PHYSICS 105A
Analytic Mechanics
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Requisite: course 32. Corequisite: Mathematics 33B. Newtonian mechanics and conservation laws, gravitational potentials, calculus of variations, Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics, central force motion, linear and nonlinear oscillations. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2024 - Loved this class, I felt a bit baited into the midterm because it was harder than expected, but it was fair. Homework is short but really hard and not sufficient for getting a good grade. Prof is really nice and his office hours are very engaging and he will always answer your question very thoroughly. Make sure you repeat all the examples from the textbook before attempting homework problems to be extra prepared. Get a copy of Taylor to read before you read the recommended text (Taylor is a bit too simplified but Marion is just horribly thorough for a first read). His lectures are straight outta Marion so make sure you give it a bit of a read before the lectures after reading Taylor (I know a lot of reading but it helps a lot) The material is kinda rough, you can definitely get through the class without understanding how anything actually works and just memorize procedures but it's a very enjoyable class if you give it time and effort. The prof is great but his exams are hard so come prepared
Spring 2024 - Loved this class, I felt a bit baited into the midterm because it was harder than expected, but it was fair. Homework is short but really hard and not sufficient for getting a good grade. Prof is really nice and his office hours are very engaging and he will always answer your question very thoroughly. Make sure you repeat all the examples from the textbook before attempting homework problems to be extra prepared. Get a copy of Taylor to read before you read the recommended text (Taylor is a bit too simplified but Marion is just horribly thorough for a first read). His lectures are straight outta Marion so make sure you give it a bit of a read before the lectures after reading Taylor (I know a lot of reading but it helps a lot) The material is kinda rough, you can definitely get through the class without understanding how anything actually works and just memorize procedures but it's a very enjoyable class if you give it time and effort. The prof is great but his exams are hard so come prepared
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Most Helpful Review
His lectures are conceptual and so are most of the homework/test questions. His teaching... is a bit confusing (he switches notations or messes up a bit), but it's a good kind of confusion. It's the kind that makes you want to figure out what the heck is going on, and the kind that allows you see how a physicist SHOULD think. There is no doubt he actually cares about the students learning, but I'd guess that people in our class are a bit intimidated or something (or that he doesn't hear us ask questions sometimes). Also, he (or his graders) grade very leniently. The bottom line is, this guy is a genius, and his derivations (although many of you might hate those) are quite brilliant once you figure out his line of reasoning at the end. I hope he teaches again next quarter because I feel myself slowly learning to hone my intuition and generate physical interpretations from seemingly random equations.
His lectures are conceptual and so are most of the homework/test questions. His teaching... is a bit confusing (he switches notations or messes up a bit), but it's a good kind of confusion. It's the kind that makes you want to figure out what the heck is going on, and the kind that allows you see how a physicist SHOULD think. There is no doubt he actually cares about the students learning, but I'd guess that people in our class are a bit intimidated or something (or that he doesn't hear us ask questions sometimes). Also, he (or his graders) grade very leniently. The bottom line is, this guy is a genius, and his derivations (although many of you might hate those) are quite brilliant once you figure out his line of reasoning at the end. I hope he teaches again next quarter because I feel myself slowly learning to hone my intuition and generate physical interpretations from seemingly random equations.
Most Helpful Review
This guy is easy. The homework is straight out of the book (though I warn you, the 105 A book is terrible), and very do-able. It is also only due every 2 weeks, and that flexibility is nice. The tests are pretty easy, though beware the multiple choice sections: there are tricks everywhere. Physics classes shouldn't have multiple choice anywhere as far as I'm concerned. He is an okay lecturer, nothing too special, through what he says he says clearly (his voice resembles Kermit the Frog's, so there is some humor there). he had a few relevant demonstrations. The one thing that bothered me is that of the 8 chapters the syllabus said we were supposed to cover, we only did 6. 105A is a class for physics majors who actually need to know what they are learning, so I am concerned that missing this material will come back and bite me in the future. Easy professor, nothing special.
