PHYSICS 105A
Analytic Mechanics
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Requisite: course 32. 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
Winter 2022 - Professor Naoz was a great teacher. She is sweet and emphasizes that you don't need to be a genius or have some sort of "physics intuition" to solve physics problems. There were participation quizzes, homework, two midterms, and a final. The participation quizzes were just graded for completition and to make sure you're actually showing up to class. The homework was very fair based on what was learned in lecture, and the deadlines are usually about a week. I thought that the midterms were easy, they touched on the main concepts of the homework such as the lagrangian and central potential. The final was fair, however it was very long. Just study the homework and the practice final exams and you should be fine. The exams were all take home this quarter, and you had about 4 days to complete them. If they were in person I think that they would have been a little too much work to complete in an hour, but for take home they were great. There is an optional Mathematica component to this class, which offers 15% extra credit. I would recommend anyone to take this class, as the labs were fair and didn't take up too much time. Also, I think Mathematica is a valuable skill, and Corbin was a great professor, so I think it's worth it if it fits with your schedule. The only problem that I had with Naoz was that she would walk around and ask everybody who they were working with for the in-class problems. I would have preferred if she would just let us work and we would go over it as a class at the end. This is pretty much just nitpicking though. Overall Naoz was a great professor and I'm taking her again for 105B!
Winter 2022 - Professor Naoz was a great teacher. She is sweet and emphasizes that you don't need to be a genius or have some sort of "physics intuition" to solve physics problems. There were participation quizzes, homework, two midterms, and a final. The participation quizzes were just graded for completition and to make sure you're actually showing up to class. The homework was very fair based on what was learned in lecture, and the deadlines are usually about a week. I thought that the midterms were easy, they touched on the main concepts of the homework such as the lagrangian and central potential. The final was fair, however it was very long. Just study the homework and the practice final exams and you should be fine. The exams were all take home this quarter, and you had about 4 days to complete them. If they were in person I think that they would have been a little too much work to complete in an hour, but for take home they were great. There is an optional Mathematica component to this class, which offers 15% extra credit. I would recommend anyone to take this class, as the labs were fair and didn't take up too much time. Also, I think Mathematica is a valuable skill, and Corbin was a great professor, so I think it's worth it if it fits with your schedule. The only problem that I had with Naoz was that she would walk around and ask everybody who they were working with for the in-class problems. I would have preferred if she would just let us work and we would go over it as a class at the end. This is pretty much just nitpicking though. Overall Naoz was a great professor and I'm taking her again for 105B!
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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Most Helpful Review
I had him for Physics 105A and 105B. It seems like some people don't like him because of his thick accent, but it is pretty understandable and if you are ahead of your reading you will find his lectures are pretty good. His tests are open book and easy. His grading method is generous. When I visited him during his office hours, he seemed to be very concerned.
I had him for Physics 105A and 105B. It seems like some people don't like him because of his thick accent, but it is pretty understandable and if you are ahead of your reading you will find his lectures are pretty good. His tests are open book and easy. His grading method is generous. When I visited him during his office hours, he seemed to be very concerned.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2019 - Zocchi's 105A is like what you would expect for a university physics class. His lectures are clear and he's really a nice guy. The key of this class is the formulation of Lagrangian, and that's something you have to do a lot of practice on. Homework problems are hard and really needs some time, but they are really helpful for me to know the course materials. Sometimes there are some problems that requires a bunch of calculation, but they will not appear on the tests. Tests are somewhat difficult. They mainly focus on the ideas and concepts, so once you've figured out what you should do, the calculation would not torture you. And tests are curved so seems like we will be alright.
Fall 2019 - Zocchi's 105A is like what you would expect for a university physics class. His lectures are clear and he's really a nice guy. The key of this class is the formulation of Lagrangian, and that's something you have to do a lot of practice on. Homework problems are hard and really needs some time, but they are really helpful for me to know the course materials. Sometimes there are some problems that requires a bunch of calculation, but they will not appear on the tests. Tests are somewhat difficult. They mainly focus on the ideas and concepts, so once you've figured out what you should do, the calculation would not torture you. And tests are curved so seems like we will be alright.
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