PHYSICS 105A
Analytic Mechanics
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Requisites: courses 1A, 1B, and 1C (or 1AH, 1BH, and 1CH), Mathematics 32B, 33A. Corequisite: Mathematics 33B. Newtonian mechanics and conservation laws, gravitational potentials, calculus of variations, Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics, central force motion, linear and nonlinear oscillations. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Worst two quarters I've ever had. Bruinsma will teach you USELESS facts that you will spend FOREVER on. They will not be on the midterm or the final. They will not be on the GRE and aren't important for your physics career. What's the point of Newtonian mechanics? The point of the class is to learn how physicists transform this into the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian. Spent one week learning a difficult concept, Lagrangian, and he didn't even teach it! He had another prof do it. NEVER ONCE MENTIONED HAMILTONIANS! Oh so I pay 13K to read wikapedia, cool, thanks for the experience. Midterms were flipping crazy and finals are so dumb. When he does review sessions he will talk FOREVER (2hours) on things in such detail. It's really awesome, but then afterwords he'll say like three other things, not lecture on them or what they are, and that's what will be on the exam. Also made us do mathematica homework every week! It sucked! It was like having two classes at one time! So 8-10 questions from the book which would take 10 hours if you don't cheat and then 10 hours of mathematica. Super awesome if you have no life and you want to make yourself feel good. No extra credit or anything, such crap. I'm sure he means well and tries to make it fun, but it doesn't come out that way. Maybe you're into the challenge of learning everything on your own, or reading wikepedia and beating the curve. I just wanted to learn something in class. So much more I could say about this dude, but I wont. Take him, but yeah, just know that it'll kind of blow.
Worst two quarters I've ever had. Bruinsma will teach you USELESS facts that you will spend FOREVER on. They will not be on the midterm or the final. They will not be on the GRE and aren't important for your physics career. What's the point of Newtonian mechanics? The point of the class is to learn how physicists transform this into the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian. Spent one week learning a difficult concept, Lagrangian, and he didn't even teach it! He had another prof do it. NEVER ONCE MENTIONED HAMILTONIANS! Oh so I pay 13K to read wikapedia, cool, thanks for the experience. Midterms were flipping crazy and finals are so dumb. When he does review sessions he will talk FOREVER (2hours) on things in such detail. It's really awesome, but then afterwords he'll say like three other things, not lecture on them or what they are, and that's what will be on the exam. Also made us do mathematica homework every week! It sucked! It was like having two classes at one time! So 8-10 questions from the book which would take 10 hours if you don't cheat and then 10 hours of mathematica. Super awesome if you have no life and you want to make yourself feel good. No extra credit or anything, such crap. I'm sure he means well and tries to make it fun, but it doesn't come out that way. Maybe you're into the challenge of learning everything on your own, or reading wikepedia and beating the curve. I just wanted to learn something in class. So much more I could say about this dude, but I wont. Take him, but yeah, just know that it'll kind of blow.
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Most Helpful Review
His lectures are conceptual and so are most of the homework/test questions. His teaching... is a bit confusing (he switches notations or messes up a bit), but it's a good kind of confusion. It's the kind that makes you want to figure out what the heck is going on, and the kind that allows you see how a physicist SHOULD think. There is no doubt he actually cares about the students learning, but I'd guess that people in our class are a bit intimidated or something (or that he doesn't hear us ask questions sometimes). Also, he (or his graders) grade very leniently. The bottom line is, this guy is a genius, and his derivations (although many of you might hate those) are quite brilliant once you figure out his line of reasoning at the end. I hope he teaches again next quarter because I feel myself slowly learning to hone my intuition and generate physical interpretations from seemingly random equations.
His lectures are conceptual and so are most of the homework/test questions. His teaching... is a bit confusing (he switches notations or messes up a bit), but it's a good kind of confusion. It's the kind that makes you want to figure out what the heck is going on, and the kind that allows you see how a physicist SHOULD think. There is no doubt he actually cares about the students learning, but I'd guess that people in our class are a bit intimidated or something (or that he doesn't hear us ask questions sometimes). Also, he (or his graders) grade very leniently. The bottom line is, this guy is a genius, and his derivations (although many of you might hate those) are quite brilliant once you figure out his line of reasoning at the end. I hope he teaches again next quarter because I feel myself slowly learning to hone my intuition and generate physical interpretations from seemingly random equations.
