Current instructor
Original student reviews · all captured dates
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.Rate My Professors ↗
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.Rate My Professors ↗
Nice guy. Funny jokes. Lectures do get boring however as he only teaches the bare basics of topics while the homeworks are much harder.Rate My Professors ↗
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.Rate My Professors ↗
He is very nice. I enjoy his lectures, and he is super kind and respectfulRate My Professors ↗
Labs are tedious. Lectures are boring. He goes over stuff like students have known everything and skips slides for no reason.Rate My Professors ↗
Personal experiences, not a representative survey. Profile matching and captured coverage are shown in the source details.
ASTRON 681 is an individual study course for seniors to complete honors theses in the Astronomy major under faculty supervision.
Offering recorded · Fall 2026
No recorded grade history
A calculus-based physics course for engineers covering electricity, magnetism, light, and sound.
Offering recorded · Fall 2026
Peter Timbie attempts to make physics entertaining and interesting, though reviews disagree on his explanatory effectiveness. Some students find his lectures supplementary and demand heavy textbook reading, while others feel he fails to cover material adequately. Exams are consistently described as difficult or tricky, but grading is often reported as generous with curves.
historical GPA · grades
Spring 2022–Spring 2026PHYSICS 990 is a research course where students conduct supervised research projects with individual faculty members.
Offering recorded · Fall 2026
No recorded grade history
| Term | Course | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Fall 2026 | ASTRON 681 | Senior Honors Thesis |
| Fall 2026 | PHYSICS 202 | General Physics |
| Fall 2026 | PHYSICS 990 | Research |
Teaching history may be incomplete. Course pages contain course-specific feedback and citations.
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