Some interesting statistics from the first Physics 111 quiz

Demographics

From information collected in the first quiz the intended major of students in Physics 111 is shown in the table below. The total number of students responding was approximately 90.

Major Number
Mechanical Engineering 11
Psychology
 10
Civil Engineering 7
Business/Accounting CIS & Related 6
Communication
 5
Electrical Engineering
5
Computer Science (CECS)
5
Undecided 20

Other majors with four or fewer students included: History, Music Education, Biology, Anthropology, Justice Administration, English, Political Science, Art, Philosophy, Education, Chemical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Physics/Maths, Sonography, Nursing/Radiology, Exercise Phsyiology.
About 30% of you are pre-enginnering students, but despite that there is a very diverse population.  Even a potential Physics major....

University Standing

You were asked for your current standing. As I suspected most of you are freshman.

Rank Number
Freshman 57
Sophomore 28
Junior 6
Senior 3

Why are you here ?

I asked why you were enrolled in this course.  As I suspected, for most of you this course meets a general education (or other) requirement.  But a significant number of people indicated that they actually made a conscious decision to choose Physics !  Ande even some for whom the course is required expressed an interest in physics.  I hope you aren't disappointed.

Reason
Number
Requirement
74
Desire
18

Famous Physicists

You were asked for the names of 3 famous physicists. The names listed were as follows:

Name Number
Einstein 55
Newton 34
Rutherford
 31
Archimedes
 8
Hawking
 4

I'm sure Rutherford's votes were inflated by the quotation on the contents page of the course notes...

Others, with 3 or fewer students mentioning their name included:
Franklin, Heisenberg, Bohr, Pascal, Copernicus, Oppenheimer, da Vinci, Watt, Boyle, Bernoulli, Galileo, Kelvin, Kepler, Tesla, Feynman, Coulomb, Milliken, Greene(Brian) .

In addition, Edison, Aristotle, were mentioned.  Edison was an inventor rather than a physicist; Aristotle was a philosopher, the profession from which physics developed, but by today's standards not a physicist.

Some off the wall suggestions:
Mendel - Famous for his genes, not his physics.
Nobel - famous, certainly. Invented dynamite and left the legacy of the Nobel Prize, but not a physicist.
Asimov - Science fiction author, but not a physicist.
Nash, Kaluza, Leibnitz - Mathematicians...
Davis - Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I am far from famous...

Finally, my favourite:  Myself - after I have taken this course...

Physics Questions

You were asked to state a physics related question you would like this course to address. The responses ranged from the very specific to the very general.  For example:

"Is time travel possible?"
"How hard is physics ?"
"How fast does the earth spin ?"
"What is the mass of the earth ?"
"Why is Physics the most important science ?"
"Why is the speed of light important"
"How far is Pluto ?" (the dog or the planet ?)
 
Specifically, according to general topic,

Subject of Question Number
Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Black holes 14
General Mechanics
 12
What is Physics and what use is it ?
 11
Waves(tsunami), buoyancy etc.
 8
Electricity, Magnetism and Light 6
Gravity 5
Sound
 4

I will try to address as many of the issues raised as possible. But please remember that although this is an introductory course it is not a conceptual physics course. You will be expected to perform simple calculations related to every topic we cover. Certain subjects, for example, Relativity and Quantum Mechanics do not easily lend themselves to an introductory level course.

Science in the News

I asked you to write down a science topic you had seen recently in the news.  This was dominated by the recent earthquake/tsunami disaster in Asia, but there were a few other subjects mentioned.

Subject
 Number
Tsunami in Asia
 60
Space exploration and related 6
Cloning, genetics, stem cells...
 6
Global warming and the environment
2
Miscellaneous health issues
3

There were at least a couple of people who watched "The Elegant Universe" recently  on PBS.  Stephen Hawking's admission of a mistake in his black hole theory and string theory in general were mentioned.