Most Helpful Review
This guy is easy. The homework is straight out of the book (though I warn you, the 105 A book is terrible), and very do-able. It is also only due every 2 weeks, and that flexibility is nice. The tests are pretty easy, though beware the multiple choice sections: there are tricks everywhere. Physics classes shouldn't have multiple choice anywhere as far as I'm concerned. He is an okay lecturer, nothing too special, through what he says he says clearly (his voice resembles Kermit the Frog's, so there is some humor there). he had a few relevant demonstrations. The one thing that bothered me is that of the 8 chapters the syllabus said we were supposed to cover, we only did 6. 105A is a class for physics majors who actually need to know what they are learning, so I am concerned that missing this material will come back and bite me in the future. Easy professor, nothing special.
This guy is easy. The homework is straight out of the book (though I warn you, the 105 A book is terrible), and very do-able. It is also only due every 2 weeks, and that flexibility is nice. The tests are pretty easy, though beware the multiple choice sections: there are tricks everywhere. Physics classes shouldn't have multiple choice anywhere as far as I'm concerned. He is an okay lecturer, nothing too special, through what he says he says clearly (his voice resembles Kermit the Frog's, so there is some humor there). he had a few relevant demonstrations. The one thing that bothered me is that of the 8 chapters the syllabus said we were supposed to cover, we only did 6. 105A is a class for physics majors who actually need to know what they are learning, so I am concerned that missing this material will come back and bite me in the future. Easy professor, nothing special.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2020 - Disclaimer: Took this class during the online quarter, so final was "no harm" grading. Professor Kraus is decent. He follows the textbook pretty closely and does what he is supposed to do. However, his lectures are hard to pay attention to, because he is so monotone. His voice fades away as he talks to the point where he is just mumbling before he picks it up and we go on the ride again. He assigns a decent amount of homework every week, but the problem is, his homework does not look like his exams. His exams are much harder than his homework. For example, almost every problem from the Chapter 7 homework had given coordinates to set up the Lagrangian, but he never gives you the coordinates on his exam, as you are to figure them out. Not giving coordinates is completely understandable, but his homework shouldn't give coordinates either. Also, his lecture examples are not similar to the exams either. His exam questions are completely new and are very much on the harder side. Also, he makes questions that should be straightforward into questions where you are bound to lose points. For example, he gave a straightforward final question but gave an ugly integral, which caused me to lose points. His grading is also hit or miss. Most of the time, he is a easy grader, as he gives plenty of partial credit, but sometimes, he takes off a lot of points for the most ridiculous math problems (e.g. setting up the entire problem correctly but not being able to do the integral). Overall, Kraus is a very textbook professor.
Spring 2020 - Disclaimer: Took this class during the online quarter, so final was "no harm" grading. Professor Kraus is decent. He follows the textbook pretty closely and does what he is supposed to do. However, his lectures are hard to pay attention to, because he is so monotone. His voice fades away as he talks to the point where he is just mumbling before he picks it up and we go on the ride again. He assigns a decent amount of homework every week, but the problem is, his homework does not look like his exams. His exams are much harder than his homework. For example, almost every problem from the Chapter 7 homework had given coordinates to set up the Lagrangian, but he never gives you the coordinates on his exam, as you are to figure them out. Not giving coordinates is completely understandable, but his homework shouldn't give coordinates either. Also, his lecture examples are not similar to the exams either. His exam questions are completely new and are very much on the harder side. Also, he makes questions that should be straightforward into questions where you are bound to lose points. For example, he gave a straightforward final question but gave an ugly integral, which caused me to lose points. His grading is also hit or miss. Most of the time, he is a easy grader, as he gives plenty of partial credit, but sometimes, he takes off a lot of points for the most ridiculous math problems (e.g. setting up the entire problem correctly but not being able to do the integral). Overall, Kraus is a very textbook professor.
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Most Helpful Review
Hands down, one of my favorite upper-div professors. The material is difficult (105A and B), but he explains it pretty well and assigns very good homework problems. I like how he doesn't bother with really bullshit topics. He'll ask fair questions on the midterm that are homework-difficulty, so if you can do the harder homework problems without the solutions manual, then you'll do well. Take him if you can; I wish he taught all the upper-div physics classes. He's also hilarious and nice and seems to enjoy the class as well as his students.
