SOLE Survivor

I recently finished my last term lecturing our second-year Quantum Mechanics course, which I taught for five years. It’s a required class, a mathematical introduction to one of the most important set of ideas in all of physics, and really the basis for much of what we do, whether that’s astrophysics or particle physics or almost anything else. It’s a slightly “old-fashioned” course, although it covers the important basic ideas: the Schrödinger Equation, the postulates of quantum mechanics, angular momentum, and spin, leading almost up to what is needed to understand the crowning achievement of early quantum theory: the structure of the hydrogen atom (and other atoms).

A more modern approach might start with qubits: the simplest systems that show quantum mechanical behaviour, and the study of which has led to the revolution in quantum information and quantum computing.

Moreover, the lectures rely on the so-called Copenhagen interpretation, which is the confusing and sometimes contradictory way that most physicists are taught to think about the basic ontology of quantum mechanics: what it says about what the world is “made of” and what happens when you make a quantum-mechanical measurement of that world. Indeed, it’s so confusing and contradictory that you really need another rule so that you don’t complain when you start to think too deeply about it: “shut up and calculate“. A more modern approach might also discuss the many-worlds approach, and — my current favorite — the (of course) Bayesian ideas of QBism.

The students seemed pleased with the course as it is — at the end of the term, they have the chance to give us some feedback through our “Student On-Line Evaluation” system, and my marks have been pretty consistent. Of the 200 or so students in the class, only about 90 bother to give their evaluations, which is disappointingly few. But it’s enough (I hope) to get a feeling for what they thought.

So, most students Definitely/Mostly Agree with the good things, although it’s clear that our students are most disappointed in the feedback that they receive from us (this is a more general issue for us in
Physics at Imperial and more generally, and which may partially explain why most of them are unwilling to feed back to us through this form).

But much more fun and occasionally revealing are the “free-text comments”. Given the numerical scores, it’s not too surprising that there were plenty of positive ones:

Excellent lecturer – was enthusiastic and made you want to listen and learn well. Explained theory very well and clearly and showed he responded to suggestions on how to improve.

Possibly the best lecturer of this term.

Thanks for providing me with the knowledge and top level banter.

One of my favourite lecturers so far, Jaffe was entertaining and cleary very knowledgeable. He was always open to answering questions, no matter how simple they may be, and gave plenty of opportunity for students to ask them during lectures. I found this highly beneficial. His lecturing style incorporates well the blackboards, projectors and speach and he finds a nice balance between them. He can be a little erratic sometimes, which can cause confusion (e.g. suddenly remembering that he forgot to write something on the board while talking about something else completely and not really explaining what he wrote to correct it), but this is only a minor fix. Overall VERY HAPPY with this lecturer!

But some were more mixed:

One of the best, and funniest, lecturers I’ve had. However, there are some important conclusions which are non-intuitively derived from the mathematics, which would be made clearer if they were stated explicitly, e.g. by writing them on the board.

I felt this was the first time I really got a strong qualitative grasp of quantum mechanics, which I certainly owe to Prof Jaffe’s awesome lectures. Sadly I can’t quite say the same about my theoretical grasp; I felt the final third of the course less accessible, particularly when tackling angular momentum. At times, I struggled to contextualise the maths on the board, especially when using new techniques or notation. I mostly managed to follow Prof Jaffe’s derivations and explanations, but struggled to understand the greater meaning. This could be improved on next year. Apart from that, I really enjoyed going to the lectures and thought Prof Jaffe did a great job!

The course was inevitably very difficult to follow.

And several students explicitly commented on my attempts to get students to ask questions in as public a way as possible, so that everyone can benefit from the answers and — this really is true! — because there really are no embarrassing questions!

Really good at explaining and very engaging. Can seem a little abrasive at times. People don’t like asking questions in lectures, and not really liking people to ask questions in private afterwards, it ultimately means that no questions really get answered. Also, not answering questions by email makes sense, but no one really uses the blackboard form, so again no one really gets any questions answered. Though the rationale behind not answering email questions makes sense, it does seem a little unnecessarily difficult.

We are told not to ask questions privately so that everyone can learn from our doubts/misunderstandings, but I, amongst many people, don’t have the confidence to ask a question in front of 250 people during a lecture.

Forcing people to ask questions in lectures or publically on a message board is inappropriate. I understand it makes less work for you, but many students do not have the confidence to ask so openly, you are discouraging them from clarifying their understanding.

Inevitably, some of the comments were contradictory:

Would have been helpful to go through examples in lectures rather than going over the long-winded maths to derive equations/relationships that are already in the notes.

Professor Jaffe is very good at explaining the material. I really enjoyed his lectures. It was good that the important mathematics was covered in the lectures, with the bulk of the algebra that did not contribute to understanding being left to the handouts. This ensured we did not get bogged down in unnecessary mathematics and that there was more emphasis on the physics. I liked how Professor Jaffe would sometimes guide us through the important physics behind the mathematics. That made sure I did not get lost in the maths. A great lecture course!

And also inevitably, some students wanted to know more about the exam:

It is a difficult module, however well covered. The large amount of content (between lecture notes and handouts) is useful. Could you please identify what is examinable though as it is currently unclear and I would like to focus my time appropriately?

And one comment was particularly worrying (along with my seeming “a little abrasive at times”, above):

The lecturer was really good in lectures. however, during office hours he was a bit arrogant and did not approach the student nicely, in contrast to the behaviour of all the other professors I have spoken to

If any of the students are reading this, and are willing to comment further on this, I’d love to know more — I definitely don’t want to seem (or be!) arrogant or abrasive.

But I’m happy to see that most students don’t seem to think so, and even happier to have learned that I’ve been nominated “multiple times” for Imperial’s Student Academic Choice Awards!

Finally, best of luck to my colleague Jonathan Pritchard, who will be taking over teaching the course next year.