Unit 4 and 4 Detailed Study Options

[Kiro Kompiro]

I'm in year 11.

My school says we have to study Einstein's Relativity and the Synchrotron as the 3 and 4 detailed studies next year.

Looking at past exam reports, Einsteins Relativity has the least number of students answering questions correctly.  Materials is the most popular with highest number of students answering correctly.

Also whats the point of studying the synchrotron when I heard they were closing it down.

 I want to opt out of relativity, and study materials.  Looks too hard.  And Sound instead of synchrotron.  Not sure if I can though.

What do people think

[Lasercookie]

DO NOT OPT OUT OF RELATIVITY.

It is the greatest topic covered in the entire course, you will be sorry that you didn't learn it.

It is not too hard. The relativity exam questions prior to this year were pretty damn easy (I got close to 100% on them most of the time). Admittedly I did struggle on relativity in the midyear, but that was due to my very very poor time management during the exam (left it for the last ten minutes like I did on trial exams - big mistake, should have done it first up) .

[Lasercookie]

Before I head off to bed, I'm not convinced that you're convinced that special relativity is a good idea.

First, your teacher is obviously a great physics teacher if he is willing to teach Special Relativity. He's been able to look beyond the statistics, not be a sheep and teach you the better content. If you enjoy the kind of stuff in structures and materials, there's enough of that kind of stuff in motion.

SR is some fairly big ideas to grasp, but quite quickly you will 'click' and it'll all appear intuitive to you. You have probably heard of the concept of 'scientific beauty' before, it's kind of an odd idea until you really see it and understand it. When I 'clicked' and really got my head around it I finally understood what 'scientific beauty' is. Special relativity just makes so much sense, and the way it has been set out is brilliant. Contrary to what you may know of Einstein's work, e=mc^2 wasn't the part that I found most brilliant.

Answering questions is not difficult at all, to answer an SR question you just need to remember the 4 or 5 basic principles and with a lot of the exam questions you could eliminate 2 or 3 of the options pretty much immediately. The mathematics involved is ridiculously simple.

You really will gain a better appreciation/understanding for the work of Newton, Maxwell, Einstein/physics in general. The SR detailed study is pure awesome.

About the synchroton detailed study, we're studying sound so I can't really say much about it. But just because the Australian Synchrotron may close doesn't mean that all particle accelerators are going to close. If your teacher is one of those few teachers that is willing to teach Relativity, I would trust his opinion and just go with it.

Finally, from what I gathered, the only reason you want to switch out of Relativity is because the statistics have told you that more people do it and therefore more score better (in S&M). I've already outlined why relativity isn't as hard as you think (it is just VCE physics after all). If the only thing you want is an easy score, opt out of physics completely.Don't bother with it. There's better stuff you could be doing with your time. Physics can be quite excruciatingly painful if you don't enjoy it. I'm sorry if that seems harsh, but I find it hard to understand how someone could even consider the notion of rejecting the opportunity to learn about one of the greatest physics discoveries yet.

Maybe it's because you're not aware of some of the implications of special relativity. Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0jiY-CZ6YA. If that does not spark your curiosity, I don't believe anything in the physics course will.

I think I'm done now.

edit: fixed up my annoying spelling mistakes

[Shark 774]

I'm in year 11.

My school says we have to study Einstein's Relativity and the Synchrotron as the 3 and 4 detailed studies next year.

Looking at past exam reports, Einsteins Relativity has the least number of students answering questions correctly.  Materials is the most popular with highest number of students answering correctly.

Also whats the point of studying the synchrotron when I heard they were closing it down.

 I want to opt out of relativity, and study materials.  Looks too hard.  And Sound instead of synchrotron.  Not sure if I can though.

What do people think

My class did structures & materials in unit 3 and are doing sound in unit 4. I chose to do relativity and LOVED it in Unit 3, and am going to do the synchrotron this semester. I would only recommend relativity if you are a keen physics student, if not then I have heard the further electronics is very helpful because it is relevant to parts of both unit 3 and 4. And as for the synchroton, it is much much more relevant to any of unit 4 than sound or photonics.

[Lasercookie]

... I would only recommend relativity if you are a keen physics student ...

I disagree, most of my class are not what you would call 'keen' physics students yet they grasped relativity quite well.

It might have been more difficult for you, since you did it by yourself, but doing it with the rest of the class and the teacher
explaining makes relativity a breeze. Self-studying any physics (or any science or maths for that matter) would require a keen
student.

[b^3]

... I would only recommend relativity if you are a keen physics student ...

Self-studying any physics (or any science or maths for that matter) would require a keen
student.

At my school for physics, self studying isn't optional if you want to pass.

[tony3272]

... I would only recommend relativity if you are a keen physics student ...

Self-studying any physics (or any science or maths for that matter) would require a keen
student.

At my school for physics, self studying isn't optional if you want to pass.

Haha that's exactly the same for my school.
 Our class is simply us watching a powerpoint of the Jacaranda textbook copy and pasted, cutting out heaps of stuff 

[b^3]

... I would only recommend relativity if you are a keen physics student ...

Self-studying any physics (or any science or maths for that matter) would require a keen
student.

