Corequisite majors: Physics or Theoretical Physics
Description:
The Advanced Physics specialisation builds on majors in either Physics or Theoretical Physics to provide a broader and deeper mastery of Physics. This will enable students to understand a greater variety of physical phenomena at an increased level of sophistication. Students who complete the Advanced Physics specialisation will therefore have an increased range of career and academic options.
Learning Goals:
Students who complete the Advanced Physics specialisation will be able to:
- Describe and explain, in depth, the full range of fundamental principles of physics, including those of: mechanics, electromagnetism, quantum mechanics, and thermal and statistical physics.
- Apply the fundamental principles of physics to solve a broad range of sophisticated problems, including those likely to be encountered in future careers. Such problems may involve ambiguity and uncertainty and require the application of multiple principles.
- Integrate the fundamental principles of physics to describe and explain in depth a broad range of specialised areas of physics.
- Describe and explain in depth a broad range of specific examples of how physics is applied to benefit people.
- Describe in depth critical experiments in the history of physics and explain how they led to revisions of our theoretical descriptions of nature.
- Use mathematical, computational and experimental skills to solve sophisticated conceptual and quantitative problems across a broad range of physics.
- Demonstrate high level skills including: equipment familiarity, data gathering, record keeping, data analysis, dealing with uncertainty, experiment design, and comparison with theory.
- Analyse complex and unfamiliar physical systems and provide order-of-magnitude estimates of quantities. This includes a knowledge of basic physical constants and key equations.
- Be both creative and rigorous in the design and construction of scientific investigations of physical systems across a broad range of areas of physics.
- Be able to effectively communicate sophisticated physics based analyses to expert and non-expert audiences.
- Be able to constructively criticise evidence, arguments and conclusions wherever they are encountered.
Other Information
Advice to Students
Either the Advanced Physics or Optics specialisation is recommended for those planning on taking the fourth year honours degree in Physics.
Students intending to take all three ASTR courses should take the specialisation in Astronomy and Astrophysics.
Students should seek further course advice from the academic convener of the Advanced Physics specialisation.
A specialisation in Advanced Physics must be taken in conjunction with a Physics or Theoretical Physics major.
Back to the top
Requirements
Specialisation Requirements
This specialisation requires the completion of 24 units, which must include:
A maximum of 12 units may come from completion of courses from the following list:
2000 level Physics (PHYS) courses
A maximum of 24 units may come from completion of courses from the following list:
3000 level Physics (PHYS) OR Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASTR) courses
units from completion of the following course(s):
| Code | Title | Units |
|---|---|---|
| MATH3511 | Scientific Computing | 6 |
