[PHYS C1601] Physics I: Mechanics and Relativity

she is a very nice teacher but also the homeworks are much harder than the examples given in class. additionally, the first midterm was pretty easy if you know the topics and also was very similar to the practice midterm, but then the second midterms was extremely hard, both topic wise and question wise, and much harder than the practice. luckily you drop the lowest of the 2 midterms. the final was challenging but easier than the 2nd midterm, though relativity is almost impossible. but seems that there is a decent curve.

Professor Miller was a decent lecturer. She tended to be go through the problems she did on the board rather well but she taught straight out of the book. Although, she was considerably more organized than the book-behemoth itself. I learned more from the TA's than I did during the class. Relativity was touched only superficially but there were two problems out of 8 on it on the final (which, by the way, was not a walk in the park, contrary to other reviews.)

I didn't take AP Physics in high school but I still consistently scored top 3 in my class. But I still wasn't even close to the level of these other guys. The people here tended to be geniuses or failed geniuses from the 2800 level.

Take this class if you are serious about physics. Find someone who you know who is a physics god if you want to pass.

She says she gives make-up finals. Thats a Lie. I had 3 exams that day, hers was the first, and 1 the next day and she point blank told me she would not move her exam. Absolutely rigid would be a term I could use for her as a whole.

This was a great teacher for a great class. Parsons has a wonderful sense of humor, sometimes has the entire class erupting in laughter. He's also explains things well, in a way that everyone can easily understand. Definitley take this class if you want to have an enjoyable physics course.

Ok, I'll attempt giving a little info about Parsons that hasnt been repetitively mentioned by the other thousand reviewers. He maintains a subtle humor that keeps the class interesting, if you pay attention (sometimes hard to do since it is in a big lecture hall). My semester, the choice for physics teacher was Parsons or Miller, and everyone i know in either class agreed Parsons was the more interesting teacher. do your work, beat the average for an A- and above (approx), you'll do fine

Parsons is a great professor. He is excellent at explaining how concepts work or how to go about a problem, because he tells you WHY to take certain steps. The derivations of equations are understandably boring. Overall, I would say get Parsons if you have the option.

IM SO CONFUSED

Did all the previosu people take 1601 with the same Amber Miller. I was a student who aced the Physics B exam and it was a difficult class because whatever she taught was worlds easier than the problems on the homework. Don't even touch relativity...that part of the class no one in the class got that. The majority of the class did not like her becasue she was a terrible teacher but not many have written reviews for her. Granted, she is an INCREDIBLY nice person. Very smart, but she is not the person for this class. Her notes are not detailed and how she writes them on the board, they are not able to be studied from for the exam. THe book sucks, and ther are not enough examples for what we learn in class. Poor wording and difficult reading causes everyone to hate that blasphemed cube of papers.

Take it if necessary, but do your best to get parsons or whoever else.

As the review before mine said, Miller is great, enthusiastic, neat, organized, and VERY approachable. She tries to get everyone engaged in the class. Teacher easy to get, so take.

The lectures were presented by introducing concepts, then following with rather in-depth examples. This works well; however, if you prefer to learn physics by derivations and definitions, this might not be the class for you.

The book is ok. It is one of those physics books that has plenty of pictures and colors to calm down people who are nervous about math. The mechanics and thermodynamics sections are handled reasonably well, but the E&M isn't good at all. The problem is that they dummy down the math to the point that many of the intuitively obvious vector calculus ideas become difficult to understand, rather than explaining the mathematics first and then the physics. For example, they don't even use vector notions of curl and divergence when discussing fields, and all problems where area, volume, or surface integrals would generally be needed can be simplified to single integrals. I would recommend using a supplementary book while studying this section if you are seriously interested in physics.

The homework consists of ten problems. Usually these took me about 2-4 hours. I would STRONGLY recommend doing them yourself if you want to learn the material. The TA for the first semester was decent, but the second semester TA basically gave away the answers at recitation. I know some might find that to be great, but honestly, having your head ache for 10-20 minutes before understanding a problem is better than having someone do it for you and losing the experience. Homework is 20% of your grade.

