I was a physics undergrad who hopped into a few grad classes, and to be honest I was terrible at homework and great at exams (mostly due to some youthful obstinance on putting the time in on homework). At the time I believed that the exams showed who really knew the material and who applied time to solve the problem. With some time past I see that the larger/tougher problem sets were where the real challenge was.
I recall a few unique problem sets from Graduate QM such as
- Derive from first principles the color of the sky.
- Prove that charge must be Quantized if there is one magnetic mono-pole in the universe.
The exam questions were far simpler than the theory questions asked in the problem sets. The work for the first question easily totals > 20 hours of pen and paper time.
> The work for the first question easily totals > 20 hours of pen and paper time.
I guess grad students generally take less coursework than undergrads, but how could a professor expect students to have 20+ hours on hand to solve a single question, given other demands on a student's time?
I recall a few unique problem sets from Graduate QM such as
- Derive from first principles the color of the sky.
- Prove that charge must be Quantized if there is one magnetic mono-pole in the universe.
The exam questions were far simpler than the theory questions asked in the problem sets. The work for the first question easily totals > 20 hours of pen and paper time.