User:Augustus
From Wikiversity
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[edit] About
Phd Student in Theoretical and Computational Astrophysics, specifically along the lines of Cosmology. Of great interest to me is the early Universe such as understanding the Big Bang and Inflation, and then how this leads to large scale structure.
I also have a keen interest in both Empiricist and Existentialist philosophy, exploring where the two meet is of great interest to me.
UK resident.
[edit] Wikiversity Department
[edit] Cautionary note about Wikiversity
Wikiversity prides itself on being 'open' and 'free': anyone can edit it. This is both helpful and problematic. Helpful because it allows many people to contribute at once hence lessening the load on a particular individual. Problem because it allows people whom are not educated enough to edit the information, which is a bigger problem for empirical sciences (eg Physics). Small mistakes in the mathetmatics of a problem can lead to a false interpretation of the underlying physics. Hence, checking for errors and eliminating them is crucial for students to make progress with their learning.
Forming a consensus on what information is necessary and then how to display said information is also a problem for people that are geographically separated. Hence I believe that this project will be very slow to get off the ground as people disagree and over-edit each other. Something that can be avoided with real universities; however, real universities are inherently bureaucratic. Wikiversity should hopefully avoid most pitfalls of bureaucracy since it is far more free-form.
[edit] Cautionary note about Physics on Wikiversity
A Physics course at university level requires a lot of reading and doing in order to understand it. At undergraduate level, most of the information is 'spoon-fed'. This is (generally) not the fault of the university but is due to the nature of modern Physics requiring vast amounts of very specialized knowledge. A typical year in undergraduate physics may consist of between 8 and 10 lecture courses, each of which being around 20 hours worth of teaching. A typical undergraduate student can expect to receive in excess of 250 hours worth of teaching in one year. In addition to the previous there might be homework, tutorials, labs and research projects (in later years). Hence, it is a mammoth task to organize a physics department in the first place without even creating lecture material. Furthermore, aiming for 20 hours worth of material in a lecture is not sufficient. It must be 20 hours of high quality information. I'm sceptical but optimistic.