This guy is easy. The homework is straight out of the book (though I warn you, the 105 A book is terrible), and very do-able. It is also only due every 2 weeks, and that flexibility is nice. The tests are pretty easy, though beware the multiple choice sections: there are tricks everywhere. Physics classes shouldn't have multiple choice anywhere as far as I'm concerned. He is an okay lecturer, nothing too special, through what he says he says clearly (his voice resembles Kermit the Frog's, so there is some humor there). he had a few relevant demonstrations. The one thing that bothered me is that of the 8 chapters the syllabus said we were supposed to cover, we only did 6. 105A is a class for physics majors who actually need to know what they are learning, so I am concerned that missing this material will come back and bite me in the future. Easy professor, nothing special.
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2020 - Disclaimer: Took this class during the online quarter, so final was "no harm" grading. Professor Kraus is decent. He follows the textbook pretty closely and does what he is supposed to do. However, his lectures are hard to pay attention to, because he is so monotone. His voice fades away as he talks to the point where he is just mumbling before he picks it up and we go on the ride again. He assigns a decent amount of homework every week, but the problem is, his homework does not look like his exams. His exams are much harder than his homework. For example, almost every problem from the Chapter 7 homework had given coordinates to set up the Lagrangian, but he never gives you the coordinates on his exam, as you are to figure them out. Not giving coordinates is completely understandable, but his homework shouldn't give coordinates either. Also, his lecture examples are not similar to the exams either. His exam questions are completely new and are very much on the harder side. Also, he makes questions that should be straightforward into questions where you are bound to lose points. For example, he gave a straightforward final question but gave an ugly integral, which caused me to lose points. His grading is also hit or miss. Most of the time, he is a easy grader, as he gives plenty of partial credit, but sometimes, he takes off a lot of points for the most ridiculous math problems (e.g. setting up the entire problem correctly but not being able to do the integral). Overall, Kraus is a very textbook professor.
Spring 2020 - Disclaimer: Took this class during the online quarter, so final was "no harm" grading. Professor Kraus is decent. He follows the textbook pretty closely and does what he is supposed to do. However, his lectures are hard to pay attention to, because he is so monotone. His voice fades away as he talks to the point where he is just mumbling before he picks it up and we go on the ride again. He assigns a decent amount of homework every week, but the problem is, his homework does not look like his exams. His exams are much harder than his homework. For example, almost every problem from the Chapter 7 homework had given coordinates to set up the Lagrangian, but he never gives you the coordinates on his exam, as you are to figure them out. Not giving coordinates is completely understandable, but his homework shouldn't give coordinates either. Also, his lecture examples are not similar to the exams either. His exam questions are completely new and are very much on the harder side. Also, he makes questions that should be straightforward into questions where you are bound to lose points. For example, he gave a straightforward final question but gave an ugly integral, which caused me to lose points. His grading is also hit or miss. Most of the time, he is a easy grader, as he gives plenty of partial credit, but sometimes, he takes off a lot of points for the most ridiculous math problems (e.g. setting up the entire problem correctly but not being able to do the integral). Overall, Kraus is a very textbook professor.
Most Helpful Review
Hands down, one of my favorite upper-div professors. The material is difficult (105A and B), but he explains it pretty well and assigns very good homework problems. I like how he doesn't bother with really bullshit topics. He'll ask fair questions on the midterm that are homework-difficulty, so if you can do the harder homework problems without the solutions manual, then you'll do well. Take him if you can; I wish he taught all the upper-div physics classes. He's also hilarious and nice and seems to enjoy the class as well as his students.
Hands down, one of my favorite upper-div professors. The material is difficult (105A and B), but he explains it pretty well and assigns very good homework problems. I like how he doesn't bother with really bullshit topics. He'll ask fair questions on the midterm that are homework-difficulty, so if you can do the harder homework problems without the solutions manual, then you'll do well. Take him if you can; I wish he taught all the upper-div physics classes. He's also hilarious and nice and seems to enjoy the class as well as his students.
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