Quantum physics exam this morning
Oct. 12th, 2010 09:33 pm![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ajvaPretty confident I've passed, but certainly no better than a pass grade 3, given how much of the paper I had to skip. Brief explanation: the OU does pass grades 1-4 for its modules, with 1 being a distinction (usually 85%-plus, subject to grade adjustment of course), 2 being a merit (70%-84%), 3 a pass (55%-69%) and 4 a basic pass (40%-54%). If you get between 15% and 40%, that allows you an automatic resit, and anything less is a fail. So, I suppose, degree-wide those pass grades would be equivalent to a 1st, 2:i, 2:ii and 3rd respectively.
In all the maths courses I've done so far I've got either a pass 1 or a pass 2, but if I manage to scrape through to a pass 3 here (which I'm hopeful I have - I reckon I'll come in at about 60%), I'll be more proud of that than of any of the other results I've achieved. A lower second will be good enough for me for this. :o)
It's a bloody hard subject, but also very worthwhile. I've read pop science books about quantum physics before, but doing a course where you get down to the brass tacks of how the mathematics of it actually works - which in itself allows a firmer grasp of the whole thing conceptually - is incredibly rewarding. And it's given me renewed astonished respect for all the people who came up with it in the first place. It's tricky enough following this stuff; it must have taken considerable genius to have come up with it in the first place. But without those geniuses, much of the 21st-Century technology we enjoy today would never have been developed.
And now I'm free! And have had a bottle of wine to celebrate. :o)
In all the maths courses I've done so far I've got either a pass 1 or a pass 2, but if I manage to scrape through to a pass 3 here (which I'm hopeful I have - I reckon I'll come in at about 60%), I'll be more proud of that than of any of the other results I've achieved. A lower second will be good enough for me for this. :o)
It's a bloody hard subject, but also very worthwhile. I've read pop science books about quantum physics before, but doing a course where you get down to the brass tacks of how the mathematics of it actually works - which in itself allows a firmer grasp of the whole thing conceptually - is incredibly rewarding. And it's given me renewed astonished respect for all the people who came up with it in the first place. It's tricky enough following this stuff; it must have taken considerable genius to have come up with it in the first place. But without those geniuses, much of the 21st-Century technology we enjoy today would never have been developed.
And now I'm free! And have had a bottle of wine to celebrate. :o)
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Date: 2010-10-13 06:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-13 07:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-13 08:51 am (UTC)See you soon :0)
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Date: 2010-10-13 01:38 pm (UTC)Similarly, the exam result I'm proudest of is my 34% (lowest possible Third) in first-year Chemistry - which involved introductory quantum physics. Bit of a bugger if you haven't done A-level maths...