Oxford Demystified – Physics and Philosophy

I’m no expert but I would say philosophy will come in particularly useful if you had to choose between the two

Hey, sorry for the quick fire questions, but i'm really interested in this course at Ox, so here we go!

1) being a joint degree, are there any parts of physics specifically, ie any content that you "miss" not being taught? On a related note, do you feel a significant lack of practicals/applied computer science?

2) can you opt to take any of the options on the regular Physics course that are shown on the website, like biophysics, laser science and quantum information processing, particle physics

3) I have the impression that philosophy in P&P is dominated by metaphyisics and epistemoloy; is this correct? are there any other areas of philosophy you touch on? eg aesthetics, ethics, deontology, etc.

4) does the course have enough maths? lol i am quite a sucker for maths

5) can you apply to do the MMathPhys in 4th year?

tysm! can you please just expand on "but if you need any knowledge from this module in future years it is briefly retaught so that physics and philosophy students aren't disadvantaged"? Is this in later years, ie y3 and y4?

Hi again, I have a q about interviews

does the college you apply to influence in any way the amount of interviews you get? ie will all applicants get the same 4 interviews you got or will some at say, univ, get more or less interviews than others at, say, st hilda's? where can i find this out? the college websites don't say much about this, much less the university website.

thanks! i'll de-consider it then, and focus more on choosing colleges based on other factors.

Hi, does it ever happen where someone gets on the physics and philosophy course, finds the work load too challenging and then changes to just physics? Thanks

Does anyone know why acceptance rates for this course are so high? (14% interviewed, 7% accepted, 14 places overall)

I'm in year 12 right now and am quite sure this course is what I want to apply for, but there aren't too many uni options so I'm thinking of trying for oxford, but those acceptance rates are scaring me off a bit...

