I took this fiat lux the fall of my freshman year and found it very eye opening, but also dense with information. Prof. Arisaka goes into the nitty gritty regarding the science involved, much of which has been skimmed over and simplified in previous educational exposures, but its because he knows so much. Its sometimes had to keep track of all the information, but a lot of it is largely conceptual over memorization, so understanding ideas and causes/effects are more useful then trying to note the exact jargon and vocabulary terms. The main assignments consisted of reading feedbacks and summaries, which are based on your own perception and understanding rather than correctness, and was very much manageable. The final is essentially a slideshow and presentation on a topic of interest spurred by the curriculum so far, and those of my quarter ranged from more physics based time travel to, biology and neuroscience topics such as why do we need sleep. Definitely make sure you fact check and use critical thinking, as your audience is a clear expert in the field, and he was not afraid to applaud or criticize the presenter on their information's correctness. If you're interested and willing, definitely sign up. I witnessed some students zone out or draw (literally the whole time), which I thought was disrespectful to the professor and a waste of their own time.
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Selling required textbooks!:
Just Six Numbers - Martin Rees
Life Ascending: Ten Great Inventions of Evolution - Nick Lane
I of the Vortex: From Neurons to Self - Rodolfo R. Llinas

text ********** that you're inquiring about PHYSICS 19

I bought these retail, but other saw that other students repurchased from others. You don't need to pay full price for a good grade!

Selling the book for this class. I will give you a very fair price. Contact **********. Its the Physics 6c book.

GREAT PROFESSOR!

I have my past graded exams for sale! $10 for each exam. I received an A+ in the course. Email me at *************

This class actually sucks. The TAs don't care at all and seemingly barely understand the lab setups at all, the tutorials are written and designed incredibly poorly, the curriculum assumes a baseline knowledge of python which is NOT listed in the prerequisites, half of the components that you will use in class are faulty and the data looks weird because of it, I could go on.

Content-wise, this class is extremely free. You slide an Arduino down a ramp then write a lab report on how you've proven that gravity exists. It barely even qualifies as a high school physics experiment.

Workload-wise, I've put more time into this class than I have for most of my 4-unit lower divs.

Grading-wise, it's entirely dependent on your TA. I had the misfortune of having a TA who repeatedly took off points for grammar and phrasing (we lost 3 points for calling the air track cart a "plastic platform") and then proceeded to deny the regrade request. We also lost lost points for writing "the force on an ideal spring" instead of "the force exerted by an ideal spring" which first of all is extremely dumb to take points off for, and second of all doesn't even make sense because of Newton's 3rd law. From talking to my friends, it seems like most TAs are fine, but it's something to keep in mind when taking this class.

This class is completely run by a TA. My TA was nice and helpful! For each lab, you'll just copy the circuit diagram and Arduino code, run the experiment, and fill in some blanks in a Python template to analyze the data. It was a solid introduction into data/error analysis and report writing. For a 2-credit class, I thought it was paced well.

The projects were fairly designed, but if you have a bad group, expect to do everything yourself. The TA was utterly useless however.

I thought Physics 4AL was a lot of work for the amount of credits it was worth, but then I took 4BL and found it could get so, so much worse. Instead of post-labs you just have full lab reports due every week, on top of multiple pre-labs a week. The grading entirely depends on your TA. My group would spend 10+ hours on a report and still get a B+ (being the highest grade in the class). The slides are confusing and the pre-labs are worse.

If you know other people taking the class, try to group with them so that you know your group will pull its weight. This isn't a class you want to be carrying solo.

Professor Arisaka has a rather heavy accent, which made his lectures fairly difficult to understand for the first couple of days; however, like he said, we soon got used to it and understood most of his lectures. What I like about him is that he seems to listen to his students; for example, for the first couple of meetings he lectured from the overhead. He went really fast, not giving us enough time to copy down all his notes. When some students complained, he decided to make copies of all the transparencies in a thick packet to be passed out in the beginning of every lecture. That's like 30 pages + per packet and per lecture! It probably isn't completely necessary to go to every lecture, but be warned: on the tests he throws in a few questions to which you would only know the answers if you had been in class to listen (he didn't put them in the assembled packet of notes). The textbook was called "The Big Bang"; I don't think many of us actually read the book at all. All you have to do is study the lecture notes. He didn't pass out practice tests for or class until the final came around, but if you get them, definitely study them (most of the answers are on them). If things don't make sense in the beginning or the middle of the class, they will by the final. Arisaka is good at tying things up (or, as he calls it, showing "the big picture"). If you can, get Mark McGovern as your TA. He answers every e-mail in-depth and is very helpful in office hours.

Arisaka is VERY knowledgeable and has a true love for astronomy that carries over into the classroo. His midterms and finals are easy as long as you know the homework. TAKE HIM IF YOU WANT TO LEARN SOMETHING ABOUT ASTRO AND GET AN EASY "A"