but I enjoyed it so much that it didn't even feel like it.

I'll be a bit more specific about how AH maths and physics help.

Maths helps for the entirety of the course in general because, obviously, there's a lot of maths involved so the more experience you have the better. There is one topic in Unit 2 mechanics - motion in a straight line - that the content from AH maths is specifically helpful for. This topic is based wholly on a technique called 'solving differential equations by separation of variables'. If you've done AH maths you'll have covered this so with a couple of example questions you're pretty much sorted for this topic (and it comes up in every past paper). More importantly, unit 3 of mechanics (a third of the exam) is just core maths knowledge. This is a selection of topics lifted straight from the AH maths course.

In AH physics you cover circular motion (horizontal) and also simple harmonic motion. These are both distinct topics in the mechanics course. For the former, mechanics does not expand on physics knowledge, although it looks at simple harmonic motion in a little more depth.

My exams were good, thank you! Yeah it was painful at times. I slept 3 hours before the maths day so my head was in agony after both those exams haha. I wanna do physics
Reply 4
Original post by Ecasx
I'm pretty sure the new advanced highers are mandatory this year, yeah.

I wouldn't say 50% of the course material is covered in maths/physics. Just that, at a push, you could answer about 50% of the questions with only AH maths/physics knowledge (if you were very, very good at adapting to unfamiliar situations). That being said AH maths and physics are indeed extremely useful. In fact the only reason I picked up mechanics was because I realised how much of it I could already do from maths/physics, and figured it wouldn't be too much work. It was quite a bit of work in the end, but I enjoyed it so much that it didn't even feel like it.

I'll be a bit more specific about how AH maths and physics help.

Maths helps for the entirety of the course in general because, obviously, there's a lot of maths involved so the more experience you have the better. There is one topic in Unit 2 mechanics - motion in a straight line - that the content from AH maths is specifically helpful for. This topic is based wholly on a technique called 'solving differential equations by separation of variables'. If you've done AH maths you'll have covered this so with a couple of example questions you're pretty much sorted for this topic (and it comes up in every past paper). More importantly, unit 3 of mechanics (a third of the exam) is just core maths knowledge. This is a selection of topics lifted straight from the AH maths course.

In AH physics you cover circular motion (horizontal) and also simple harmonic motion. These are both distinct topics in the mechanics course. For the former, mechanics does not expand on physics knowledge, although it looks at simple harmonic motion in a little more depth.

My exams were good, thank you! Yeah it was painful at times. I slept 3 hours before the maths day so my head was in agony after both those exams haha. I wanna do physics

Ah right, that clears things up thanks!

I'm really looking forward to it now :biggrin: What was the exam like this year?

Hahah I can only imagine. In a strange way I imagine the Higher Maths exam was more demanding, problem solving wise, than the advanced higher one??

Yass physics :wink: What type of physics you most interested? If I did a degree I'd definitely want to go into research/theoretical physics. It's annoying cause I'm really interested in it but I don't really read much outside of school purely down to laziness haha :frown: The most I do is read stuff like the New Scientist magazine and occasionally start trawling through loads of Wikipedia articles.

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Reply 5
Original post by chopinfan
Ah right, that clears things up thanks!

I'm really looking forward to it now :biggrin: What was the exam like this year?

Hahah I can only imagine. In a strange way I imagine the Higher Maths exam was more demanding, problem solving wise, than the advanced higher one??

Yass physics :wink: What type of physics you most interested? If I did a degree I'd definitely want to go into research/theoretical physics. It's annoying cause I'm really interested in it but I don't really read much outside of school purely down to laziness haha :frown: The most I do is read stuff like the New Scientist magazine and occasionally start trawling through loads of Wikipedia articles.

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This year's exam was similar in difficulty to past papers, had a few particularly challenging questions as usual. I liked the paper. The interesting thing with mechanics exams is that they are all actually pretty different to each other, compared to core maths exams where many types of question are repeated over and over.

Yep, the Higher maths exam was much more difficult than the AH paper. This year's AH was pretty kind I think compared to previous years. The Higher was probably the hardest in a long while. An interesting point of comparison I think between Higher and AH maths in general is that problem solving in Higher tends to be geometry - circles, vectors etc. - whereas problem solving in AH tends to primarily involve algebraic manipulation. The former is more difficult!

Same as you with physics, theoretical. I'm clumsy. From what little practical work I have done in school, I do not enjoy it. I would much rather work on paper.

It's alright, the last time I read a book was a year ago. You have plenty of time! Plus, I would say your reading is less important than your ability to complete the degree. Having said that you just reminded me I haven't read anything at all.. I think I'll order a few books soon.

Definitely think of pursuing physics!
so, did you guys get your physics degrees? It's been 5 years. I came on here because I was thinking of doing AH maths, mechanics and physics but I wasn't sure if doing mechanics would be worth it because I would already be doing maths and physics.
Original post by ash.hillman
so, did you guys get your physics degrees? It's been 5 years. I came on here because I was thinking of doing AH maths, mechanics and physics but I wasn't sure if doing mechanics would be worth it because I would already be doing maths and physics.

imo it makes doing physics and maths easier.

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