Best Universities For Physics?

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Lydiamonds

Historically cambridge is better? In wat way? I suppose we're going on old physicists, who probably existed in the time wen ox and camb were the only unis!

Well, twentieth-century as well as before that. We're talking Newton, Maxwell, Dirac, Cavendish, Stokes, Rayleigh, Rutherford, JJ Thomson, etc. All of them were associated with Cam, as well as other universities (like Rutherford and Manchester, Dirac and Bristol, but none with Oxford as far as I know). Plus Cam did a lot of work on splitting of the atom, evidence for the existence of the electron, proton, neutron, etc.

Reply 41

jpowell

I think the point is that you cannot base your present expectations solely on the past. Cambridge still has a highly respected physics department, but you cannot beat Durham at the moment.

Reply 42

Squishy

AntiMagicMan

I think the point is that you cannot base your present expectations solely on the past. Cambridge still has a highly respected physics department, but you cannot beat Durham at the moment.

And which university do you go to again? :wink:

Reply 43

Clearing and Applications Advisor

Lydiamonds

Guardian is known to favour some unis, and look fown on ex polytechs. This elitest behaviour is wat has put it into poor light.

I think you're getting confused

- the use of research ratings in the times and sunday times league tables disadvantages ex-polys who don't have a long history of research and so generally get lower marks in the RAEs

- the fact that the guardian ignores research, rewards diversity and discounts high A level scores on entry by giving the same weighting to the value added score (how can you "add value" to AAA students?) means that they remove a lot of the disparity between the ex-polys and the older unis...

in the Guardian rankings Wolverhampton uni (wolly poly) ranks higher than LSE for philosophy and bolton institute outstrips warwick for the same subject http://education.guardian.co.uk/universityguide2004/table/0,14557,1216869,00.html

- the Times rankings show a much more "traditional" bias with few of the ex-polys ranking higher than halfway up the table.

Reply 44

Clearing and Applications Advisor

AntiMagicMan

I think the point is that you cannot base your present expectations solely on the past. Cambridge still has a highly respected physics department, but you cannot beat Durham at the moment.

You can if you're interested in entering academia and look at the RAE scores

http://195.194.167.103/Results/byuoa/uoa19.htm

Imperial, cambridge and oxford are all leagues ahead with larger departments producing higher quality research. Durham is on a par size and quality wise with Birmingham, Queen's Belfast, Edinburgh, Leicester and Manchester....still good but by no means unbeatable or even leading the pack.

Reply 45

jpowell

Squishy

And which university do you go to again? :wink:

Ssshhh

Ok, so I'm biased.

Reply 46

jpowell

Pencil Queen

I think that it just goes to show that you can use whatever statistics you want to prove your point. Durham's major strong point is Astronomy, when you consider Physics and Astronomy Durham comes out top, we also have the IPPP, so we have a lot of eminent particle physicists.

Reply 47

Unregistered

mg84

I'm not doing Physics myself, but my brother is starting to research for 2005 entry and I was wondering which universities would be recommended for the subject, preferably with grade requirements of AAA-BBB. Thanks!

LSE is the best for physics - and it's purely irrelevent that it doesn't actually teach physics.

Reply 48

Clearing and Applications Advisor

AntiMagicMan

I think that it just goes to show that you can use whatever statistics you want to prove your point.

Or that most undergraduates aren't interested in becoming academics and so don't look into (or often when they do look into it don't understand) the RAE results.

Or maybe that making unqualified statements like: "you cannot beat Durham at the moment" you should expect a little comeback :wink:

Durham's major strong point is Astronomy, when you consider Physics and Astronomy Durham comes out top,

http://www.hero.ac.uk/rae/Pubs/4_01/section4.htm

19 Physics
Theoretical, computational and experimental studies of: quantum physics; atomic, molecular and optical physics; plasma physics; particle and nuclear physics; surface physics; condensed and soft matter; biophysics; semiconductors, lasers and optoelectronics; magnetism, superconductivity and quantum fluids; fluid dynamics; chaotic and non-linear systems; astronomy, planetary and atmospheric physics; astrophysics, cosmology and relativity; medical physics; applied physics; pedagogic research in physics.

The RAE score for UoA 19 Physics includes all of the above sub-disciplines of physics and so does consider physics and astronomy.

Durham does well in the Times league table because the Times gives a heavy weighting to the QAA assessments in which Durham achieved full marks (24 out of 24) while oxford and cambridge (despite outscoring Durham in the other criteria - research quality, A level quality and employment prospects) only got a paltry 23 out of 24.

Interestingly these scores were awarded in 1998 (and 1999 in the case of Oxford) - you can read the entire reports on teaching quality for physics here: http://www.qaa.ac.uk/revreps/subj_reports.asp?subjID=27 (if you can't be bothered reading the whole thing the final paragraphs list the strengths and weaknesses of each department) Oxford were marked down becasue of a few staff changes and their marking criteria, Cambridge because of the marking as part of the NatSci tripos was slightly unclear.

The statistics should never be used to make a decision on a uni or course - but they should raise questions.