For context, I've just finished my third year studying Physics and Philosophy (PhysPhil) so whilst I'm not an incoming fresher hopefully the advice below is still helpful!
Why did you want to study your subject?
I’d always been interested in maths and physics and science more generally and I was pretty certain I wanted to study something along those lines. In the summer after GCSEs I read an introductory philosophy book (Think by Simon Blackburn) having not really known much about it before. I can’t remember why I decided to read it, but it got me interested in the subject as philosophy seemed to tackle questions which were clearly unanswerable by science but still important: questions like “what is justice” or “what is the right thing to do” or “what does it mean to know something”. I was particularly interested in ethics, which is the study of morality – what is right and what is wrong – and I began to read a bit more around it.
I then found out about the possibility of studying Physics and Philosophy at university and realised that there were other areas of philosophy as well. I read into the philosophy of science and found it fascinating that you could take science – the thing I had always been interested by – and start to philosophise about it. What makes science successful? What makes something science? What do scientists mean when they talk of “electrons” and “magnetic fields” – are both of these as real as each other? Do the laws of nature control how things behave, and if so, how do they do that? These kinds of questions really drew me in.
And then I also started to read into what the philosophy of physics was all about, and it seemed like this was the course for me. Not only would I get to study physics, but I’d be able to philosophise about it! I’d be able to tackle questions like “what is the most viable interpretation of quantum mechanics” and “is spacetime structure fundamentally real or just a representation of the properties of the laws of nature” which sounded cool even if I didn’t fully understand them.
Why Oxford?
Once I had decided I wanted to study Physics and Philosophy, it was clear that Oxford was the top place to study it in the UK.
Did any of your teachers inspire you? Or anyone else?
I remember watching a lengthy interview with Richard Feynman as part of a BBC Horizon documentary. I really enjoyed listening to him speak and started reading a couple of books by him. I already enjoyed physics by that point but he got me more excited by it all. For me it was always various documentaries on TV (e.g. The Sky at Night on the BBC) which drew me into physics, whereas for philosophy it was the reading I did which got me more interested in the subject.
However, what probably really inspired me physics-wise were YouTube channels. YouTube was starting to get big whilst I was growing up, and to this day I still get excited when a Sixty Symbols, Numberphile, DeepSkyVideos, 3Blue1Brown or Veritasium video gets released (and I've probably forgotten a lot more!). Sixty Symbols probably had the most impact on me, because it gives you the opportunity to hear scientists talk about their own research and about all other aspects of physics, and you can really see the passion come through and you can tell they love what they do.
Which resources did you use? Which books/journals did you read? Which did you like best, and why? What did they teach you?
For preparing for physics, I primarily used Isaac Physics. It’s a great resource for practising physics problems and Oxford still recommend it for applicants. The British Physics Olympiad is also a great resource for more challenging questions which really stretch you.
As mentioned before, for philosophy I read Think by Simon Blackburn. I also read The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell, Cycles of Time and Shadows of the Mind by Roger Penrose, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn and Against Method by Paul Feyerabend. Of those a good introductory philosophy book like Think is really important to make sure you know what philosophy is and to confirm that you really are interested in the general questions philosophy tries to tackle. Other introductory philosophy books to look at if you don’t like the ones above are Philosophy: The Basics by Nigel Warburton and What Does It All Mean? by Thomas Nagel. Kuhn’s book is a classic in the philosophy of science: it’s where the term paradigm-shift comes from! I also read a few sections of Understanding Philosophy of Science by James Ladyman which give me an introduction into the philosophy of science and its different issues.
On the physics side, I read Six Easy Pieces, Six Not So Easy Pieces and Surely You’re Joking, Mr Feynman by Richard Feynman, as well as It’s Not Rocket Science by Ben Miller and others. I also liked reading the magazine New Scientist. For physics it really isn’t that important what you read, so long as you read about what you’re interested in.
Here are some more links which you might find helpful:
http://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/under...-and-resources
https://www.balliol.ox.ac.uk/admissi...y-reading-list
http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/physics-and...y-introduction
Did you attend any lectures, or take part in any competitions? If so, would you recommend them, and why?
I would definitely recommend taking part in the Physics Olympiad if you can. Don’t worry if you find it difficult – the point isn’t to do well (though it’s nice if you do) but to get yourself used to tackling challenging problems. I also attended any public lectures on physics given by my local university, and I’d recommend this only if you want to. There’s no need to do this but it was another thing I could put on my personal statement.
Did you have any work experience? If so, how did you find it?
I was lucky enough to have a week’s work experience at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy. I really enjoyed it and it gave me a good insight into life as a scientist working at Culham. I spent the week learning how to code some basic projectile motion in Python, but what I did isn’t really important. Instead, I learnt that I could see myself in that kind of environment and I found the research they were doing exciting and interesting.
Did you have a specialist subject/EPQ? What was it? How did you go about your research?
I did the IB, so I had to do a 4000-word Extended Essay (EE). I did mine on the philosophy of science; in particular, I looked at Feyerabend’s Against Method and examined his view that there is no scientific method. In terms of going about my research, I tried to read widely (including Ayer’s Language, Truth and Logic, Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and Popper’s The Logic of Scientific Discovery) and spent a lot of time planning before starting to write. I had a supervisor (my physics teacher who also had an interest in the philosophy of science) who guided me and I found this helpful.
