Professor
Seth Putterman
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Most Helpful Review
The course is called INTRO to ELEMENTS of statistical and quantum mechanics. But, I walked away with a graduate level understanding of Thermodynamics. If you want to learn everything about what Dr. Putterman thinks is important (which is he adds to every lecture), than take a class with him. His lectures are very entertaining, the homework is from some lost tome of graduate school, and the tests are horrifying. Overall, it's more of a hazing ritual than a learning experience.
The course is called INTRO to ELEMENTS of statistical and quantum mechanics. But, I walked away with a graduate level understanding of Thermodynamics. If you want to learn everything about what Dr. Putterman thinks is important (which is he adds to every lecture), than take a class with him. His lectures are very entertaining, the homework is from some lost tome of graduate school, and the tests are horrifying. Overall, it's more of a hazing ritual than a learning experience.
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Most Helpful Review
Just saw that Putterman is teaching Thermo again. To those out there considering taking him, DON'T DO IT. He's a nice guy (if you're a physics major, he's quite happy we exist it seems) and I did find him very entertaining. I even did well in the class. What I did not do was learn anything. From polling my classmates, I'm not sure anyone did. You might be able to get by in 115A or 110A, where you have one of Griffith's awesome texts to guide you, but this is not the case with thermo. He reuses the same lecture notes every year,so here's what to expect: 3 different text books + photocopies from others His lectures do not correspond to any of the material in any of these books Hw is assigned from graduate level text and will occassionally stump the T.A. Statistical mechanics will be ignored completely. Your grade will be entirely dependent on what you choose to put on your index card, as he dives in far too deep too fast for anyone to understand anything. Do yourself a favor, wait for whoever teaches it next.
Just saw that Putterman is teaching Thermo again. To those out there considering taking him, DON'T DO IT. He's a nice guy (if you're a physics major, he's quite happy we exist it seems) and I did find him very entertaining. I even did well in the class. What I did not do was learn anything. From polling my classmates, I'm not sure anyone did. You might be able to get by in 115A or 110A, where you have one of Griffith's awesome texts to guide you, but this is not the case with thermo. He reuses the same lecture notes every year,so here's what to expect: 3 different text books + photocopies from others His lectures do not correspond to any of the material in any of these books Hw is assigned from graduate level text and will occassionally stump the T.A. Statistical mechanics will be ignored completely. Your grade will be entirely dependent on what you choose to put on your index card, as he dives in far too deep too fast for anyone to understand anything. Do yourself a favor, wait for whoever teaches it next.
Most Helpful Review
Had Putterman for both Physics 17 and 114. He's a very cocky professor, and will crack a ton of jokes about social science majors (which is funny, unless you are one, but if you are one, you're probably not taking his class). His homework is usually pretty difficult, admittedly, and so are his tests, but his grading curve is extremely generous. He's a pretty entertaining professor, his lectures will go off on tangents that are generally amusing, and he teaches you interesting things, such as advanced thermodynamics and fluid mechanics... as opposed to teaching you the things that you're supposed to be learning, especially for 17. I would highly recommend that you take a class with Putterman at least once for the experience; fair warning, lots of people hate his classes with a passion.
Had Putterman for both Physics 17 and 114. He's a very cocky professor, and will crack a ton of jokes about social science majors (which is funny, unless you are one, but if you are one, you're probably not taking his class). His homework is usually pretty difficult, admittedly, and so are his tests, but his grading curve is extremely generous. He's a pretty entertaining professor, his lectures will go off on tangents that are generally amusing, and he teaches you interesting things, such as advanced thermodynamics and fluid mechanics... as opposed to teaching you the things that you're supposed to be learning, especially for 17. I would highly recommend that you take a class with Putterman at least once for the experience; fair warning, lots of people hate his classes with a passion.
Most Helpful Review
The lectures covered everything up to chapter 3 and some other stuff putterman thought was important. However, both midterms and the final could be ACED if you had just focused on chapter 2 alone... and that's 80% of the entire grade. For 115a, make sure you know everything about chapter 2 in griffith's intro to quant mech, try to do every problem in the chapter. Putterman's tests are tricky, and the math involved always look overly complicated at first; he expect you to apply the fundamentals and simplify the problems.
The lectures covered everything up to chapter 3 and some other stuff putterman thought was important. However, both midterms and the final could be ACED if you had just focused on chapter 2 alone... and that's 80% of the entire grade. For 115a, make sure you know everything about chapter 2 in griffith's intro to quant mech, try to do every problem in the chapter. Putterman's tests are tricky, and the math involved always look overly complicated at first; he expect you to apply the fundamentals and simplify the problems.
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