Norman Christ

Keep in mind that the course has a reputation for being one of the hardest intro courses at the school, which is probably the case. Hard doesn't mean bad, however. Professor Christ clearly has an insane background in physics and is a fascinating teacher. His very mathematical approach to physics will likely l make you appreciate physics even more. The only issue is that if you are not comfortable with math, then you're practically a kitten trying to swim out of a rapid current. The notion that "You can take calc III concurrently and be okay" is complete bullshit. You will not be okay. If you don't have a multi background and are not good with power series, this class is not for you, and you should probably take 1600. This sounds very harsh, but here is what is going to happen: you will come to Christ's lecture, not get it, look at the homework, think, "oh this is easy," get stuck, look at the solutions online, get your 100, and just stop going to lectures. If you want to get out of physics in two semesters, that's okay, but you'll miss the whole point of accelerated physics. You're also going to get annihilated on exams or by homework problems that Christ writes himself and that are not on Chegg. Anyone can just read the chapters of K&K and solve the problems. The most interesting aspect of the course is to see how Christ thinks about concepts and uses them to derive new thing…

This class is basically AP Physics C all over again. Which is a blessing, since Christ's lectures are utterly unintelligible. He makes things needlessly complicated, and it doesn't help when he makes mistakes and has to backtrack. The lectures are pretty much worthless; my only impetus to go was the vain hope that I might learn something. Theoretically, I did learn relativity, but only after I read the chapter and had my father, who teaches physics at USC, explain everything to me twice. Christ is a nervous, kind of mousy guy who failed completely at gaining any respect from the class due to his ability (or lack there of) as a professor and unconfident air, underscored by his mistakes. I'd recommend taking this class because it's not terribly taxing as a rehash of AP Physics C: you won't actually have to learn anything (except relativity). I wouldn't recommend taking it for the same reason, i.e. don't if you're hoping to learn something.

Prof. Christ is a very good and EXTREMELY knowledgeable professor. Though I must agree with the other reviewer that not all his proofs are very rigurous, this is not a proof-based math class either. Just like Physics research, it is problem - solving oriented; Quantum Mechanics is a closed field for research, the purpose of this class is to help us get more insight into the physics and the phenomena - and phenomena don't need proofs, they happen. In his class he tries hard to squeeze in as many phenomena as possible - during the first semester, with a more advanced version of the mathematical apparatus in undergrad QM, during the second one with completely new stuff that could never be solved with the undergrad knowledge. The problems prof. Christ had us solve every week were not always hard, nor always easy - they would alternate. However, each time they actually hid a real physical problem or some new insight (about which you could find out more during his office hours) -to put it this way, I loved all of them. Though it is true his midterm had some calculations in it that could confuse many, they could be solved in a few lines with some very simple tricks that he did in class. Getting more than 70 however was pretty hard as the last 30 points were the insightful, truly difficult part. Honestly, I feel his class and his office hours were a great help to me in my global under…

THE GOOD: Prof. Christ is an unbelievable mathematician and theoretical physicist. He is able to fill a 2 hour lecture slot entirely by deriving a variety of physics formulae from minimal notes. His personal conceptual understanding is likely unrivaled at Columbia. If you have a very very large background in math, I'd imagine talking with him may be inspiring. Another good thing (that may a point of contention to many) is the workload. Given the unbelievable amount of material covered by the class, the workload is "fair." (Keep in mind that this may mean 20 hours devoted to a single problem set in a week). THE BAD (oh boy is there a lot): While the workload is "fair", it is massively undervalued. There are 12 problem sets consisting of around 9 questions each worth ~50 points. These account for ~15-20% of the grade despite the fact that they take up about 90% of the time you will spend working on the course. The lectures are all but useless to prepare you for homework and tests. You learn a lot more by skipping them and devoting 4 hours a week to reading the textbooks (though you'll need to read it a lot more). As we got into more advanced concepts (general relativity, and quantum mechanics) Christ assumed an unbelievable background in mathematics. Realistically, Calc 3/4 and Linear algebra should be prerequisites for the class. While he briefly introduced the concepts, it was…

Norman Christ is, indeed, a very knowledgeable professor, and a very capable physicist. Substantiation? check out his Wikipedia page. He is also cute in a "what a smart guy/yoda" sort of way. But to make your decision about the class you need to know these: Do not be fooled by how easy the first two lectures are. Delusions of grandeur for many people. His lectures can often be inscrutable. You will be able to follow the math, but you'll need the book to fully grasp the concept. I did not go to problem sessions. Make friends, preferably those who do go. And live on your floor. Physics brings your floor, (the 2 engineers and 2 physics majors), closer. I still don't know how to study for this class. Good luck with that. Practice midterms are never really like the actual midterm. But do them anyways. Can make you feel better about yourself before the midterms. Beware of the Norman's third problem on every midterm. Although Norman is a saint, they are like the Third Reich, even if you aren't Jewish. You are pretty much guaranteed a 67 because the first two problems are usually easy. And you are smart enough to correctly spell your name on your test. Know your math. Reality: A decent grade is possible if you work for it.

