When Do Physics Courses Start Getting Interesting?

[Alem2000]

Can anyone tell me when they start teaching you fun physics. Because the first of the three intro courses was sooo boaring...i mean compared to what i see in the other textbooks.

 

[enigma]

It's as fun as you want it to be. For me, things started getting cool in Junior year when we got the ability to do a few open-ended projects. Talk to your professors about signing on to do research with one of them.

 

[ahrkron]

Besides, if it is too boring, you can also challenge yourself and try the harder problems, or invent your own variations over the ones you are required to solve, or make a program to simulate some slightly different situation (for example, one that turns out not to be solvable analytically).

As enigma said, it gets as fun as you make it, and the more you play with the simple ideas now, the better off you will be later on, when faced with the real tough stuff. Also, the more techniques you learn, find or invent yourself now to solve simple stuff, the better prepared you will be for what comes later.

 

[Janitor]

I always thought it might be fun for a student to bowl over the instructor--well, the instructor's grader anyway--by using some advanced technique to solve a homework problem or exam problem in an elegant way. If they are expecting you to solve an e.m. problem with E and B fields, use the 4-vector potential or the Faraday tensor instead.

 

[theFuture]

I used to do that in high school, Janitor. I enjoyed it.

 

[krab]

sooo boaring...

The hangin' judge came in unnoticed and was being wined and dined,
The boarin' in the wall kept up but no one seemed to pay it any mind.
It was known all around that Lily had Jim's ring
And nothing would ever come between Lily and the king.
No, nothin' ever would except maybe the Jack of Hearts.

Oops... you meant boring (apologies to Zimmerman).

 

[Janitor]

Hello, theFuture. I hope we will get to hear some personal stories from you as time permits.

 

[franznietzsche]

I used to do that in high school, Janitor. I enjoyed it.

yeah using the langragian for a simple pendulum. Not quite on the same par as using tensors, but it still gets a few odd looks, and that's what life is about.

As for boring undergrad courses, grit your teeth and study what you're really interested. As far as I'm concerned all taking a class does is make it official, i haven't taken a science or math class in sometime where i hadn't already studied the materially independently a year or more before (which of course means i spent my time in those classes studying whatever new material i had moved on to.). It helps to keep things interesting because you can choose what you want to study. Like tensor calculus in the middle of 20th century history

 

[franznietzsche]

Oops... you meant boring (apologies to Zimmerman).

This is why thought and sleep deprivation do not mix well.

 

[Gokul43201]

Can anyone tell me when they start teaching you fun physics. Because the first of the three intro courses was sooo boaring...i mean compared to what i see in the other textbooks.

Was it boring because it was too easy ? Or did you just not get what it was all about ?