A Small Comparison

If the inept Michael Gove knows bollocks-all about Physics, that isn't true of the rest of us. 

So I've been comparing the A-Level Physics that eldest is doing with the one I took in 1976.

The first thing to say is that the syllabus has changed quite a lot in the intervening 35 years (35 years - Gawd!).  A lot of more recent discoveries have been added, and there is good material on the Big Bang and stellar evolution, and on Nuclear Physics - including the quark composition of Hadrons, a brief smattering of Mesons, and a non-mathematical treatment of the Strong Nuclear Force.

Overall, tho', the course is still quite mathematical - and you still need to handle some simple calculus and understand exponentials and natral logarithms.

The treatment of simple harmonic motion is a little simplified, as are the gas laws and optics, but not to the point where it is significant.  On the other hand, I think the electronics section is developed, electromagnetism is virtually the same as I recall it and there is more on waves.

Overall, the syllabus is reasonably balanced, and challenging.  They have dropped on or two unecessary 18th & 19th Century items and added in stuff that is just as hard (particle bestiaries anyone?)  It hasn't been made easier, or dumbed down, from what I have seen.  I could imagine someone looking at just one part of the syllabus and saying something like 'they don't do those complicated lens formulae any more, it has got easier', but that would only look at one topic, not the balance overall. 

Overall, if anything, I would suggest it has got just a teensy bit harder.

But hey, who am I to comment, I just undertstand the subject a little....