Professor Definition and 296 Threads

I plan on double majoring in Physics/Mathematics and then hopefully Ill be going to graduate school to get my Phd. I want to teach physics at a university. Do i need a degree in education as well? If yes; what level of degree? (ie Minor, major, masters etc) Thanks!

Hey, I get a different answer than the solutions manual. Did my prof do this laplace transform wrong? Basically I think the 2 in-front of e^-2t should be a 1 instead. thanks for help :)

A comment on another thread about people with PhDs saying dumb things reminded me of somthing a professor once told the class when I was a student. I thought of sharing it with you, in the hope that some of you also have interesting stories to share. In an organic chemistry course, the...

Hey, Not sure if this subforum is the ideal place for it, but in some way I am asking for academic guidance, so... I was wondering: if a professor concludes his email to me using just his first name, is it then good etiquette to start my reply with "Dear [first name]"? I suppose the...

Whenever I look at the careers of famous physicists, current and past, they seem to only attend prestigious universities. They graduate with a PhD from some great physics school and immediately start teaching somewhere very well regarded, whether it's Princeton or MIT. I've also read "So You...

I have hard somewhere the story of mathematics professor(It maybe fake:biggrin:). The math professor was very strong in his concepts and had very good ability to solve math problems. Due to popularity among his peers and other mathematicians, his name spread throughout the entire city where he...

I'm just wondering if, as a Professor, you get paid only by the school you teach at, or if you receive additional income for your research that you do. For instance, let's say you're doing some investigation into accreting binary systems and you get $50k in research grants from NASA; is that...

I am currently a year 2 uni student in University of Sydney. I want to continue my career as a physicist and work in University while doing my research. I am wondering 1) How good does your academic record need to be in order to do Phd? 2) Does it cost less or more comparing to bachelor...

Greetings! I have this friend who had synthesis of nanomaterials as his MS thesis. After talking with him, I realized that his passion is on helping the farmers in the agriculture industry. I want to help him find a research group or professor (for his Phd) in which he can apply what he...

Just wondering what anyone else thinks about one of the physics professor's at my university teaching a mathematical methods course strictly from notes. He did not assign a textbook. Most of the material I have not seen before. Is this common? This course was restructured halfway through...

Recently our grades were updated and unfortunately I finished one percent short of an A. I wasn't going to put that on the teacher, I should have put in more work for that one percent. After about a week I found out that a good number of my peers had received random grade bumps. Some even being...

We are learning about NMR and ESR right now. I know physical chemistry is a difficult topic to learn because there is a lot of background information that you have to be aware of in order to understand things. My professor does not reference these background topics, speaks with a strong...

Homework Statement See the second bullet point on this page: http://facweb.northseattle.edu/rjenne/e240w13flr/hwflr/feb21/e240w13hwfeb21.pdf Homework Equations So I know that fft(x) for a bunch of sample points x={x1, x2, ..., xn} returns the n Fourier coefficients for a function...

Hello everybody, I am sure that there are lots of people like me here who like to think (about abstract things such as mathematics etc) very often. In fact, whenever I get an opportunity, I just start scribbling in a notebook about theorems, proofs and all that. So here's the thing I...

Hiya, First off, I'm not sure where to post this topic. I was thinking either the homework section, or General Astronomy, but I chose to put it here because my question relates to a research paper in Astronomy. Let me discuss the basics of the paper. We have to pick a topic in the 1920s that...

I met with a REALLY nice professor who is doing theoretical nuclear and particle physics (one of my interests). I am in my first year, but can graduate in three years instead of four because of AP credit (with already having taken AP Physics with Calculus and am currently taking Quantum). So he...

So I am in a predicament here and can't make up my mind for which Organic Chemistry professor to take next semester. I am a chemical engineering major, so I don't know how important Organic Chemistry will be for me. I already took professor 1 last semester and barely scratched out an A, but I...

I will not mention the book by name unless I have to. However... I have a textbook for a class, which is quite bad. Amazon reviews of the book show 1 star ratings and terrible reviews. The book is error ridden, and there are quite a few typos and mistakes. The author teaches at my...

This one is a DOOZY! A professor at Florida Atlantic University claims that no one was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary school, "that trained “crisis actors” may have been employed by the Obama administration to shape public opinion on gun control."...

Hello! I have just a quick question for the PF community. What are the major differences between a lecturer and a professor in the US university? Reason I ask is because I'm interested in becoming a teacher and earning a PhD in physics, however I'm not too interested in the research part of...

I'm a little confused as to what it is to be a college science professor. So if you get your PhD, your considered a scientist because you have done your own original research (at a university of course). Now you graduate and apply for jobs. I would assume that someone who is hired into, say...

I have a professor that likes to use tactics of public humiliation on his students. He does things like call on you for an answer, and if you don't know he will continue drilling on the same student over and over again. He is quick to make any smartass remarks to any questions. Like for...

One of the professors I'm asking to write a letter of rec for grad school isn't the best at English. She's from Romania, so I think it's understandable. She's one of my favorite professors and I've always done extremely well in her classes, so it was an obvious choice to me for me to ask her...

next semester I will be taking a grad level solid state course. It will be using a textbook that is literally 40 years old: Ashcroft. Is it OK for me to suggest to the professor to use a more modern textbook (with absolutely no hope that the suggestion will be listened to; just want to put...

