This website is a repository for my undergraduate students. It has lectures, Python code, useful links and other resources that they might find useful.
“All models are wrong, but some are useful” is a common aphorism is statistics. I like to extend it to Physics and try to communicate in the classroom that ‘Laws of Physics’ are mathematical models attempting to describe ‘reality’ (whatever that might be). Further, it is a useful philosophy when it comes to applying the said Laws to ‘explain’ physical phenomena such as the change in size of raindrops and their motion through the air as they fall. In addition to this aphorism, I love invoking the “Spherical Cow” in the classroom, a humorous metaphor for over-simplified models attempting to describe complex physical phenomena.
Together, these two form the skeleton of most of my pedagogy. I come from a background in Theoretical Physics, but have increasingly been drawn to the idea of seeing how far Undergraduate Physics, along with the skill of mathematical modelling of physical phenomena, can take a student to appreciate a vast class of natural phenomena (some fairly exotic). Of course, when the need arises, to try and push the boundaries of what ‘Undergraduate Physics’ could be.
I have been extremely lucky to be associated with an Institution which provides a safe haven for independent (sometimes even radical) style of pedagogy both in content and style. I have also been extremely lucky to have interacted over the years with a host of extremely brilliant, curious and creative students, who have made Physics pedagogy both challenging and exciting for me, and have often inspired me to push the boundaries of ‘Undergraduate Physics’.
This site contains lectures, a lot of Computational Physics code (indispensable to turn a spherical cow to something that better resembles a real one), useful links and my current obsession (which changes every few years and which I try to squeeze into my teaching). At the moment, it is Bayesian Inference and I am desperately trying to squeeze it in……