Homework and a Physics rant rampage.

Today as I sat in the library to do my calculus homework, I sat next to a guy who was doing his chemistry homework. I was shocked at how easy his homework looked. It then occurred to me that he might find MY homework extremely easy. He might be a math major who understands how parametrics and polars work without even thinking too hard about it. I didn't ask, but... it was an interesting thought. I couldn't concentrate on graphing my parametric curves, because I was amazed by this thought. I was also kinda jealous that he had such easy homework. but... he looked like he was struggling through those Formal Charges and VSEPR. I thought, "man, if I was doing that homework, I'd be done in 20 minutes, tops. prolly more like 10." I dunno. Chemistry in general just makes sense to me. Which reminds me...

PHYSICS=stupid. yeah. you heard me, physics is stupid. or... at least my class. I became convinced of this yesterday when I went to do the lab, and the instructions said something that was blatantly false. We were doing a lab where we had to determine the value of g, or the gravitational acceleration constant on earth. The instructions claimed that if your determined value of g wasn't within 1% error of the "accepted" value, you were doing something wrong. THIS IS NOT TRUE. As I remember from chemistry and statisics, up to 5% error can be explained by random variation. So... I basically just said, screw that, and just posted a value of 4% error on one part. I am not going to do an experiment 40 times with faulty equipment to try to get the same results as someone using state-of-the-art equipment who is getting paid to do this kind of thing. Honestly, no matter how many times I drop that $^%# steel ball, the rate at which it drops is not going to be correct, because those $#%# timers don't work properly.

That's only one-half of my hatred of physics. The other half is that in my class, we're spending an eternity on concepts that are NOT that difficult. I mean, honestly, you should not be in physics 121 if you don't understand what a derivative is. that's in calc one. a prerequisite to this class. And yet, the teacher explains the concept of a derivative as if no one in our class has ever heard of it before. The only trouble is that she sorta assumes that you know, so... if you do understand the concept, then you're moving at too slow a pace, and if you don't, you're completely lost. It's the worst of both worlds. It's kinda like Spanish I in 9th grade with senor selles. he'd talk to us in spanish, and if we didn't understand, he'd say it slower. NO ONE understood. If you could understand at all, you'd hate your life because you'd be stuck with a bunch of idiots.

Physics is easily my least entertaining and most boring class. I hate to say this, but it's true. The homework problems focus on ridiculous ideas, such as "In the equation a=3+4t^2, what are the units attached to 2? to 3? to 4?" There is NO reason to even think about this. 2 is unitless, 3 is in m/s^2, and 4 is in m/s^4. but... WHY SHOULD I CARE?!?!? m/s^4 is meaningless. There's no practical application of anything like that. I could just assume that if the teacher is giving me the question, the units are going to work unless I do something stupid. If it's a problem where I'm finding acceleration, the units are going to cancel to m/s^2. That's just logic. It's not going to cancel to m/kg*s^25. WHY THE DEVIL DO THEY CARE? m/s^4 does not exist anywhere outside of this problem. it's not a real unit. groan.

To prove that physics is easily the most boring class, take this as an example. Of the 6 people sitting within close proximity to me, who were using computers to take notes, no less than 3 were either switching between computer games and notetaking, or giving up on notetaking altogether. The concepts here are easy enough to grasp without going through and beating them to death 15 times. (which is what we did). Therefore, people play video games because there isn't anything better to do.

Not only are these problems there, but... the teacher is french. When she talks, th=z. this=zis. something=somezing. It's a little annoying. and... as much as I try to laugh at it, it's just not funny. It's just straight out annoying.

all in all, I don't feel like we've talked about actual science in this "science" class. We've sorta discussed what a vector is, what units are, and what acceleration velocity and position are, but... I learned those in calc 1. I don't really enjoy taking calc 1 again. The whole concept of classical mechanics so far seems to be rehashing everything we learned in calc 1, badly, and then coming up with impossible situations to describe them. For example, "a car goes through a stop sign at 60 mi/h. It then continues at a constant velocity. A motorcycle patrol officer starts off after the car, accelerating at 11 ft/s. How long will it take the patrol officer to overtake the car, and how fast will he be going at that point?" ugh. This is an entirely improbable situation for 3 reasons. one, why the devil is a car going 60 mph anywhere near a stop sign? Stop signs are generally only used in residential areas. two, why the heck is the officer chasing after that car because it went through a stop sign? who ever heard of an officer giving a ticket for going through a stop sign? why not for speeding? and... last but not least, why the heck is that car going at a constant velocity? If a police officer starts chasing you, you either speed up to try to get away, OR you abide by the law and slow down and pull over. You don't keep going the same $%@# speed. It just doesn't make sense. the solution to this problem makes even less sense. The officer is going 120 mph by the time he catches the car. mind you, these people are STILL somewhere near a stop sign. that's dangerous by any means. even on the freeway, 120 mph is ridiculously fast. imagine that in a residential area?

Physics professors should try to think about using common sense. don't use a ridiculous situation to try to teach your students what acceleration and velocity are. It's just stupid.