The exams are doable. There are 2 midterms and 1 final per semester. Students are allowed handwritten notes on one side of paper for midterms, and two sides for finals. Midterms aren't easy, but perhaps it is a testament to the class that as I was reviewing my errors on them for the finals, I was banging my head against the wall at how foolish my mistakes now seemed. The finals are really a comprehensive test of the material, and are worth studying for. Your best midterm is 30% of your grade, and the final is 50%. The curve is reasonable: it is difficult to get an A unless you really know your stuff, but an A-/B+ is pretty much in the pocket if you stay up to date.

Amber Miller is friendly and competent. I would recommend this class.

OK- so i think the reason he is reviewed so well on here is because of the curve at the end of the class. I got at least a standard deviation below average on both midterms and presumably did just as poorly on the final (very little/no studying- yeah, i kinda gave up) and got a B- in the class.
Lectures not particularly interesting, he is nice and funny, but this class (1601) is probably not for you unless you really are interested in taking a physics class with the smarter freshmen engineers. Do not take it just to satisfy your physics requirement if you're not interested in physics.

Oh lecture classes. Okay, this was a really interesting class, and Professor John Parsons taught it very efficiently and cleverly, but I can't really remembering him explaining anything. It seems like the lectures are only valuable if you've already read the textbook. As a result I had to drink like five cups of coffee to get through through every one of Parsons's interesting efficient clever etc classes, maybe it was a ventilation issue. Watch out cause Red Bull already banned in europe.

Amber Miller is an excellent lecturer and has a good rapport with her students. She has frequent asides with students, answering some very interesting questions and making the class much more enjoyable. The material is taught slowly and fairly thoroughly, being reinforced week by week. A helpful habit of hers is that she recaps the previous lecture before each current lecture, making it easier in case you've missed it. She is always very well prepared and has immaculate handwriting.

Another very positive aspect of this class is that Miller drops one midterm. The first midterm is almost assuredly going to be a piece of cake, especially if you've taken physics before. Well over half the class got A's. The second midterm is significantly more difficult due to the material, but if you've done well on the first one, it will drop.

I strongly recommend Amber Miller.

Disregard old reviews: she is great now. The classes are well planned, lots of example problems solved in the class, adequete practical examples as well, approachable, willing to help, knows the stuff well. On the downside, the course was not paced consistantly. At first it was a bit too fast, and later it was just too slow. Overall: I will strongly recommend her. And though it's not her fault, the TA sucks.

I disagree with all the positive reviews of Professor Parsons' instruction. Parson's lectures largely duplicated the textbook - the conceptual examples he used were often exactly the same as those in the book. The lectures themselves were unhelpful - some of them were occupied by long algebraic proofs for various formulas which could convince you that the formula was accurate but told you nothing about what it signified or how it could be applied. By far the most frustrating part of the course was the section on special relativity. Professor Parsons knows the material well, and when he solves problems he used certain tricks and shortcuts that he has learned from experience. But he doesn't point out the tricks and teach them in such a way that a student can reapply them. As a result, one finds themselves copying off the board but not absorbing any useful strategy for future problem solving. The lectures therefore just decary into a lot of algebra - hardly what a physics course should be!
A final note: The book is terrible! It is poorly written, does not provide effective examples, does not have a good solutions manual - in short has nothing one should expect from a physics textbook. A real contrast to Stewarts Calc. Book!

He was very good. The problem sets were free easy points. Theres a huge curve for the midterms and hes a very clear and straight forward lecturer.
Definatly take 1601 freshman year and not 1401.

Parsons is very clear when he is teaching and everything is pretty much straight forward, very easy to understand. However, they can get a tad bit boring. He doesn't go very fast and it's easy to fall asleep. Lucklily, the class room has many boards so if you fall asleep for 15 minutes it's not too difficult to catch up with the notes because things aren't erased quickly. He has no problem answering questions and knows physics pretty well. The problem sets aren't too long or too difficult, answers are basically given away at recitation if you choose to go. Tests aren't easy but there is a curve. If you know the material you will do fine.

