classes:2012:spring:phys1301w.200:home [School of Physics and Astronomy Wiki]

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====== 1301W.200 wiki page ======
students, TAs and faculty instructors can post anything which are related to the class here.

===== Study resources =====

==== Here is a contribution from a student ====

The first one, Khanacademy.org is just a website built by a guy who
received 3 different degrees from MIT, and then an MBA from Harvard.
He's made several thousand videos over the past few years that cover
everything from corporate finance, to biology, chemistry, organic
chemistry,  trigonometry, calculus, linear algebra (and just about
every other level of math there is), art history, astronomy, and of
course physics.  And those cover a pretty full range of topics from
kinematics, projectile motion, fluids, circuits, thermodynamics, etc.
Videos average about just 10 minutes, but will push up to 25-30
minutes for more complicated subjects like linear algebra.  It seems
to me that the guy just has a natural talent for communicating.
Calculus for example is not hard to learn, but unfortunately for the
instructors, it's hard to teach because of how obscure many of the
concepts can be when first presented.  I've noticed that most people
feel that once you finally understand what the calculus teacher is
trying to convey, it's suddenly so easy that it's more tedious than
anything, and you feel like an idiot for not grasping it sooner.
Case in point, on almost every video I've watched of calculus I see
comments at the bottom from kids in like the 7th grade, even one made
by a 12 year old, who were watching the videos and grasping, with
ease, the same concepts that so many of my university peers in the 8am
calc class are having to work at.  And if nothing else, it's great
remedial education for those who are out of practice and need a
refresher.

The second, physics-online.com, just has a wide array of interactive
modules that seem to cover almost every subject in basic physics.  And
as I said before, at least for me, it's the simple act of repetition
that does it.  Often times, just by doing something I can learn it
even if I've never had any formal education and lack any prior
knowledge.  But the real value, especially given that the FREE
lite-version (which gives you everything you need anyway), is in the
visualization.  Looking at a collection of letters and Greek symbols
pieced together into a formula on a chalk board is much harder to
interpret and internalized than the picture of a cannon shooting a
ball at an initial velocity any angle you choose, while plotting the
trajectory in flight and showing you how the vectors change.  So what
I do is just click and set random values without looking at the screen
and then based on how far it went or the angle I set, or whatever
variable I decide to play with, I try to see if I can calculate the
remaining variables.

But another thing that I thought you might be interested is one of its
features called "Mechanics Pad".  It's an interactive module where you
can literally design your own mechanical system with pulleys, gears,
levers, vectors, or it seems just about any other mechanical system
you can imagine.  I've yet to really explore it, but it seems like
that could probably be useful for something.
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