I am wondering if this is possible to have such a path. Can a math professor take physics PhD to do mathematical physics and math PhD to do the research on mathematic topics?

A disoriented physics professor drives a distance 3.40km north, then a distance 3.80km west, and then a distance 1.55km south. Find the magnitude of the resultant displacement, using the method of components. Find the direction of the resultant displacement, using the method of components...

I am currently enrolled in an introductory Systems & Signals Processing course. The problem is, this has thus far turned into a series of lectures on the nuances of the Fourier Transform, i.e. special cases and difficult problems. Why am I complaining? Well, in his syllabus, he lists a...

Hi I am taking Quantum I this 2012 fall. The little problem I am having is that my professor wants us to write our homework on Latex. I have no problem with Latex; I love making documents on it. But the only thing that borders me is that having to write up my homework on Latex, take a great deal...

Hey everyone, Tomorrow I'll be meeting with an undergraduate professor (does work in Astrophysics/Astronomy) to discuss work as an undergrad for the quarter. I know it'll mostly be grunt work and I'm not harboring any illusions on that but, I have no idea what she'll ask me during this...

Hello, I've decided to go ahead and attempt to get into an Applied and Engineering Physics PhD program once I've completed my B.S. in Engineering Physics. I had a question though that hopefully someone could answer for me. I would like to initially work in some sort of industry once I finish...

"why does the professor derive the equation?" I often hear people of other majors (engineering) ask me why the professor derives the equation to be used in some situation (like a continuous charge distribution electric field from coulomb's law divided by the test charge) instead of just giving...

Recently, I have been thinking about what I would like to do once I finish my graduate school career. I already know that I like doing research, so I was thinking of either working for a national lab or becoming a professor. Based on some information I've read on the web, becoming a professor...

I got the calculator free i don't even know how to turn it on :(

Will not having a masters degree lower my chances to be a professor in physics.

I really like Mathematics and wondering for the salary for a new assistant professor in the subject.

I know some professors at my school do research- obviously. But some don't. Does my physics professor get paid more for doing research? Or does something fun like that come out of their own pay? Like do they have to finance it themselves?

Homework Statement Man travels down the highway in his car whistling middle C A policeman has a defective radar gun but passed a physics course. He hears the pitch change from D(294 Hz) immediately above middle C(262Hz) to A#(233Hz) immediately below middle C as the car passes. a) How fast...

Hi all, I need some opinions on my situation: - In my school, in general, 90% and above is considered an A+ and gets you a 4.3 GPA (highest) for that course. Professors have the right to alter the grading scheme. I currently obtained an A for a course which I suspected I would get an A+...

My Professor frequently uses the term higher dimensions. Could someone tell me exactly what is a dimension. I think of it as some parameter which can vary. Also, I only know of 4 dimensions: time, length, width and height. Could someone give me more examples of dimensions? And lastly could...

http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_t3#/video/us/2012/04/18/dnt-scientist-beats-traffic-ticket.xetv discuss? My speaker is not working so will see what others have to say.

I'm a 3rd year physics undergrad, currently taking a first compulsory course in statistical mechanics. The course follows R. Kubo's text of the same title along with additional lecture notes given in class(theory on ensembles and such). The highest level mathematics any of my classmates have...

How does "Professor Splash" work? So there is a daredevil named "Professor Splash" who is known for diving (belly flopping) from over 30 feet into a foot or less of water. You can find more information about him below: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor_Splash...

Wow: http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/03/20/1945707/unc-chapel-hill-physics-professor.html

Can someone explain me how one term got to the other term? It makes no sense to me

In calculus III, I recently took an exam. At the end of the test was a True/False question. I never know when to stop analyzing it. Because of my apprehension, I went to her office after the test and she told me that the answer was true; I marked false. I had nothing to go off of at the...

Hi all, I asked the professor I've been working with if he's willing to write a letter of recommendation for me (I'm applying to REU programs). He agreed and I've submitted two applications so far(one at my current university where I'd be working with him, and one at a different university). He...

I attached the problem. In the solutions my professor posted, he stated that acceleration is 0 in all directions. thus he can use the equation ar=r''-r*(θ')^2 to find r''=4.62. where ar is the the acceleration in the direction of the dotted line r. I don't understand how the acceleration...

I have wet dreams( not necessary wet) that I will be a math( or anything) professor at Harvard(or any of the top tier schools). I did some research, and look at the faculty of those top universities. Most of them are rather old. I look at when they got their PHDs, I discovery that in these top...

Hello, I am going to be a new adjunct math professor this semester at a community college, and I'm teaching precalculus (that's my only class). I am very new to teaching (I've never actually taught a class before although I've tutored in the past). I was just hoping to get some advice from...

Izabella Laba has an interesting article up about the rigors of being a professor: The state of the profession. I think it should be required reading for every graduate student thinking about an academic career path. The article is interesting in that it ponders the feasibility of...