Physics help needed - Page 2

FiBsTeR

United States415 Posts

May 21 2010 00:34 GMT

#21

On May 21 2010 09:29 Darby.mcg wrote:
I'm going to college next year, will these sorts of things become useful in the near or far future if I'm going into physics?

It depends on the structure of the course, but I think if you can do the math, you can do the physics. But the converse might not be true... yeah I'm a math major.

tYsopz

Norway215 Posts

May 21 2010 00:41 GMT

#22

The math/algebra in physics isn't too hard, but there are certain things you just need to be aware of or you won't be able to transform equations. For example you have to know that 1/(1-v^2/c^2) = c^2/(c^2-v^2). It is easy to see, but you have to know you need to do it, else you might do countless other transformations that won't really get you closer to the equation you want. There's a lot of problems just like this in theory of relativity that you need to be familiar with, since they potentially can take a loooot of time if you are unlucky with how you approach them. Actually ran into a problem at my exam that i didn't have time to complete, and it might have cost me the A+.

(I'm of course referring to the transformation of E^2=(pc)^2 + (mc^2)^2 => E = γmc^2)

and yeah y^2 = 1/(1-v^2/c^2), seeing as y = 1/(sqrt(1-v^2/c^2)) (lorentz factor)

Darby.mcg

United States16 Posts

May 21 2010 02:12 GMT

#23

Ok, thanks, I'm currently one of the best people in all of my math science courses, and love it so far, the only thing I'm sad is that I couldn't go higher, my HS doesn't offer AP classes. That's what college is supposed to be for though! hopefully it wont totally suck.

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