Corequisite majors: Physics or Astronomy and Astrophysics
The Advanced Physics specialisation builds on majors in either Physics or Astronomy and Astrophysics 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 Outcomes
- 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
What courses should you take in first year if interested in this specialisation?
- MATH1013 Mathematics & Applications 1 or MATH1115 Advanced Mathematics & Applications 1
- MATH1014 Mathematics & Applications 2 or MATH1116 Advanced Mathematics & Applications 2
- PHYS1101 Physics I
- PHYS1201 Physics II
Additional advice:
- A specialisation in Advanced Physics must be taken in conjunction with a Physics or an Astronomy and Astrophysics major.
- For students pursuing this specialisation through the PHYS-MAJ, 4 x MATH courses (MATH1013/MATH1115 and MATH1014/MATH1116, MATH2305 and MATH2306) will be required and can contribute to a MATH-MIN; Depending on which sequence of 3000-level ASTR courses students want to take, PHYS2013 and MATH2305, and PHYS2020 and MATH2306 might also be required in the second (or subsequent) year of study.
- The Advanced Physics specialisation is recommended for those planning on taking the fourth year honours degree in Physics.
- This specialisation might not be compatible with some Flexible Double Degree combinations due to the number of courses needed to satisfy all requirements.
Academic or enrolment advice:
Students can seek further advice from the academic contact for this specialisation (details above), or the College of Science Student Services Team (students.cos@anu.edu.au).
Back to the topRequirements
This specialisations must be taken in conjunction with one of the following majors:
This specialisation requires the completion of 24 units, which must include:
A maximum of 12 units from the completion of 2000- level courses from the subject area PHYS- Physics
A minimum of 12 units from the completion of 3000- level courses which may come from:
The following subject areas:
PHYS - Physics
ASTR - Astronomy and Astrophysics
The following course list:
MATH3511 - Scientific Computing (6 units)
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
A maximum of 24 units may come from completion of courses from the following list:
| Code | Title | Units |
|---|---|---|
| MATH3511 | Scientific Computing | 6 |
