Allan Blaer

Having taken a class by Prof. Blaer for the third time, I must say he can teach any course in physics! The material is very clear, concise, and informative. His organization makes reviewing your notebook so much easier and it ultimately helps with the exams. He extended this course by half-hour each lecture to make time for recitation, which allowed people to come on either day depending on their progress with the homework. The exams are straightforward and fair. They are also very interesting because once you do them, you feel like you've learned something so deep! If you screw up the midterm, no worries, because depending on your performance on the final, he will omit the midterm as one of his ways he formulates the grades. All in all, any class Prof. Blaer teaches will be a class on my schedule! Since I'm now a grad student, I may not have a chance to have him anymore... so I spread my word of advice - if you have the chance to - take any of his courses!!

Currently taking Math Methods with him. He is a wonderful professor. I am a new grad student and previously went to a liberal arts college for my undergrad. I've come to realize that the highest praise I can give a professor is that they make me feel like I'm back with one of my undergrad professors, and he fits that description to a T. Both in class and in his office hours it feels like I'm sitting with my undergrad advisor or one of the many other excellent professors I had in undergrad. Excellent professor, very approachable (3 hours of office hours a week, split over two days, and is happy to sit and explain things to you), and he seems like he wants you to succeed and isn't just looking to jam everyone into a curve. His recitation sessions are also very useful and honestly unless you're easily knocking out the problems on your own, I think you're foolish not to stay for them. A+

Excellent professor and great class. Blaer is one of the best physics professors I ever have had. He is one of the few lecturers who have mastered the fine art of being detailed and thorough while still being clear and concise. Blaer goes over every concept he holds you responsible for in his lectures. As other reviews have mentioned, he gives all his lectures from memory and does a much better job than most other professors who have their notes in front of them. His delivery is smooth and his pace is well measured. All his points are well connected and tend to reinforce each other. He presents a healthy mix of proofs and applications, so you not only understand the concepts but also know how to use them to solve problems. In the first portion of the class, he covered all the basic classical mechanics topics from the Newtonian perspective i.e. projectile motion, momentum and angular momentum conservation, energy conservation and oscillations. In the second portion of the class, he introduced calculus of variations and langrangian mechanics, which is essentially an alternative to newtonian mechanics. He also spent a good amount of time on the two-body problem where he went over Kepler's orbits among other things.

Alan Blaer is without question the greatest professor I have ever had in either my academic career, undergrad or postbacc. He has a great sense of humor, and his lectures are absolutely crystal clear and fun. Although there are numerous factors that I can't identify, I'd say that Professor Blaer does three things which make his teaching great: 1. He includes many of the rigorous concepts (unit vectors, the cross product and line integral -- though he never actually used the latter term in class) behind the material that other professors gloss over. Other professors think that including such things will confuse students but don't realize that they are necessary for students' understanding. Moreover, Professor Blaer has the talent to present such concepts so that they are absolutely clear to students. The result is that every idea Professor Blaer presents is well-defined -- no ambiguity. 2. During the first few minutes of every class, Professor Blaer runs through (almost) all of the material we covered in the previous lecture, or at least everything that is a prerequisite to understand the current lecture. He always begins this with his famous phrase "You will recall . . ." The result is that many fewer students are lost due to missing or forgetting the material of the previous lecture. 3. He takes the different problems that are given in the book, classifies them into a handful…

Some of you prima donna/stereotypical Ivy Leaguers who are complaining that Blaer insults your intelligence with his staightforward exams should probably snap out of it this instant. I'd like to see you take a higher level physics class taught by somebody other than Blaer and see how well you do. Sure enough, you'll come back repentant and wishing you had never acted like little physics prodigies. You're limited intelligence, furthermore, manifests itself in your inability to accurately and objectively assess a professor. You came here to learn, not to show other students what you've got. If you don't like Blaer because he wants to reinforce and resynthesize concepts for everybody in his class, and would instead prefer a professor that makes the top 5% shine without imparting any useful knowledge, then go somewhere else, because it's people like you that make Columbia a laughing stock around other schools.