Professor Christ is a very nice person, always willing to help and take extra time to answer questions, etc. When I went to office hours, he was also very encouraging and smiled a lot, and he would stay late after problem sessions to answer questions. The only problem is that I feel Prof. Christ has some trouble conveying his knowledge to students. Also, the problem sets for this class fluctuated between very easy and quite tricky (I think I stayed up very late trying to figure out how to do a problem on hyperfine structure for the last one) as if he has no sense of the correct difficulty level. I guess I also didn't quite like the system of having homework due on Fridays, with the recitation immediately after (so you realize your mistakes - or get convinced you made one even if you really didn't, although I guess that ingrains it into your memory). Spending Thursday evenings entirely on quantum mechanics ruined my piano lessons for the semester. As for the lectures, I was a little disappointed about the hand-waviness of the mathematics. I guess I viewed quantum mechanics at the graduate level as a chance to combine math with physics - to view things in terms of symmetries, and use the language of group theory etc. to provide a language with which to do this. In this class, the math just seemed sloppily added to the physics without great motivation; I guess I have a taste for…

This is easily the most difficult introductory course in Columbia. It requires mathematics well beyond what is expected of an incoming freshman. This class should have Calc III, IV and Linear Algebra as prerequisites if you really want to gain a comprehensive understanding of the material. All the other reviews are quite accurate, expanding on Prof. Christ's incompetency as a teacher and the very difficult material. Norman Christ is an intelligent man, no doubt. However, he fails miserably as a teacher. He is very disorganized, moves way too fast and makes many mistakes on the board (which is infuriating because you spend half your time figuring out the mistake instead of following the derivation). To Christ's credit, he is willing to spend time with his students at office hours and explain things again. Though repeating the same poor explanation doesn't do you much good. Prof. Christ only teaches theory in class, and spends a lot of time on derivations. The worst part is that you don't even know what he's trying to derive till he's finished. There is little to no connection to the material taught in class and the the homework from Kleppner and Kolenkow. Christ only does a select few easy problems in class - very different from the difficult problems in the textbook. If Christ concentrated more on problem solving techniques, the class would be much better. The exam questions a…

Christ seems like an extraordinarily knowledgeable professor with a passion for his subject, but his lectures didn't manage to convey that knowledge to the class. Lectures were often very difficult to follow and there always seemed to be topics or concepts we didn't cover--we spent all our time on solving problems or proving equations, and not building any conceptual framework for what we were learning. I ended up teaching myself the first eight chapters over fall break, which is the only reason I passed the second midterm. (On the other hand, Christ's almost-daily physics jokes were adorable.) The TA running the problem sessions was not particularly helpful--he would often solve problems with math none of the students had seen (post-calc), if he solved the problems at all. The course would have been much more manageable (and effective, given that I learned very little from the instructors) if we had had decent problem sessions. The text was the best part of the course. I'm not taking the second semester of the class in favor of teaching myself out of the book, which is basically all I did this semester.

Explanations for basic content are excessively basic, explanations of difficult content are almost entirely intelligible. Information is often provided not in terms of general cases (which would actually be useful), but in terms of specific scenarios that likely are of little use when solving other problems on similar subject areas. Generalized terms are presented far too generally, concepts and usefulness getting lost in mathematical jargon and excessive notation. Assignments are excessively difficult, often requiring much knowledge or intuition beyond that which is presented either in the textbook or presented in class. For quantum mechanics, the skills required to solve problems extended far beyond the knowledge of even the more advanced students. How the course could be improved: Focus less on simply covering material and more on explaining content. Provide conceptual context for content by explaining the significance of a finding or equation. Give equations in general terms, and show how one can actually utilize these equations to solve problems. Perks: Generous grading curve, generous extension-granting policy regarding problem sets Overall: An extremely difficult course requiring extreme amounts of independent learning, which overall did little to stimulate my interest in physics, or contribute to my ability to solve physics-related problems.

The lectures are really dry, except for demo days. Mostly, he proves and derives all the formulae which is cool if you actually like physics, but the engineers found it very boring. Most of what you learn from this class is due to the hwk. No one goes to the lecture. I was lucky in that my whole floor is engineers and science ppl, so we did the homeworks together, wednesday nights it was a few hours (10-1:30). Usually, the homewokrs are on something from the book, rather than from class, and may be something that he is going to teach, but hasn't yet. Relativity section was awesome. If you want more calculus, take 1400 physics, as this class mostly avoids it in the problems (1400 uses a better book too). If you took physics B or C in high school this class is a breeze, but i have been warned that second semester is much more challenging and actually physics. Worth it? Yes, do the crossword during lecture, you might see a cool proof or demo, then go to lunch with friends and do the problems.