Current instructor

Peter Timbie

Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 2.71/5 from 73 quality ratings. The adjusted rating blends this with the UW review average (3.66/5), weighted as 20 additional ratings. Smaller samples stay closer to that average. Each captured review is counted once in the prior; this does not correct who chooses to leave a review.

RMP profile ↗ · All captured review dates; profile matched by name.

What students say

Original student reviews · all captured dates

PHYS104 · course not matched
Quality 2/5Difficulty 4/5
Peter Timbie is an okay professor but honestly the entire structure of the course sucks. You basically have to teach yourself everything before lecture and only do examples in lecture. Even though Timbie is ok, it's offset by the other 2 professors because all 3 taught 104 together and switched off each week. Highly recommend going to TAs for help.
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PHYS104 · course not matched
Quality 5/5Difficulty 4/5
He is the best physics professor at UW-Madison (which is not a hard challenge). He is great at explaining concepts and he seems like an amazing grandpa type.
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PHY321 · course not matched
Quality 5/5Difficulty 3/5
Nice guy. Funny jokes. Lectures do get boring however as he only teaches the bare basics of topics while the homeworks are much harder.
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PHYSICS 321
Quality 2/5Difficulty 4/5
Dr. Timbie obviously cares about his students, but he is an extremely poor lecturer. He tends to be disorganized, and his handwriting was literally unreadable. I don't feel that I learned much from Dr. Timbie, and I mostly had to figure things out from the (also poor) textbook.
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PHY207 · course not matched
Quality 5/5Difficulty 3/5
He is very nice. I enjoy his lectures, and he is super kind and respectful
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PHY207 · course not matched
Quality 2/5Difficulty 3/5
Labs are tedious. Lectures are boring. He goes over stuff like students have known everything and skips slides for no reason.
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Personal experiences, not a representative survey. Profile matching and captured coverage are shown in the source details.

Classes with Peter Timbie

PHYSICS 202

General Physics

5 credits

Calculus-based General Physics for engineering students covering electricity, magnetism, light, and sound.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

Past student reviews · Peter Timbie

Peter Timbie taught PHYSICS 202 in an entertaining style, though students noted he expected independent textbook study and sometimes failed to cover all material in lecture. Exams were described as difficult, tricky, or tough.

Josh WeberPeter Timbie

historical GPA · grades

Fall 2022–Spring 2026
PHYSICS 692

Senior Thesis

2–3 credits

Senior Thesis in Physics involves mentored individual research and study for students completing a thesis.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2022: 4.00 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=1 letter grades).

Pupa GilbertKeith Bechtol+43 more

No recorded grade history

PHYSICS 990

Research

1–12 credits

Research supervised by individual faculty members. Students formulate and plan original research, creating work that contributes to the field of physics.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

Pupa GilbertIrena Knezevic+78 more

No recorded grade history

Recorded teaching history

Distinct courses recorded per term

Explore courses taught by this instructor →
Browse recorded courses
TermCourseTitle
Spring 2027ASTRON 682Senior Honors Thesis
Spring 2027ASTRON 692Senior Thesis
Spring 2027PHYSICS 199Directed Study
Spring 2027PHYSICS 202General Physics
Spring 2027PHYSICS 299Directed Study
Spring 2027PHYSICS 498Directed Study
Spring 2027PHYSICS 499Directed Study
Spring 2027PHYSICS 681Senior Honors Thesis
Spring 2027PHYSICS 682Senior Honors Thesis
Spring 2027PHYSICS 691Senior Thesis
Spring 2027PHYSICS 692Senior Thesis
Spring 2027PHYSICS 990Research
Fall 2026ASTRON 681Senior Honors Thesis
Fall 2026PHYSICS 202General Physics
Fall 2026PHYSICS 990Research

Teaching history may be incomplete. Course pages contain course-specific feedback and citations.

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