Why do people think physics is so hard?

[moose]

I remember when I was making a program in which I modeled a human eye to follow the movements of the mouse at a set depth. To make it look accurate to life, I had to make it so that the size of the iris changed, and so that it would "stretch" or actually shrink kinda, when it got to the sides, and so forth. I didn't want to use any trig in the program, so I used some vector stuff. Several students in the class were amazed that I was actually able to apply something that I learned in a math class.

 

[JasonRox]

What bothers me the most is people who major in Mathematics and Physics, and talk as if they're extraordinary people and are super intelligent just because of their major.

 

[FrogPad]

I commonly hear the words "Physics" and "Genius" combined in many sentences, which seems to be a bit of a misnomer, considering that most of physics is rather simple, and only gets complicated once you have to apply hundreds of possible changing factors in a problem.

Or am I just being pompous? X.x

I think most people associate 'genius' with physics, because of the amount of time that must be invested in the subject. I can only speak for myself here, but I feel (and I think most others do) that it takes time to absorb the material and believe in it. The ideas are very abstract, and simply take time to partially comprehend (let alone fully).

I mean how can one just be introduced to emag. and understand it the first go around. The concept of electric fields are somewhat daunting, but you begin to appreciate them later. I mean if you can visualize electric fields, and the superposition of many sources without a lot of practice then all I have to say is damn. For example the concept of mutual inductance took me awhile before I could actually grasp it. Yeah I could somewhat understand it in an introductory physics course, but not really... it wasn't until I actually understood the math until it really made sense. It's not necessarily 'hard', it just takes TIME (at least it does for me). The same can be said for playing a musical instrument, learning to paint, etc... it's hard because it requires investment, and some people just can't do it.

 

[bomba923]

Hmm...
From my experience,

1) When students/teachers/people say a class is "hard"...
the students tend to lower their standards/expectations and performance somewhat.
Consequently, they don't do too well...and call the class "hard". (*The cycle begins anew.*)

2) Blahness--you are a high school student, right?

So then, the question should be
"Why do people think HS physics is hard?"

Quite an interesting misjudgment on the side of those people...
but all I'll comment on here (for now ) is the sorry state of
American public grade school education
(and some of your other threads
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=99844
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=96967
and one of mine
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=104494)

 

[Robert Mak]

What bothers me the most is people who major in Mathematics and Physics, and talk as if they're extraordinary people and are super intelligent just because of their major.

Me too!

 

[3trQN]

It is hard...

 

[FrogPad]

It is hard...

:)

I like your response.

 

[Anttech]

I always think of great Mathematicians as *geniuses* and physicians as standing on the shoulders of Geniuses :)

 

[cristo]

I always think of great Mathematicians as *geniuses* and physicians as standing on the shoulders of Geniuses :)

I like that- sounds familiar though?!

 

[JasonRox]

I always think of great Mathematicians as *geniuses* and physicians as standing on the shoulders of Geniuses :)

That makes no sense at all.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Physics is very hard for me in part because I am no genius. Among the people who say that I am a genius because I carry a physics book around with me, it seems there are some who have no clue whether physics is easy or hard. I wonder if they have ever applied themselves to any hard thing in their lives.

 

[Anttech]

That makes no sense at all.

thanks

 

[Kurdt]

Well of course that is because a physician is a medical doctor who specialises in performing a particular type of surgery. I'm not sure how much maths they require. Physicists on the other hand might indeed stand on the shoulders of mathematicians.

 

[JasonRox]

Physics is very hard for me in part because I am no genius. Among the people who say that I am a genius because I carry a physics book around with me, it seems there are some who have no clue whether physics is easy or hard. I wonder if they have ever applied themselves to any hard thing in their lives.

But now you yourself is saying Physics is like one the hardest things out there.

Is it really?

 

[Kurdt]

I think the hardest thing is the dedication to study. A lot of people don't want to spend the time learning the concepts behind physics and it does take time. If physics is not a passion then its very difficult to justify the time needed to study it.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

But now you yourself is saying Physics is like one the hardest things out there.

Is it really?

Yes. Physics is one of the hardest things out there. So is English Lit. Yet you need not be a genius to read a book.

 

[Quaoar]

I think one issue is that there are so few of us. Scientists from other fields outnumber physicists by such a huge margin that there is a sort of "mystique" that comes with being a physicist. I think the prevailing logic among people is "So few do what they do, so only a few must be competent enough to do it."

 

[rhuthwaite]

Physics just takes time, out of every subject I have ever done physics was the hardest, calc the easiest. It just takes so much time and I didn't pay attention in class, (our teacher had a monotone and you would just zone out, when you came back to listening you had no idea what he was talking about) so what I know of physics I taught myself

 

[JasonRox]

Yes. Physics is one of the hardest things out there. So is English Lit. Yet you need not be a genius to read a book.

I disagree. There are many more difficult things.

Keep in mind that it's all subjective.

 

[complexPHILOSOPHY]

What exactly would you say is harder than physics and/or mathematics? I have read through lots of different undergraduate texts (to construct a perspective of how difficult all of the majors are at my university) and the only texts that I open up and immediately go wtf, are high level chemistry, math and physics.

