Schedule:  Topics, Tests, etc.

Homework:  Assignments and Solutions.

Supplementary Texts:  Cuttnell & Johnson (2001), Physics (5th Edition), Wiley, and Fundamentals of Physics II: Laboratory Manual Department of Physics, UMCP, Wiley.

Course philosophy:

The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking. Albert Einstein, 1936

This course mainly concerns the physics of electricity and light. Of course, you already have a bit of experience with both, which is a good start. Mostly you know about phenomena; we'll be trying to understand how these phenomena come to be, the physical mechanisms that bring them about. For that, we'll start from other things you already know: It's standard practice in physics to try analogies to more tangible objects and phenomena as a way to get a handle on things that aren't so tangible. Over the years, for example, physicists have modeled electricity as a kind of fluid, using analogies to water flowing through pipes and stored in containers, or as a mix of two kinds of fluids, or as made up of tiny particles, or as other things as well--even gears. Some students find this hard to accept, the need to think in terms of analogies, because they want to talk about what electricity (or light) "really is." But "really is" really isn't an option in physics, and to make progress understanding electricity and light you'll need to learn to use analogies and analogical models. And that's much of what we'll be trying to teach.

1.  Lectures

You are required to attend. Lectures will involve your active participation, including responding to questions I pose, talking about your ideas with other students sitting nearby, along with posing questions of your own. Sometimes you'll respond in writing, on worksheets we'll hand out at the beginning of lecture; more often you'll use an electronic response device.

To say a bit more about that: At the beginning of the semester, we'll issue each student an electronic response device - a "clicker" for short, sort of like a TV remote control - that will let me pose questions and get answers from you during lectures. We'll lend you the device at no cost, but if you lose it or break it you'll have to pay for the replacement ($48).

I don't use clickers to take attendance, but they do have that effect. I don't see that as a problem, but I know some students do, and so I will consider making arrangements on an individual basis.

On my part, having required attendance, I take responsibility for making lectures worth your time. If you're finding they aren't, or if you have ideas for how they could be better, please consider it your responsibility to let me know. (No kidding: I need and appreciate that kind of feedback from students, and it's hard to get.)

2. Discussions and labs

You're also required to attend sections and lab. You'll have an hour of discussion and two hours of lab each week. If you're coming from Joe Redish's Physics 121, you're already familiar with this way of doing things; if not, read on.

During the discussion hour, you'll break up into groups of four to work through "tutorials" that will complement the homework in helping you find and work on the core ideas we're developing in the course. During the lab, you'll work with the same group to design (yes, design!) and conduct some experiment. This semester, we're going to introduce the use of spreadsheets for recording and analyzing data. We'll use Microsoft Excel, which is the most readily available (the campus has a site license).

We're designing the labs so that you can complete them, including the write-ups, during the allotted time, so there won't be take-home work on reports. Lab descriptions can be accessed through thislink.

3.  Homework

You are required to do the weekly problem sets, which I'll assign on the web (bookmark this address!), and your work must be legible and on time. Please give these assignments your sincere attention!

What I mean by "sincere" is that you use the homework to help you build an understanding of the physics.  To say a little more about that, the reason we work problems in a physics course is not generally because we care about the answers, any more than the reason someone swims laps at the pool is to get from one end to the other.  The reason we work problems in physics is because it helps us find and resolve gaps or inconsistencies in our understanding.  You'll only find those gaps if you're digging around in your own mind--I'll be asking problems to help you do that. We want you to be using the homework to build an understanding, and we'll assess it accordingly.  Answers alone, without explanation, will receive no credit.  (Of course, the explanation may well be expressed in mathematics.)  However, evidence of a sincere effort to refine your everyday thinking, even without an answer, will receive at least partial credit.

So... please don't make a habit of asking other people to solve problems for you.  That's like asking someone else to swim laps for you--once in a rare while it might make sense, but usually it results only in your watching someone else get some exercise.  For the most part, you should ask for--and expect from your TA and me--coaching and guidance to help you think things through for yourself.

To give you ample opportunity to receive guidance and to work with others on homework and studying, we have set up a course center in room 0208 which will be staffed by TA and 122 faculty. This room is a great place to establish a regular study group, which many students find crucial for this course. The homeworks we give are difficult and are best done with a group.

If you need help and cannot make it to any course center hour, or have other concerns or questions, you may also send e-mail to me or to your TA, at the addresses above.

Each week, the homework will be due at the start of class on Thursday. For each set of homeworks, one problem will be graded in detail (5 points) with lots of feedback given, and the others will be graded in less detail. These questions will be given a score of 0, 1, or 2 points depending on the amount of effort you have made to really make sense of the problem, regardless of how correct your solution is. I will not inform you ahead of time which problem will be graded completely. However, there will be problems based on lecture, and if the lecture at some point gets behind schedule, I will identify the relevant questions and inform you of their designation as 2 point questions. The same will apply to questions I may ask you for the sole purpose of having you think about a topic before it is discussed in lecture or tutorial.

Solutions will be posted on Friday by noon. Since we can only give detailed feedback about one problem per set, and because it is possible to get a very high homework score while still giving incorrect solutions for most problems, it is important for you to carefully go over your homework again with the solutions in hand. In this way you can continue to learn from your homework.

4.  Exams

There will be two midterm exams and one final.  I try to write exams so that memorization without understanding doesn't succeed.  So please expect problems that make you think, not problems that ask you to follow recipes.  Exams will have a mix of questions, with some more like the homework questions (requiring explanations) and some more like the clicker questions in lecture (multiple choice).  The best way to prepare for my exams is to keep up with the course, "refining your everyday thinking" all along the way, rather than cramming at the last minute. When you do study, it's much more effective to do a small number of problems thoroughly--solve each problem several different ways, vary the problem slightly and think about how that would affect the solution, etc--than it is to practice the same technique on lots of different problems.

For a few weeks early in the semester, starting in the second, I'll give "mini-quizzes" in lecture. They'll happen at the start of class on Thursdays, very short, will count for a little but not for much. The idea will be to give you feedback on study strategies.

Each midterm exam will be followed by a makeup exam the following week. If you miss a midterm, you must take the makeup. If you are unhappy with your performance on a midterm, you may take the makeup. If you take both the original and makeup exams, your score for that exam will be the average of the two (whether you do better or worse). There's no make-up for the final.