Notes for the maths course

How these notes came to be

For every topic covered, I first study the official course notes and make some handwritten notes based on that. After that I'll do the problem sheets and a few tripos questions. Now that I have a feel for the topic and more importantly, what sort of difficulty the tripos questions are set at, I go straight to Riley Hobson Bence and read the relevant sections, while making brief notes for that too. RHB is immensely helpful and I found it just as, if not more, important that the official course material. Finally, at the end of every term, I'll pick out the bare bones of the course and make a set of notes concluding that term. As I spend the term break preparing for the exam, these notes continuously evolve with each amendment. Thus these notes here are highly tailored to the tripos examination, and lays out everything one needs to know, with no fluff.

Second year courses (NSTIB)

Mathematical Methods I,II,III

By far the best courses. Clear and concise notes, interesting topics, suitably challenging problem sheets. II has the best lecture notes, lecture notes of I and III was a bit tedious to read.

Experimental Methods

Absolute disaster.

Oscillations, Waves and Optics

Decent course and good lecture notes. The supposedly detailed booklet for reference does not contain some stuff from the supposedly concise, "all you need to know" notes.

Quantum Mechanics

I liked the blackboard lectures.

Condensed Matter

A lot to digest in not so abundant time.

Electromagnetism

Notes were thick and the concepts were hard to grasp. Felt like it would be a rewarding topic to learn thoroughly if only time allowed. Mathematical details were glossed over a lot. Problem sheets were instructive.

Classical Dynamics

A lot of mathematics should be involved but weren't. Seems like they wanted us to take the maths for granted and to introduce us to different areas of classical dynamics. A bit all over the place, though the topics are interesting.

Thermodynamics

Appreciate the philosophical discourse, but I have an exam. Too much fluff in the notes.