Professor Parsons teaches an extremely intresting physics class. He comes up with great demonstrations, however his informative and clear teaching will hold your attention and the demos are just a bonus. His tests are fair, and are well balanced.

Professor Parsons is amazing. Do yourself a favor and take him if you want to get anything out of physics 1601. His lectures are clear and logical, his examples are well done, and he can be very funny at times too. Very approachable and always willing to help out. You won't need to ever open up the book as he explains the material much better than the book anyway. A+

Professor Parsons is amazing!!! He knows the stuff well and expalains it well, keeps your interest from first moment till last, willingly answers questions. He has a very nice sense of humor, you just can't fall asleep in that class.

Parsons is an amazing physics teacher!!! If you have the oportunity to take his course, do so. He makes physics really easy and his tests are straight forward if you know your stuff. He's also quite entertaining in lecture.

A great guy! He has a very loud and clear voice, and very well organized lectures. He also has a sense of humor that isn't nerdy. He is very nice and approachable and will work hard to make himself available to help students, so go to him for help, don't delay. TAKE PARSONS FOR PHYSICS.

This course was probably the most postive course evaluation I have ever filled out: the material is fascinating and Professor Cole is spectacular!
The course is physics the way it is supposed to be, starting with F=ma and step-by-step deriving harmonic motion, coupled oscillators, classical waves, fourier analysis, electromagnetic waves, and, finally , elementary quantum mechanics. Almost without exception Professor Cole teaches the material the way that it must be taught for a physcist to understand, which brings me to the first caveat:
this course is for PHYSICISTS, NOT engineers! repeatedly i heard engineering students complaining about the lack of applications and the formalism of the material; well sorry guys but that is what 1403 is for. This course has a lot to cover, essentially needing to bring up-and-coming physics majors from the introductory level to being able to take 4021 graduate quantum mechanics next year (which is the recommended path for majors), and even with extra classes and extremely generous recitations and office hours by professor Cole we still did not do some of the later material justice.
Given that Professor Cole lives two hours away and works at Brookhaven, he was absolutely great about coming in for extra sessions to help us, sacrificing many hours of his time to help the often-small numbers of students that attended the extra sessions. He was also exceptionally open to quesions not directly pertaining to the material, for example after the final talking to several of us about the strong force and super-symmetry for at least 45 minutes.
Some students have complained about the lack of a textbook, but I found that Professor Cole's lectures notes were wonderful at getting to the heart of the material without the unecessary frills in most newer texbooks... He provides us with several chapters from the French quantum book for background reading and recommends buying the French wave book as well. His handmade problem sets are terrific.

It is only fair to mention that the class is rather disorganized, with due dates and extra lectures being added and changing willy-nilly and the changes (usually) being posted on Cole's website. This creates a fun casual atmosphere, but it is also irritating at times.
Ultimately, this course is not for slacker engineering students wanting an easy A, but for anyone who loves physics it is a must-take experience that will change the way you think about and do physics for the rest of your time here.

He's a pretty boring professor. His handwriting is hard to read, and the TAs are slow at getting exams back (though homeworks are given back within a week). Demonstrations are always fun, though. By the way, he drinks Diet Coke. It was a question on the final.

If you took AP Physics and had a basic understanding of it, this course will basically be review. There is some new material, like expansion of the universe (mostly for extra credit) and an introduction to quantum physics.

Hailey is king. The man is very easy to approach, quite friendly, easygoing and generally nice. I loved his in-class demonstrations especially since they most often went wrong providing a break from the montony of lecture and reviving the class . One problem I had with him is that when he's lecturing he doesn't like to stop to answer questions, he just ignores your hand if it's raised. But in his defense, most of the questions kids asked were irrelevant musings that they threw out in an attempt to impress themselves on the teacher and show that they had read the book. The course is hard, but that is not Hailey's fault. He races through the stuff he expects us to know from high school but takes pains to make sure we understand the interesting stuff like special relativity and dark matter. He made me want to switch from SEAS to CC just so I could be a Physics major, yes that is the power of the king.

