Physics for Poets I · Physics
Physics for Poets was a wild ride. I took the class during Covid-19, so I am not certain how much my experience reflects what it would be like in person. The professor is excited about the material and loves physics, and shares that excitement with his students. My major issue with the course was the separation between the lectures and the homework -- the homework required lots of outside (seemingly random) research and was incredibly time-consuming, and the lecture notes only helped marginally. While I did find the course material interesting, because of the amount of work required, I'm not sure I would recommend this class. With that said, it is definitely appropriate for someone who is not a science major.
Three tests that require studying before; one optional paper that can be great if you choose a topic that interests you; essential attendences at lectures.
Optional weekly problem sets (I did zero and still did really well), weekly quizzes (basically repeats of the problem sets), and a midterm and final, both of which are very predictable and fair (and not particularly challenging if you've shown up to at least half your classes). Extra credit for showing up to class and answering the question of the day on an index card.
24 lectures.11 homework assignments. 2 midterms. 1 final exam.
Four homeworks 30%, three midterm (lowest dropped) 30%, one final 30%, one paper 10%
I LOVED Professor Evans and I LOVED his class. As other reviews stated, he is extremely well organized, very respectful of any and all questions, and endearingly corny on many occassions. Lectures are really important but if you go to them regularly, you don't have to do much other work. You definitely have to study for the midterms and the final, but that's the only time you need to do outside work -- only three times all semester. The best part of this class is you actually walk away smarter. In some ways, it is more difficult than math-based physics because you have to be able to explain the concept of curved spacetime in words, not in equations (which is the way physicists think about it so they don't go crazy). But you will be able to do that, and you will feel so good about it.
In a nutshell: - The powerpoints are informative and clear enough, and Conrad is a capable enough lecturer, that I never opened my book - The workload is minimal, but I still learned a huge amount of brain-stretching material - The concepts are relevant to the lives of everyone who lives in this universe (i.e. physics is incredible) - Conrad passes out physics toys about once a month (I still have my diffraction grating glasses!) -NO CALCULUS.* I highly recommend this class to anyone and everyone who hasn't taken a college-level physics course *Conrad occasionally adds more advanced or complicated math to the powerpoints, but she usually flips through the slides really quickly in class, and we weren't tested on any of it. For people (like me) who know calculus and just get really angry at math homework, this means you can understand some of the concepts mathematically as well!
No. Don't do it! This course title is misleading and you will be pissed when you sit in the class on the first day and have the professor remind you of that fact. It's for non-science majors, yes. But Physics for Poets sounds cool and the title holds the promise of a certain whimsical, imaginative, mysterious, beautiful and metaphysical foray into the way things work in nature and in space. Uh, No. However, you will feel motivated to write poems in this class, since the constant daydreaming you will do makes for great poetry writing. You should pay a little attention, though, because some of what you're ignoring is gonna be on your homework assignment and you can't submit a poem. If you have to take this class, go to every session our lovely TA Robert conducts and he will give you all the answers you need and he'll even repeat them for you if you had been writing a poem or haiku while he was lecturing on the topic the first time. The assignments took a lot of time for many of us, maybe those of us less disciplined poets who yearned for metaphors and analogical thinking to help our tender souls make sense of the profundity of nature and the cosmos as it was presented so unimaginatively on those dang power point slides. And the door always had this moaning whooshing sound when closed. Frightened air was trying to blast its way in or out, always a panicked air blowing through tha…
Reviewer has not received the grades but likely to receive an A. Professor Marka is clearly a first class astrophysicist but felt that lectures were not delivered in the most coherent manner. Some questions on the finals and homeworks were not explicitly discussed in class which left some students confused. My recommendation is to go to class to see experiments in class and review the slides at home. One homework had 20 pages so be warned that this class may not be as easy as before.
two midterms and a final, not too difficult. grading on a curve but it isn't a system where everyone gets A's. the average is a B+/B I'd say.