How Do Nuclear Astrophysics and Particle Physics with Cosmology Differ?

[QueenFisher]

i'm only in my first year of college, but I'm looking at doing physics at uni. there's 2 courses that interest me, nuclear astrophysics and particle physics with cosmology. can anyone advise me as to how these would be different from each other?

 

[franznietzsche]

First year of college? What kind of math background do you have? Normally you take Newtonian mechanics in your first year.

 

[Mulder]

QueenFisher have you found a uni you like, and are trying to choose between the two courses at that place? In this case just check out their (online) prospectuses - there'll usually be significant overlap wherever the courses.

 

[neurocomp2003]

i actually believe that you would study them together if your school indeed as an indepth astrophysics programme.

 

[QueenFisher]

yeah i looked at the course outlines but it didn't mean much to me (i wouldn't expect it to), i just thought they looked to be kind of the same course.

also... what's Newtonian mechanics? is it the laws of motion and all that kind of thing?

 

[rho]

There at Birmingham and Surrey right? out of the two I would probably choose Birmingham it's a more respected uni. But to be honest if you can get BBB at A2 you wouldn't have much problem getting into astrophysics at UCL or Manchester who both have very good astrophysics departments. When you apply to a physics department you can usually switch between it's degrees in the first two years, for example you if you started a degree in pure physics and you decided you wanted to do more astro you could join the astro course in the next year.

Go to a few open days in the summer and have a look round and ask the undergrads lots of questions.