At my school for physics, self studying isn't optional if you want to pass.

Haha that's exactly the same for my school.
 Our class is simply us watching a powerpoint of the Jacaranda textbook copy and pasted, cutting out heaps of stuff 

The Jacaranda book is complete rubbish. Does your teacher also confuse you and tell you the wrong things like ours does?

[Lasercookie]

At my school for physics, self studying isn't optional if you want to pass.

Haha, that a reflection of the fact that your teacher isn't too great though?

Still I strongly believe that the OP should stick with the relativity detailed study.

In the case that his teacher isn't actually that great, the teacher wouldn't be that much better off teaching S&M over relativity.
The students wouldn't be that much better off - they'd still have to do a large amount of self-studying either way with a bad teacher.

However, if the OP's teacher is a good teacher, then he's found himself in the lucky situation of having a good physics teacher that has made the choice to teach the best content in the course.

[b^3]

At my school for physics, self studying isn't optional if you want to pass.

However, if the OP's teacher is a good teacher, then he's found himself in the lucky situation of having a good physics teacher that has made the choice to teach the best content in the course.

There is hardly any good physics teachers out there because well, lets be honest, if you are good at physics you don't go into teaching (or rarely anyway). Then there is those unique brillant sparks of human beings who can open up the world of thought for us.

Sorry for going off topic a bit.
I didn't do relativity  but I would like to have done it. I'd say try relativity out and (since you are yr 11), if you struggle you can always change to another one before your class even gets up to the point of starting one.

[Kiro Kompiro]

Thanks for your posts.

i have read a bit on relativity and I know its one of the most important discoveries in science.

 And I do enjoy physics, although I've only studied motion and some electricity, mainly circuits.

My concern with relativity is that I learn by "seeing" what is going in my mind.  I've read some notes on the net and I find it difficult to visualize different frames moving with respect to each other, and calculating the times and distances.  It doesn't deal with everyday experience.

Looking at the examiners reports also concerned me:  of all the optional study units, this topic gets the least number of students getting the right answer.  Some questions are answered correctly by only 15% of the students. Hardly ANY question is answered correctly by 75% of the students.

I want to learn but I don't want to lose marks just by choosing a more difficult option.

I don't even know if its possible to choose another option anyway at my school.

[Lasercookie]

I understand your concerns.

I'm going to again state that I found VCAA 2009 to be ridiculously easy and VCAA 2010 was not that challenging either (but not as easy as 2009). The majority of trial exams did not having challenging relativity questions (except for a select few). If you're after a good score, you'd be doing a lot of study anyway - I don't believe you will be compromised by taking relativity.

The only thing you can really do now is talk to your teacher. Most teachers would not be willing to let you study something different (as that would mean you would have to sit a different SAC etc.) and could put your marks in jeopardy since you would be self-studying.

I can't really say much for your personal learning methods, but I reckon having your teacher explain things would be better than trying to learn by reading. Have a talk to your teacher and see what their opinion is. You obviously know my opinion by now.

[b^3]

The only thing you can really do now is talk to your teacher. Most teachers would not be willing to let you study something different (as that would mean you would have to sit a different SAC etc.) and could put your marks in jeopardy since you would be self-studying.

I was under the impression that even if you did a different topic, you still have to do the sac on the topic the class did. That is how it was for further last year. Or maybe it's just my school.

[Lasercookie]

The only thing you can really do now is talk to your teacher. Most teachers would not be willing to let you study something different (as that would mean you would have to sit a different SAC etc.) and could put your marks in jeopardy since you would be self-studying.

I was under the impression that even if you did a different topic, you still have to do the sac on the topic the class did. That is how it was for further last year. Or maybe it's just my school.

Shark would be the one to talk to about that - I'm pretty sure he got to do a different SAC to the rest of the class.

It would vary from teacher-to-teacher though.

[Egregious Customer]

Most of the topics for Detailed Studies are either horrible or half-baked. Topics such as Further Electronics (if I remember correctly), Structures and Materials, Photonics, etc. seem to cater more towards the path of engineering. The only topics that are actually physics are Special Relativity and Synchrotron. Unfortunately, although staying more truthful to the discipline of physics, VCE do not equip students with enough time or the correct tools to appreciate either one of them.

About the synchrotron, it was introduced as a promotional topic because the technology is quite new and also Victoria's pride. Sadly, not many teachers fully understand the technology to be able to deliver the content adequately. When the topic was first introduced, experts in the field had to run a couple of forums/seminars/workshops to educate physics teachers across the state about the synchrotron.

I'm actually confident that there are more teachers out there who are more comfortable with special relativity than synchrotron. However, special relativity is a very difficult subject to teach, and the teachers usually have to weigh it up against the class and see whether it is wise to teach it. There is no point teaching a more interesting topic when most of the class aren't going to understand it.

Having said all that, special relativity and synchrotron are probably the better topics out of the bunch, and probably the easiest as well once you understand it. With special relativity, you just need to know how to apply a few simple formulas, and similarly with synchrotron. This is because the topics are conceptually difficult, so it would be cruel and unfair for them to throw you too many surprises. On the other hand, the other topics can still be tricky even if you understand the content.