Welcome to the course!

How this all works

Over the next three weeks, we will be exploring three exciting areas of current physics research. We will be delving into fundamental physics, but also discovering how the ideas we encounter are being used to shape the world around us.

Each week there will be a mixture of videos, articles and activities, plus a short quiz for you to test your knowledge should you choose. There are also additional resources that you can use if you want to take your learning further.

We expect that each week of content will take around 4 hours to complete, but you can dip in and out, and work at your own pace. All three weeks of the course are already available to you, but we hope that you will follow along week by week so that we can share our journey through these cutting-edge topics.

Please note that active tutor facilitation is limited to the number of teaching weeks from when the course run started. Please do not therefore expect any further tutor engagement from beyond then, although you are very welcome to continue to work through the course materials in a self-directed fashion from that point.

Using FutureLearn

If this is your first FutureLearn course, you may find it useful to read the ‘how it works’ guide. We also recommend reading five tips and tools for social learning on FutureLearn to get the most out of the interactive and social learning features of this course.

When you have finished reading a section, please ‘Mark as complete’, and move onto the next step.

Discussions

Some of the ideas we explore will be tricky, and might occasionally seem elusive, but don’t worry, we are here to help! If you want some help understanding the ideas, or want to know more, please join the conversation in our discussion sections at the bottom of each step. We will be actively responding to your posts during the course run. The discussion is also a great place to interact with your fellow learners. When contributing, it’s important that you follow the FutureLearn code of conduct and are respectful of others.

If you have already begun to contribute, other learners may have replied to you. You can ‘like’ comments if you agree with what’s been said or if you have found something particularly interesting.

You can also click to filter the comments on a step to only see:

• comments by people you are following
• the most-liked comments
• your own comments

Engage on social media

Use the hashtag – #FLYorkPhysics – on social media to talk about the course and to find others who are talking about it too!

Let’s go!

It is time to start your journey into physics. We will start the course by meeting Dr. Kate Lancaster, a lecturer here at the University of York, and your guide through the next three weeks. You can mark this section as complete, and move on to discover a little more about what we will be learning together.