Queen's Belfast dropped a single point in the teaching assessment (for slight administrative niggles), is on a par with Durham for research quality and size, is easier to get in to (because of it's location) and has the highest graduate level employment score of any physics department in the country at 94%. IMO I'd say it's looking to be a much better department for undergraduate study than any other in the country - a good balance of quality teaching and research, producing good graduates who do well and more accessible with an ABB average rather than an AAB one.

Reply 49

Unregistered

AntiMagicMan

Dont even try to argue stats with Nerd Queen - it's utterly hopeless.

Reply 50

mg84

I totally forgot I even posted this. Thank you for all the replies everyone! :biggrin:

Reply 51

jpowell

Pencil Queen

Or maybe that making unqualified statements like: "you cannot beat Durham at the moment" you should expect a little comeback :wink:

Well considering my location, it was rather tinged with bias and a bit of humour.

Pencil Queen

Durham does well in the Times league table because the Times gives a heavy weighting to the QAA assessments in which Durham achieved full marks (24 out of 24) while oxford and cambridge (despite outscoring Durham in the other criteria - research quality, A level quality and employment prospects) only got a paltry 23 out of 24.

Again I'm not saying that you are wrong, but Durham has come top of the Times league tables 4 years in a row, that is no poor achievement.

Is there an answer to what is the best university for physics? I don't think so, because different people look for different things. I can't speak for any of the other universities because I do not attend them, but I will say that Durham is an excellent university for physics with excellent facilities.

Reply 52

Clearing and Applications Advisor

Is there an answer to what is the best university for physics? I don't think so, because different people look for different things. I can't speak for any of the other universities because I do not attend them, but I will say that Durham is an excellent university for physics with excellent facilities.

Very true

AntiMagicMan

Again I'm not saying that you are wrong, but Durham has come top of the Times league tables 4 years in a row, that is no poor achievement.

But then the Times have been using the same teching score for the last 6 years with a 2.5 times weighting....so it's hardly surprising...I'm just trying to point out that the *ranking* is meaningless. It's silly to say that 1 part A levels + 1 part emplyment + 1.5 part research plus 2.5 parts teaching scores = the best...it's simply the best by that measure and that measure is arbitrary to say the least.

The best university for you, or your best friend or you cousin or me etc etc is usually based on something far more meaningful than a seemingly random combination of disparate statistics. However it winds me up when people quote league table positions at me when they don't understand what has been measured by that leagues table, when it was measured and what that score means (so please forgive this little rant it isn't personal but your comments represent a wider misunderstanding of league tables and university "quality" that is far too common on this forum so I'm taking advantage of your posts in order to spread the "truth" :smile:

).

The difference in teaching quality between a department ranked 20 and a department ranked 24 is very slight...and considering that those scores were assigned 6 years ago the situations could well have reversed in the time in between (some 24 ranked departments sit back on their laurals and slip while most 23 and below ranked departments put effort into improving the points that dragged them down). However we'll never know now because the subject assessments haven't been done since Dec 2002 and wont be started again :frown:

Reply 53

Jonatan

Squishy

Hawking went to oxford before he went to Cambridge as far as I can remember. Really, undergraduate teaching quality is not the same as the number if scientists getting famous from that uni. Take Imperial as an example.

Reply 54

Euler

Jonatan

explain please what do u mean

Reply 55

Euler

Hawking did go to oxford for undergrauduate studies and did Phd from cam but he prefers cambridge over oxford as cam is more scientifically renowned (oxford for arts) and famous alumni does add to the unis reputation..

Reply 56

Nylex

integral_neo

explain please what do u mean

I think he means there haven't been that many famous people coming out of Imperial, but it's still a brilliant institution and its teaching quality is excellent.

Reply 57

Euler

Nylex

I think he means there haven't been that many famous people coming out of Imperial, but it's still a brilliant institution and its teaching quality is excellent.

u make a lot more sense than hhim :wink:

Reply 58

Lydiamonds

QAA is a goo dthing to go on, its similar to OFSTEAD.

As for research its hard to use that as a criteria. As a student u will not be a major part of that unless ur on placement, but thats not the main bulk of students. Also, its hard to judge the validility of research rankings, as this can depend on how many projects and who thinks what is important.

Employment prospects again is a bit strange, and if u look at the leagues for physics camb has N/A! You cannot see how many are taking gap years etc.

As for A-level rankings, I think it is a greater achievement to bring out a treble B student to the same level as treble A student. But as it is the standard offer is AAB for both oxford and Durham.

I believe teaching is by far the most important thing, as thats what the point of uni is to a student!!!!

At the end of the day I think we need greater evidence to suggest that the 4 year lead taken by Durham is wrong. And as for my views on the Guardian I am merely going on the hundreds of articles criticising the tables.

Perhaps Oxbridge is given an easiar ride to get to the top as its just considerd to be the best, without necesaarily maintainin
g it.

Reply 59

Lydiamonds

Also you cannot just take scientists from the 'golden age' of physics as proof. thats like 80 years ago. This is a time where science is a group effort!