Physics?

Joza

Hey. Did anyone here study Physics in Trinity?

I am asking because I started doing physics because I want to learn about the universe. But I'd be very disapointed if I didn't get to cover General Relativity and other such topics. Maybe I should have done TP....

Podge_irl

General Relativity is an exceptionally maths heavy subject and the required maths is simply not covered in the Physics course. There is some elements of it done in the astrophysics option (I have no idea to what extent) but it certainly won't be an indepth treatment of it. There is a high energy physics course given in SS which covers the Standard Model of particle physics (again, it can be covered much more mathematically, but unlike GR doesn't really need to be to get out results and insight).
If you are sufficiently enterprising and interested enough there is nothing stopping you buying a book on GR and reading it yourself. It will be tough going and you will probably need some introductory reading on special relativity to get used to the maths used but its certainly doable.

Morbert

Joza wrote: »

Hey. Did anyone here study Physics in Trinity?

I am asking because I started doing physics because I want to learn about the universe. But I'd be very disapointed if I didn't get to cover General Relativity and other such topics. Maybe I should have done TP....

I didn't study TP in trinity, though I'm sitting in on some final year TP modules.

General relativity is only covered in the TP course as far as I know. It's a topic that, although interesting, primarily concerns cosmologists and some theoretical particle physicists.

The TP course focuses on understanding the core fields in physics on a more fundamental and (usually) abstract level. Experimental Physics is more about getting your hands dirty. You still need to know theories like electromagnetism and quantum mechanics like the back of your hand, but you're less concerned with the steps of mathematical reasoning and motivation that lead to those theories.

I can't really comment on the undergrad Ex Physics modules. The postgrad modules are interesting though.

PurpleFistMixer

I'm only a first year TP but we're doing Special Relativity at the moment, doesn't look like the people doing physics in Science do it at all...

HoboJesus

PurpleFistMixer wrote: »

I'm only a first year TP but we're doing Special Relativity at the moment, doesn't look like the people doing physics in Science do it at all...

Unless it's changed, TP does special relativity while us scientists do mechanics, which you don't need to do since it's covered in your maths course (but not ours).

In second year, Scientists do special relativity, but since the TPs did it already, they do Chaos and Complexity.

PurpleFistMixer

HoboJesus wrote: »

Unless it's changed, TP does special relativity while us scientists do mechanics, which you don't need to do since it's covered in your maths course (but not ours).

In second year, Scientists do special relativity, but since the TPs did it already, they do Chaos and Complexity.

Ah right. That explains them doing "The Physics of Motion" and not us. I thought I was getting robbed of learninz, but yeah we're doing mechanics in maths already. All is well.

pkeno

I did physics. We did Special Relativity in I think second year, nothing mad just length contraction, time dilation and some lorentz transformation.

I did the astrophysics option which contained a cosmology/general relativity module. I honestly went to one lecture and never revisited. The maths was ridiculous!