Orwell wrote:
I never legitimately learned E&M (managed to pull a 5 on Physics B by leaning *very* heavily on mechanics, even to the point of ignoring a free response question on magnetism) so I can't really say for certain if it's harder, but it sure seems to be. Calc-based mech is nothing difficult; if you know the basic mech and can do some calculus it's not a problem to slap them together. Just makes the work take a bit longer.
I never took the physics B test at all, instead I only took the Physics C Mech, and the Physics C E&M, and yeah, I could tell a difference, but in this case, both classes were calculus based. As such, I really don't know about non-calculus based physics as much, as I never took a non-calculus based physics class at all, I would guess that the only difference is that non-calculus problems are simpler.
Most physics mechanics is rather easy, the only part where the math starts being more difficult from my estimation, is where they want you to derive the center of mass for some funny shaped object, or perhaps the period of inertia(if I remember terms correctly, it's been a few years) in a similar manner, and I am not sure if that was a major part of the test, or even if my teacher pushed that for no reason.
01 Jan 2009, 1:58 am
