PHYSICS 6B
Physics for Life Sciences Majors: Waves, Electricity, and Magnetism
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour; laboratory, two hours. Enforced requisite: course 6A or 6AH. Not open for credit to students with credit for course 6BH. Mechanical waves, sound, electricity and magnetism, electromagnetic waves, biological applications. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 5.0
Units: 5.0
3 of 4
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Most Helpful Review
I think he is a pretty nice professor. on a first day of the lecture, I regret taking him because his explanation was very fasy and didn't make sense, but as time goes by, his lecture became very nice and clear. also his exam is pretty fair if you understand the concept, and grading was generous. since he didn't put any numbers on his exam, you wouldn't make any calculation problems. once I was a student who was afraid of physics, but for a first time, I felt that physics could be interesting.
I think he is a pretty nice professor. on a first day of the lecture, I regret taking him because his explanation was very fasy and didn't make sense, but as time goes by, his lecture became very nice and clear. also his exam is pretty fair if you understand the concept, and grading was generous. since he didn't put any numbers on his exam, you wouldn't make any calculation problems. once I was a student who was afraid of physics, but for a first time, I felt that physics could be interesting.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2017 - The previous reviews are pretty weird and unhelpful, so I'll try my best to help out future bruins taking his class. Also, on a side note, this dude apparently has two bruinwalk pages, his name is Christoph Niemann, and an electrical engineer with the physics department. On his other page, there is a grading distribution for the class for you to look at if you need that stuff. Anyways, he's probably the best physics lecturer I've had for electro-mag. He really focuses on making sure everyone has a conceptual, intuitive understanding of the material rather than a heavy math based one. Also, its lifesci physics so he can't really get that in depth. Most of the conceptual bits he goes over regard relationships. If you separate the capacitor, what happens to electric field? etc. To succeed here, I strongly recommend attending lecture and paying fullest attention. This quarter his class was in 9am so it was quite a challenge, but he goes over a ton of examples of problems you might be encountering. Also, his powerpoint slides feature information that multiple choice questions will ask about, so pay extremely close detail to each slide, since I missed some details and got it wrong on a midterm. Finally, he uploads 3-4 practice tests before each one. As for the tests themselves, they're kinda annoying. The midterms are only 30 points so every point is absolutely crucial. Succeed on them for a buffer.The first midterm was buttfuck easy, the second one not so much (but that's because I started skipped some lectures and fell asleep in others) , and the final seemed ok. For homework, its masteringphysics (again, forever always). Labs are the same bullshit get it done and get out lab, although it depends on the TA's niceness. I think the best part about his class are the sheer amount of demos he does. I think almost every single lecture featured a demo to showcase the concepts he was trying to teach, so that was a great help to visualize the relationships of stuff he will ask about. In office hours, he was extremely helpful. I pestered him for detail past the course material and level of understanding and he was willing to help out. He's also a pretty funny guy, although unintentionally. Or at least I thought so.
Spring 2017 - The previous reviews are pretty weird and unhelpful, so I'll try my best to help out future bruins taking his class. Also, on a side note, this dude apparently has two bruinwalk pages, his name is Christoph Niemann, and an electrical engineer with the physics department. On his other page, there is a grading distribution for the class for you to look at if you need that stuff. Anyways, he's probably the best physics lecturer I've had for electro-mag. He really focuses on making sure everyone has a conceptual, intuitive understanding of the material rather than a heavy math based one. Also, its lifesci physics so he can't really get that in depth. Most of the conceptual bits he goes over regard relationships. If you separate the capacitor, what happens to electric field? etc. To succeed here, I strongly recommend attending lecture and paying fullest attention. This quarter his class was in 9am so it was quite a challenge, but he goes over a ton of examples of problems you might be encountering. Also, his powerpoint slides feature information that multiple choice questions will ask about, so pay extremely close detail to each slide, since I missed some details and got it wrong on a midterm. Finally, he uploads 3-4 practice tests before each one. As for the tests themselves, they're kinda annoying. The midterms are only 30 points so every point is absolutely crucial. Succeed on them for a buffer.The first midterm was buttfuck easy, the second one not so much (but that's because I started skipped some lectures and fell asleep in others) , and the final seemed ok. For homework, its masteringphysics (again, forever always). Labs are the same bullshit get it done and get out lab, although it depends on the TA's niceness. I think the best part about his class are the sheer amount of demos he does. I think almost every single lecture featured a demo to showcase the concepts he was trying to teach, so that was a great help to visualize the relationships of stuff he will ask about. In office hours, he was extremely helpful. I pestered him for detail past the course material and level of understanding and he was willing to help out. He's also a pretty funny guy, although unintentionally. Or at least I thought so.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2017 - My experience in Physics has been a really crappy one at UCLA, I manage to pass classes based off the knowledge I learned in high school. That said, 6B was no different. Professor Richard is a kind man, but his lectures were so boring. I realized I didn't learn anything from them like week 8 (when it was too late) and was better off teaching myself from the textbook. Tests were basically the challenging homework questions so if you did them, or knew how to do them they shouldnt have been a problem. Your grade is broken down by Homework 15% Lab 15% Midterm 1 and 2 15% and final 40%. 6B is already a hard enough topic, as is the case with most science classes, how much you learn is really based off how good your professor is. The 6 series in general is a really watered down version of the 1, but a lot of the really important conceptual ideas are lost in the process which makes life science students really miss the point about Physics. Kind of disappointing really.
Fall 2017 - My experience in Physics has been a really crappy one at UCLA, I manage to pass classes based off the knowledge I learned in high school. That said, 6B was no different. Professor Richard is a kind man, but his lectures were so boring. I realized I didn't learn anything from them like week 8 (when it was too late) and was better off teaching myself from the textbook. Tests were basically the challenging homework questions so if you did them, or knew how to do them they shouldnt have been a problem. Your grade is broken down by Homework 15% Lab 15% Midterm 1 and 2 15% and final 40%. 6B is already a hard enough topic, as is the case with most science classes, how much you learn is really based off how good your professor is. The 6 series in general is a really watered down version of the 1, but a lot of the really important conceptual ideas are lost in the process which makes life science students really miss the point about Physics. Kind of disappointing really.
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3 of 4