I can understand neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, biology, etc. without any problems at all. All I have to do is read through the chapters, make sure I understand the operational definitions and that's about it.

I have to spend hours and hours learning the mathematics and then learning how it relates to physics. I know that I am not a genius.

I am just curious what you think?

 

[grant9076]

What exactly would you say is harder than physics and/or mathematics? I have read through lots of different undergraduate texts (to construct a perspective of how difficult all of the majors are at my university) and the only texts that I open up and immediately go wtf, are high level chemistry, math and physics.

I can understand neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, biology, etc. without any problems at all. All I have to do is read through the chapters, make sure I understand the operational definitions and that's about it.

I have to spend hours and hours learning the mathematics and then learning how it relates to physics. I know that I am not a genius.

I am just curious what you think?

Actually, that depends on the person. Some people are good at memorizing 100 facts while some others find it to be much easier to understand and apply 5 or 6 principles that govern these facts. Some subjects have more disconnected facts than principles and therefore are easier for the first group. Other subjects are based more on understanding and applying principles and are therefore easier for the latter group.

As for me, although I did well in math and tested out of physics when I was in college many years ago, I absolutely dreaded (and struggled with) subjects like history, literature and political science.

 

[Moonbear]

I can understand neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, biology, etc. without any problems at all. All I have to do is read through the chapters, make sure I understand the operational definitions and that's about it.

Then you don't know enough about any of those subjects yet to realize how challenging they are when you get beyond the simple, introductory material. Memorizing definitions is not adequate to understand any of those subjects. At the introductory level, physics is really easy too.

But, as others have already mentioned, everyone has their own individual talents. I find it incredibly hard to write anything that even comes close to what could be called poetry, but others can write beautiful poetry quite easily.

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

I always think of great Mathematicians as *geniuses* and physicians as standing on the shoulders of Geniuses :)

What were Newton and Schrödinger then? The best physisists are often the best mathemeticians as well. Considering the nature of advanced physics I doubt you'll get far without being at least competent at maths.

For most people maths is hard, therefore they percieve physics which is mostly maths is hard. Some people are good at pure maths others excell at applying it, to be a good physisist requires both. The best and brightest go into physics anyway, if you look at testing: physics tops the academic performance ladder beating Engineering and maths into second and third place. So the brightest really do go into physics.

The most groundbreaking and well known theories of the 20th century have mostly been in the field of physics, with biology catching up later. Microprocessors and ICBM's are a direct consequence of physics.

 

[Sojourner01]

Most people don't 'think properly'. Being wantonly ignorant in school when the groundwork was being laid means that if most people were to sit in a physics lecture now they'd sit there and not take in a word that was said.

However, if you put these same people in an undergraduate lab, they'd probably do as well as some of the physics students.

 

[pivoxa15]

if you look at testing: physics tops the academic performance ladder beating Engineering and maths into second and third place. So the brightest really do go into physics.

What do you mean by testing? What is the academic performance ladder? Is that a ranking between the students of the discipline or the professors? Can you provide evidence for it?

 

[Alkatran]

High school physics was one of my easiest classes. Not only did I 'get' it, the teacher spent the majority of class time talking about his financial ideas instead of physics.

Now chemistry, THAT was a decent class in high school. Excellent teacher.

 

[leright]

I am a physics major and find physics to be extremely challenging.

 

[twisting_edge]

High school physics was one of my easiest classes. Not only did I 'get' it, the teacher spent the majority of class time talking about his financial ideas instead of physics.

Just wait until you get to the harmonics of an electron orbit. It's a little more challenging then.

Conceptual things I never had a problem with. That's where most people run into early troubles. But the math can get more than a little involved even if you have no problem with the concepts.

They probably focus more on numeric (computer-based) solutions for things like that now. When I went through it, it was a rather bizarre stew of differentials, abstract algebra, geometry, and linear equations. There'd be a few paragraphs every couple of chapters saying, essentially, "You can use a computer to do this sort of thing using the following techniques, but that's just for the lightweights who will fail any course based on this book in any case."

Admittedly, mine was a very theoretical program. I looked at the cirricula for some other schools and was sort of surprised at the number of continuous media, thermo and solid state courses most of them offered under physics. Most of that stuff was relegated to the school of engineering at my alma mater.

 

[twisting_edge]

What do you mean by testing? What is the academic performance ladder? Is that a ranking between the students of the discipline or the professors? Can you provide evidence for it?

I can't provide a link, but I remember a math grad student saying the same thing when I was a physics undergrad. "The theoretical physics guys have the highest IQ on average, but we [theoretical mathematicians] are right behind them on the list, and they wouldn't get anywhere without us to hand them the pencil." He was explicitly talking about IQ, which is probably the "testing" referred to here, as well.

It's not really surprising, given what IQ tests measure: the ability to quickly resolve abstractions. Of all the disciplines, physics and math certainly have the highest ratio of on-the-spot synthesis to memorization in my experience.

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

What do you mean by testing? What is the academic performance ladder? Is that a ranking between the students of the discipline or the professors? Can you provide evidence for it?

It's testing from US universities, I've seen the table but perhaps an american might find it, funnilly enough I seem to remember history students came about 6th or 7th.