Physics Notes and 5 APs

I know, I know, I’m not supposed to post something every day…

But yes, physics notes are popping up here. They are slightly different from how the math notes are structured, and gives more instructions on the material. They might not be able to teach a person completely new to calculus-based physics per se, but they should be more detailed than what I have done with the calculus notes. But since we are here, we might as well as talk a little bit about my experience in those courses.

11th Grade Me

In my third year of high school, I decided to take 4 Advanced Placement courses and 5 AP exams, which included Calculus BC, both Physics Cs, Biology, and Computer Science A. It was a particularly stressful year, since I had not had such a heavy courseload since I left Hong Kong after grade 8. I breezed through Computer Science while struggling immensely in Biology.

Calculus was quite the quick-paced course, but mathematics, being my strongest subject since grade 3, presented no massive challenges for me. I would almost always work ahead in class, going through the practice problems while the class was still learning the material. By the end of the course, my mock exams were a solid 90/108, and I rightfully earned my 5.

Naturally, the year after that, my peers would often come to me for help when they encountered problems in calculus (looking at you, Jessie). After learning it once, and teaching half the syllabus, I decided to make a really condensed set of notes, only highlighting the important concepts with as little explanation as possible, instead supplying the document with mathematical derivations.

Physics, on the other hand, is a completely different beast. Although the Mechanics part reviewed many familiar concepts, my lack of training in calulus at that time largely hindered my learning; later in the year, the Electromagnetism part had me completely baffled most of the time. I scraped by barely, yet I still enjoyed the two 5s that were awarded to me by CollegeBoard.

Knowing my goal is to get into an Honours Mathematics and Physics program next year, I had to review and relearn the material. As a result, my set of notes for physics is relatively lengthier in explanation, as I barely understood it the first time through.

If you are taking any of these APs, I wish you the best of luck, especially you, Marcus, and I hope my notes helped you at any point along the way.

Math Resources and an Update

As the title suggests, this post will mainly be about two things: some math resources and an update about the website’s status.

Mathematics

Over the summer, I’ve prepared myself for university and did some revision with my AP Calculus and Physics C notes. As a result, I have a set of condensed notes that doesn’t teach, but rather remind you of those subjects. The calculus notes that I am posting today are available, in two separate documents, for both the AB curriculum and the BC curriculum. They can also be accessed through the resources page, which should also appear on the sidebar.

Update on the site

Speaking of the resources page, if you happen to visit the site yesterday, you might realize it is still mostly populated by filler text and demo pages. By the end of today, the site should hopefully have:

1. A brand new resources page, complete with:
   • AP Calculus AB and BC notes,
   • A header to indicate my imminent physics notes, and
   • Potentially enough space to accomodate my music files, if they do appear;
2. An updated about page with a short biography;
3. A rose colour to replace the teal; and
4. A small fix to my LinkedIn hyperlink, so it actually works.

To-do list

Even with these updates, the website is not complete. In the near future, I would like to:

1. Make a more detailed about page;
2. Upload to resources
   • my physics notes,
   • my music recordings over the summer, and
   • my earlier compositions;
3. (Potentially) a redesigned landing page that looks less cluttered;
4. (Potentially) more links to my Instagram, Youtube, and Twitter; and
5. (Hopefully) a new redesigned icon based on the dome that is on the sidebar.

Okay, now back to work. Lemme actually push those updates out.

Welcome

After a few days of work, the site is finally up and running. I guess I should write something celebratory, or at least to commemorate the occasion. Congratulations to myself for getting a website done without writing a single piece of code myself. Yay.

Well then, you might ask, how exactly did you get this website up and running without writing any of the code yourself? The answer is simple:

• The basics of hosting a site was handled nicely by GitHub Pages;
• The theme and layout was taken from poole/lanyon, a GitHub repository; and
• All the troubleshooting was done by referencing other sites that have used Lanyon before me, incorporating their code into my build.

Being a first-year university student has certainly limited the amount of time I can spend on projects like these, and at the time of writing, I am tired and sleepy. I will keep this short, and after the courtesy “thank you”s, I will head to bed. Good night.

Acknowledgements

This site cannot be built without the help of:

• UBC, who nicely provided a free domain for us students;
• GitHub and their users, who provided much of the guidance;
• Jocelyn Baker, who notified me of such an opportunity; and
• You, my reader, reading through all this nonsense that I cooked up in 15 minutes.

I promise I will bring better material tomorrow, but as of now, Cadenze, signing off.