An outstanding physicist and a gifted instructor are not two things which Columbia is great at making out of a single human brain. By the end of the course, you will realize that Blaer is a rare exception to this general premise. At first, the succession of blackboards spent on the rigors of a single part of one problem may bore the hell out of you, depending on your reason for being in the class, and on top of that, your notes may be next to useless. But then the exams roll around, and all the people you hear walking around saying how easy their classes are start crying about how they got totally raped on their exams. And you? You attended the review session the previous SundayÂ…studied the review notes with anything more than zero presence of mind, and got in the 90s. BlaerÂ’s problem-solving approach to the class really succeeds in tying everything presented together into a few basic concepts which you very likely understood years before you were accepted to Columbia. Highly recommended classÂ…but you must learn to trust his ingenious approach.

The man is incredible. He does not use any notes and yet his lectures flow flawlessly. I do not remember him making any mistakes while working out even the messiest of examples. It's actually quite scary how organized he is without any notes. It's as if he memorizes the lecture before teaching it. His teaching style is incredible as well because you actually look forward to coming to class and sitting in it for 2 and a half hours (Although we did get 2 5 minute breaks). The notes you take in that class can substitute a textbook (That's why the textbook is just recommended). The homeworks are hard but he makes the material so interesting that you want to spend the 15 hours every two weeks trying to get all the problems. The tests are fairly easy and he is a lenient grader with the average being an A-/B+. Although, don't expect your tests back too soon. It usually takes him about a month or so to grade the midterms, and even longer to grade the finals. (We got ! our fall grades in the middle of February!) The bottom line is that he is the BEST professor I have ever had and his class was my favorite of all the classes I have ever taken (And I'm not even a physics major)

Allan Blaer is one of if not the single best teacher I've had yet at Columbia. He genuinely cares about his students and puts in much more time and effort for this class than he is required to, by teaching two recitation sections and grading all of the midterms and finals himself. On top of that, he seems to know everything there is to know about every detail of classical mechanics and how it relates to other areas of physics, is full of interesting anecdotes about the physicists after whom the theorems we use are named, and even goes as far as to discuss the philosophical implications of each of the approaches we cover, all of which make the class much more interesting than simply reading a textbook. On top of all that, he's always in a good mood; jolly,if you will, like santa clause. He'll make your heart melt with his gentle, soothing explanations of the Euler-Lagrange Equations while keeping you on your toes by yelling a few carefully chosen terms with tremendous fervor. I suppose it's something you must experience for yourself to really appreciate.

Professor Blaer can translate concepts into plain words better than anyone I've had at Columbia. He's good natured, organized, engaging, and smart. Also goofy-funny. Lectures from memory. Very compulsive when it comes to Physics (likes to stay after class and look over the notes he has left on the board). His compulsiveness can be mistaken for arrogance, but it's really dedication. Links past and current topics very well. Prefers variables to numbers (unless numbers make more sense, e.g. circuits), which helps because it works to avoid losing track of the physics in a series of calculations. Answers questions well and completely. That said, he takes his sweet time doing all these wonderful things. For every one outstanding student at Columbia there are at least two or three who are not as gifted but try to make up for it through hard work. A Blaer class helps the latter, but not to the detriment of the great student, who just gets bumped up to an A+. The curve is very high, with the median representing the cut-off between a B+ and an A-. Close to half the class gets some sort of an A letter grade, which is ridiculous. Overall, if you want to understand and even enjoy Physics, learn how to approach problems efficiently, and have the grade to match, then Blaer is your man.

Everyone only likes Blaer because he's ridiculously easy. The exams are a total joke!!! He tells you every problem on the exam the week before. This is cheating!!! Some one should report him to the Honor Council. Furthermore, his lectures are painfully slow for those in the class who are decent at physics. He treats his students like retards. That being said, there is something to be said for the no calculators tests. Because there are no calculations, you tend to know the equations a lot better, rather than perfecting your math skills and I think you get a much better conceptual understanding of Physics, which is really what makes it hard to begin with (the math part isn't so bad). Plus, there are no calculators on the MCATs, so this seemed like a good idea to me.