What did you mention in your personal statement and why?
It’s worth saying that for physics at Oxford, the personal statement is not that important. The main things they care about is how you do on the Physisc Aptitude Test (PAT) and how you do at interview. It might be slightly more important for philosophy, but I wasn’t asked about it at interview.
Having said that, I mentioned the books I’d read, my work experience and my EE, before going onto talk about extracurricular stuff I did. Why? Because, as far as I understood, that’s what a personal statement was there for: for you to demonstrate the reading and other things you’d done because you’re genuinely interested in studying the course you’re applying for.
Which techniques did you use for the entrance test?
I went through all the past papers on the website and looked for example solutions online and compared my answers to those (though my teachers agreed to mark a couple of papers I did). I also did a few Physics Olympiad papers and worked through a lot of Isaac Physics problems.
How did you choose your college? Did you go to an open day and if so, did it help you to decide?
I was initially going to apply to Balliol as they have the biggest PhysPhil cohort. However, on the open day I was in the Physics department and a fourth-year PhysPhil recommended Brasenose. So I went to Brasenose and immediately loved the friendly atmosphere, the location and the views. So how did I choose? I went to the open day and picked the college I liked the best.
How did you find the interview process?
Interviews aside, the few days you get to stay at Oxford is a really fun experience. You get to meet other people applying both for your course and a load of others and you get to experience life in an Oxford college for a few days. Physics is always in the last week of interviews which means the Christmas markets are up and it’s a wonderful time to be in Oxford.
As for the actual interviews: I had four (one Maths, one Physics and one Philosophy at Brasenose and one combined Physics and Philosophy at Balliol). Like I’ve said, I had virtually no questions about my personal statement (I mentioned something about particle physics so I had a quick question asking me about my interest in that but nothing else). For the Maths and Physics ones, although the format may vary from college to college, it essentially boils down to them asking you questions which may be challenging or which you have no idea how to solve, and then seeing how you progress as they help you through.
If you answer a question without any help, that’s great and will certainly look good. But in my opinion, the interview only really starts when they ask you something which you have no idea how to tackle. Then they give you a few hints and they want to see how you use them. They want to see how teachable you are, how you react to help, whether when you’re stuck you know why you’re stuck (e.g. what piece of information might you need to solve this problem?).
For Philosophy I talked about nothing I had read or in my personal statement. Instead I was asked open-ended questions which started a discussion. As you might expect, whatever I replied with they always challenged me to see if I could think on my feet.
Any interview tips?
Physics: practise talking aloud through problems so that doing so in the interview doesn’t throw you off. Although there’s no requirement to speak out loud during an interview, it really helps the interviewers know if you’re starting to go down the wrong path. They’re there to help you, after all, and they’ll stop you if they realise you’re making a mistake. Speaking out loud means you keep the dialogue going and they can see how you think and how you’re tackling the problem. Don’t worry if you think they’ve gone badly: after all, they want to push you until you don’t know how to solve a question, and then they’ll see how you react to the hints and help they give. You might also find the following link helpful:
http://apply.oxfordsu.org/courses/physics/interviews/
Philosophy: practise talking about issues out loud with others. It’s hard to recommend what issues exactly because they can ask you about anything – but ultimately it doesn’t matter what you practise talking about as long as you practise getting your point across clearly. For example, you could take a recent news article and discuss it with a friend: what do you think about it? Who does this affect? You could find a contentious issue and practise arguing both for and against it out loud. It’s important to have an idea of what philosophy is and you could practise talking about philosophical issues if you’d like, but they won’t expect you to know any philosophy. That is, they won’t expect you to be able to quote Sartre or discuss Popper in detail, unless you’ve talked about them on your personal statement (but even then, as I’ve said above, they might not ask you about anything on your personal statement!). You might also find the following link helpful:
https://www.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/oxford/field/field_document/1710-Interviews%20Guide%202019_WEB.pdf
Did you socialise during interview week? If so, what did you do?
Absolutely – I think that was the best part! The college held a lot of events throughout my time there. There were trips to the local ice cream shop and Christmas market and there were films, Mario Kart, FIFA and lots of board games/pool in the Junior Common Room (JCR). Ultimately I just ended up chatting to a lot of people before and after my interview. Even though some of the people I made friends with didn’t get in, we still keep in touch. I definitely think it’s worth socialising instead of spending most of your time locked up in your room.
On the first day, the Head Tutor for Physics told us that it’s unlikely we’d be able to learn anything new before our interviews, so the best thing to do would be to try and relax and enjoy our time in Oxford. Although it may be worth brushing up on the basics, I’d largely agree, so I’d recommend trying to have fun when you can!
How did you feel after interviews?
Mixed. I thought one of them had gone well but the rest not so well, with one of them going disastrously. However I had really enjoyed my time during interviews getting to know the other applicants and just roaming around the place.
Where were you when you got your offer? How did you react?
I was at home and had just got back from school. I don’t think it sunk in until my first day at Oxford, but at the time I was really happy: I knew I was lucky enough to study something which really interested me in a place which so many dream about, and I couldn’t wait to get started.
Are you looking forward to coming up to Oxford?
Absolutely! Oxford is a great place to be a student and I can’t wait to make the most of my final year starting in October.
Thank you @Oxford Mum for letting me be part of this!