Hands down, one of my favorite upper-div professors. The material is difficult (105A and B), but he explains it pretty well and assigns very good homework problems. I like how he doesn't bother with really bullshit topics. He'll ask fair questions on the midterm that are homework-difficulty, so if you can do the harder homework problems without the solutions manual, then you'll do well. Take him if you can; I wish he taught all the upper-div physics classes. He's also hilarious and nice and seems to enjoy the class as well as his students.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2020 - This woman is absolutely amazing. Her lectures are clear and she actually explains what she's doing (unlike most professors) and even though the class isn't curved her exams are very fair and usually more straightforward than the homework. If you understand the homework the exams are pretty doable. She was also very understanding with the corona virus situation and handled the final and determination of final grades very well. She's also just a really fun and cool person in general. 10/10 would take a class with her again.
Winter 2020 - This woman is absolutely amazing. Her lectures are clear and she actually explains what she's doing (unlike most professors) and even though the class isn't curved her exams are very fair and usually more straightforward than the homework. If you understand the homework the exams are pretty doable. She was also very understanding with the corona virus situation and handled the final and determination of final grades very well. She's also just a really fun and cool person in general. 10/10 would take a class with her again.
Most Helpful Review
- For this class, you really do have to have a strong foundation in physics to have traction in this class. The prerequisites are the 1-series or the 6-series, but even with that foundation, I struggled for the most part. I had heard from Professor Ong surveying the students that they took other classes like 17 and 18, as well as concurrently taking another upper division physics class, and they were the ones who did better in 105A, so I would suggest doing that as well first to get better footing for this class. - As for 105A, Professor Ong teaches this class with the assumption that you have a solid foundation in the lower-division courses because he goes right into the topics and does a few examples in that manner. In the 50-minute period, those are done fairly quickly, which was another factor that made it difficult for me (before using an audio recorder). - There are 9 weekly homework assignments (15%), 2 midterms (20% each), the final (35%), and a recently-added series of 6 Mathematica homeworks (10%). - In the case of Mathematica, another professor, Brent Corbin, is the professor to go to for questions, to turn in those homeworks, and anything Mathematica-related. - Workshops were provided twice a week to get help, though from Winter 2012, the hours were questionable because it was Tuesday and Thursday at the same time, which didn’t work for everybody. Mathematica proved to be more a hindrance than anything because of the time it took along with the regular homework, but hopefully, the kinks get worked out to where it benefits instead of hinders. - Discussion section was also based on the fact of having a strong physics background, so for me, I didn’t see it very useful. - Overall, though Professor Ong is willing to help as much as possible, putting in the time and having a strong physics foundation is vital to success in this class.
- For this class, you really do have to have a strong foundation in physics to have traction in this class. The prerequisites are the 1-series or the 6-series, but even with that foundation, I struggled for the most part. I had heard from Professor Ong surveying the students that they took other classes like 17 and 18, as well as concurrently taking another upper division physics class, and they were the ones who did better in 105A, so I would suggest doing that as well first to get better footing for this class. - As for 105A, Professor Ong teaches this class with the assumption that you have a solid foundation in the lower-division courses because he goes right into the topics and does a few examples in that manner. In the 50-minute period, those are done fairly quickly, which was another factor that made it difficult for me (before using an audio recorder). - There are 9 weekly homework assignments (15%), 2 midterms (20% each), the final (35%), and a recently-added series of 6 Mathematica homeworks (10%). - In the case of Mathematica, another professor, Brent Corbin, is the professor to go to for questions, to turn in those homeworks, and anything Mathematica-related. - Workshops were provided twice a week to get help, though from Winter 2012, the hours were questionable because it was Tuesday and Thursday at the same time, which didn’t work for everybody. Mathematica proved to be more a hindrance than anything because of the time it took along with the regular homework, but hopefully, the kinks get worked out to where it benefits instead of hinders. - Discussion section was also based on the fact of having a strong physics background, so for me, I didn’t see it very useful. - Overall, though Professor Ong is willing to help as much as possible, putting in the time and having a strong physics foundation is vital to success in this class.
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