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Phopojijo
December 18th, 2007, 08:37 PM
Had an exam today, as per thread title. (Lagrangian/Hamiltonian Mechanics)

It's a graduate level course that they brought down to 3rd year to reshuffle some crap around... make quantum flow nicer into the mix of things.

To compensate for the difficulty of the course -- they let us bring in our textbook and 3 pages of self-written notes.

I filled up half a page (IE: one full side) with formula and did practice problems from the textbook and put the solutions on the formula sheet -- one from as many sections as possible -- to show myself application of said formula in case I panic. (I emailed the prof to make sure that was okay -- he said "Just be careful, practice problems take up a *LOT* of room")

Turns out...

When he made the exam -- he *used* questions from the textbook.

Of 8 questions, *2* were on my formula sheet and another was just plain a gimme to ease us in.

Even funnier? We only needed to do 4 questions of the 8.

So I, quite literally, had 50% of the exam answered on my equation sheet and 25% done within 15 minutes by hand and I needed to only do *1 of any remaining 5 questions*. Last question I did was relativistic mechanics -- that was hard but I think I done it well.

I was the first one out.

dg
December 18th, 2007, 08:44 PM
Wow, that's awesome. Congrats, I guess! :)

I am still waiting for the day that my school lets us use any sort of review sheet on an exam.

n00b1n8R
December 18th, 2007, 08:54 PM
Hahaha, I love open book exams ;)

Sever
December 18th, 2007, 09:07 PM
That was hard but I think I done it well.

Your comprehension of the English language begs to differ.

Phopojijo
December 18th, 2007, 09:16 PM
Your comprehension of the English language begs to differ.Nah, that is just an artifact of having three consecutive exams being mentally taxing.

And I fail to see how a simple typo (I've) makes me do poorly at relativistic particle dynamics.

Tell you what, find the Lagrangian, the integrals of motion, the Hamiltonian, and the equations of motion of a planar pendulum... and then we will talk about my sleep-deprived typing abilities :p

Note: The planar pendulum is the easiest Lagrangian Mechanics problem to solve (apart from the "single particle 1-dimensional 0-force motion" problem).

El Lobo
December 18th, 2007, 11:07 PM
Fucking hate the Legrange method or whatever.

Fuck me.

Rob Oplawar
December 18th, 2007, 11:14 PM
Huzzah for being done with that crazy physical nonsense math. Nothing but good old matrices and programming left for me. =)

Phopojijo
December 19th, 2007, 12:02 AM
Fucking hate the Legrange method or whatever.

Fuck me.Lagrangian Mechanics actually makes things simple.

Like, really simple.

It just takes fairly deep calculus to do it.

king_nothing_
December 19th, 2007, 06:00 AM
ZZ Top?

Phopojijo
December 19th, 2007, 04:59 PM
Not "La Grange" -- Lagrange -- a dude's last name.

Ah hmm hmm hmm hmm...

ImSpartacus
December 19th, 2007, 09:19 PM
Wow. My exams are going to suck. I never study. One day I'll probably learn, but w/e. I still have all winter break though .)

Mr Buckshot
December 19th, 2007, 11:06 PM
Physics exam...what college/university do you go to? I'm planning to pursue physics as a major at one of the Ivy league universities if I get in.

Phopojijo
December 20th, 2007, 12:54 AM
Physics exam...what college/university do you go to? I'm planning to pursue physics as a major at one of the Ivy league universities if I get in.Queen's University
http://www.queensu.ca/

http://www.its.queensu.ca/info/internet/iap_all_2007.gif