YEN-JIE LEE: I have been teaching
8.03 for more than three years already.
So I was given a charge to change the course
to make it even better than what was actually done previously
in previous years.
And we actually made a lot of adjustment
during this few years with many other professors
in the physics department.
So what we actually did is to change the textbook.
The textbook is actually now much more theoretical-oriented
so that we benefit from that for the preparation
for the other courses, like 8.04, which is actually
the quantum physics and also the other courses which are related
to waves and vibration.
The benefit is the following.
So the students who are equipped with more mathematics
background will also finding it much more interesting compared
to previous years because in the previous years,
we are mainly focusing on very practical, problem-solving.
Introducing a more theoretical-orientated content,
that can help us to systematically understand
single oscillator, coupled oscillator,
infinite number of coupled oscillator
to where continuous and infinitely coupled
system in the very, very well-defined
theoretical framework.
And finally, I think what we really
did is to introduce a lot of demos, much more demos,
actually, than previous years so that it goes with the lecture
so that people can actually look at those demos
and compare to our theoretical calculations.
And I think that is actually evolving as a function of time,
and we were adding or subtracting
the demos, which we think is more useful or less
useful during the semester.
And that is actually what you see now in the 2016 version.