If you took AP physics in high school, and passed the test, this class should mostly be a breeze, as far as concepts go.
Hailey is a very good lecturer, he could keep my attention for an hour before I had to look at the clock, and the remaining half hour wasn't too bad. I thought he made the topics very clear and comprehensible. In class, this guy is great.
But other than his lectures, this guy sucks. The homework sets were very easy, and the problems on the homework were not even remotely similar in format to those on the midterms or final, so they didn't help at all. Not to mention that only having 10 problems to cover an entire topic is not enough to learn it, and since his tests are vastly different than what the book has for problems, going through the book and doing problems on your own is a waste of time.
The curve in the class is ridiculous. If you're satisfied with a B, you'll have no problem in this class, i think 2/3 of the class gets between a B- and B+, but if you want an A- or A, you'll have to work like hell, already know physics better than he can teach it, or just be really really smart.
This review is mostly useless, because he is starting his research project over in Japan, so I don't think he is even going to be here next year.

Let me start by saying that I am not a total science person and that physics is a hard subject for me, and it does not come easy. After saying that, this is my review for Hailey:
I LOOOVE THIS MAN! I had a horrible physics professor in high school, and this man made me love physics again. He will go into really cool topics and by the end of the class you'll know what you need to know plus al ot of other things that are very interesting and great for impressing friends (if your friends are into physics...mine aren't). Take this class if you have taken physics before. I am switching to the lower physics track but mainly because he is not teaching 1602...Sincerely, one of the best professors I could've come across. Because of that class, I might be an applied physics major.

John Parsons is amazing. He does everything right. He has a loud, clear, unaccented voice which he uses to explain in a very understandable way each concept he wants the class to know. He’s even humorous. I don’t think you can find much better. His lectures are interesting and the notes are very helpful. The only time I opened the book was to read the homework problems; otherwise it’s entirely unnecessary as he usually provides a better explanation than the text does.
Take his class if you can, it’s a treat.

This class is HIGHLY UN-recommended. Sally Chapman is a very quick-moving professor who expects all students to put her class at first and only priority among other classes. She is VERY strict on non-academic aspects of the class, which really takes away from the material in itself. PREMED STUDENTS AT BARNARD: Take Chemistry at Columbia!!! This class was my worst experience at Barnard and I strongly do not suggest it. She may know her material, but I felt that it really impeded my learning of the subject because I disliked her as a professor so much.

Parson's teaching can be summed up in one word: WOW! He is an amazing lecturer and pretty much knows everything there is to know about the material. Attending class is critical since the material is often complex or poorly covered in the text. That's not a problem though, you WILL WANT TO ATTEND CLASS. If you attend you will walk out of each class feeling like you know exactly what the professor is talking about. He is a great teacher, funny, and very flexible--if you make contact with him once in a while.

Parsons is an incredible physics teacher. He's got a sharp sense of humor that keeps his class awake and attentive. He's got this booming voice (guaranteed audible to a deaf man at 500 yards) that lets you sit in the back of the class and still understand every word. Most importantly, though, his ability to organize and teach a lecture is really spectacular - several people I know switched in from the lower-level course (the 1400s) and found it *easier*. The only downside is that he's hard to get a hold of if you need extra help, and unresponsive over email - but hey, nobody's perfect.

Professor Parsons is the best professor I have ever had. He is very knowledgeable, and he delivers this knowledge to his students in a very effective manner. He is very approachable, and he encourages all of his students to attend his office hours. His responses to email are prompt, some within 5 minutes. Although the material and class is somewhat challenging, he explains it very well. I would definitely recommend taking this professor. Even though you don't enjoy the material, he will definitely bring it to life.

