I was going through the physics course descriptions at http://registrar.mcmaster.ca /calen...12/pg1890.html and I realised that neither thermodynamics or optics is taught in any of the first year physics courses. Why is that?

They probably don't have enough time to cover that material along with the other material they already cover... or it could be that the math involved is at a higher level than what students would have while taking those physics courses.

Originally Posted by Andrew A

or it could be that the math involved is at a higher level than what students would have while taking those physics courses.

Nothing more advanced than calculus is required for an introduction to thermodynamics. And optics doesn't even require calculus.

there is plenty of time to cover that later, in more detail too

Originally Posted by Melanieee

there is plenty of time to cover that later, in more detail too

Did you take any of those physics courses?

Originally Posted by Alexmahone

Did you take any of those physics courses?

No siree. Only took 1B03. I considered the Math & Physics double major, but the course load looked almost as bad as an engineers! And you basically never get electives because you have so many requireds.

Plus I genuinely not that smart aha

Thermo is covered in first year chem.

If you really like thermo and optics you should definitely consider photonics option in engineering physics...

Originally Posted by Alexmahone

Nothing more advanced than calculus is required for an introduction to thermodynamics. And optics doesn't even require calculus.

To properly study optics requires a great deal of math.

Optics/light is touched on very briefly in Physics 1E03.

Originally Posted by Alexmahone

Nothing more advanced than calculus is required for an introduction to thermodynamics. And optics doesn't even require calculus.

Most people aren't coming in to first year with very much calculus knowledge. Making people use calculus in physics at the same time they're first learning that calculus in their math classes might not really be the fairest way to do things. What if you have a very fast physics professor/class and a slow calculus prof/class? Then you end up being expected to use calculus you don't know yet.

Andrew that's a common problem all the way through the study of physics. For instance, in second year electricity and magnetism, to fully understand Gauss's Law (and more importantly, to compute worked examples) one must have a mastery of multivariate calculus (particularly double and triple intergrals).

The unfortunate setback is that by the time one covers Gauss's Law (mid first-semester) , no one has seen integral calculus until the later parts of Math 2A03 (end of semester 1) or 2XX3 (semester 2).

In other words, the physics program has the unfortunate setback of 'running ahead of' the math requirement.

Integral calculus in second year math? I remember doing double integrals at the end of first year calculus (Eng calc)...

I did take 1B03 and 1BA3, and I ended up dropping 1BA3 - exactly because I felt they were running ahead of my math skills. I figured that was just because I was in the mismatched situation of taking Eng calc and not Eng phys, but I guess not. :/