Definetly a challening professor. Both tests and homework are hard. there is a big curve so as long as you do better than the curve you're set for an A.

Great lecturer, explains every concept very clearly with illustrated examples. Witty and funny, he makes the class interesting and even fun at times. Assigned problems are difficult as are midterms and finals. Only take this class if you are willing to work your butt off and breathe physics for the semester.

He was an amazing proffessor! You're in for some great laughs and some very engaging lectures. Everything is very tangible and accecible in the lecture. Plenty of examples and plenty of explanation. Don't get me wrong - he's tough. You still have to read the book to really know what the heck you are doing on tests and homework - though because of Prof Parsons you now know what the heck the book is saying. He's an amazing lecturer...if you pay attention!Otherwise you will be talking about E=((pc)^2+(mc)^2))^(1/2) and how that relates to people traveling on skateboards that go significant fractions of the speed of light before you even knew you were relativley lost. Plus you might miss his ever so subtle and clever wit! I wouldn't reccomend missing too many lectures either for the sake of the exams and your homework. So if you see this guy's name next to the course you want to take...BY ALL MEANS TAKE HIM!!! He's tough, but its fair, and you will absolutley fall in love with whatever material he presents! He was without a doubt one of the best proffessors I have ever had - he made me enjoy physics despite the workload and my grades!!!

Prof. Evans is nice and very clear. He is open to listening to questions during lecture and he cares a lot about students taking an interest in him as a professor which makes him pretty accessible. His lectures are not that exciting and attendance reflected that. Some lectures are better than others. In the poets class he often tried to have demonstrations in class and would end most lectures with a good story or anticdote.

Hailey is a good teacher. He is easy to follow and derives everything -- which is definitely a good thing. He moves quickly so dont zone out in his class. You might wake up 5 minutes later and not quite understand what is going on. He's pretty funny and has a few quirks about him. But perhaps the best thing about him is that he shows the class how the basic stuff applies to cutting edge physics. For example, Keplers Third Law applied to prove the existence of dark matter. Or the existence of dark energy, lambda fields, the negative mass of the universe using Work, Pressure and Energy theorems. He manages to mix the utterly profound with the most simple things in physics. Also he is not arrogant at all. You can come up to him and ask him questions, schedule appointments, and he will make sure you get the stuff.

Prof. Hailey's lectures are mediocre and often times boring. If you like easy-to-follow physics professors you might like him, because Hailey derives everything. He's a quirky guy (he kinda reminds me of Kramer from Seinfeld) but overall pretty impersonal and sometimes arrogant.

Charles Hailey is a decent professor. His lectures are generally interesting and often interspersed with material from modern physics (dark matter, etc...). His demonstrations are usually vastly amusing (even when they don't work). Hailey's focus on relativity at the end of the semester is one of the hi-lightes of the class (although one of the most confusing elements of it as well). Watch out for the midterms! If he tells you they are easy, dont believe him (ever!).

Professor Hailey is a really good teacher. His lectures are almost always interesting and his explanations are great. He takes basic classical mechanics concepts (like the Universal Law of Gravitation) and shows you mathematically and conceptually how these relate to the existence of dark matter, X-energy, lambda fields, Xenon nuclei-neutralino collisions and such. Though he doesnt test you on this material, its really cool to listen to. He is well organized in his proofs and is an overall great guy. He has a good sense of humor, is easy to talk to, and understands the problems that a freshman physics student might encounter. He always talks of how he was once a struggling freshman physics student as well and how he wasnt the greatest physics student there ever was. OVERALL: really good teacher, funny, and engaging.

Hailey gives fairly interesting lectures. He often goes off on tangents to discuss related material in contemporary physics. Don't worry -- you're not responsible for that stuff.

Possibly the best professor I have for this semester. He really knows his physics, and he explains it so well -- I am amazed at how good my notes are! Granted that this understanding doesn't always translate to the problem sets, but he's happy to answer questions during the lecture. The best is when he does demos -- he has that rare ability to laugh with the class when something goes wrong!