University of Maryland

Department of Physics

 

Spring 2012              Prof. Carter Hall          Physics 273/273H

 

Title: PHYS 273/273H Introductory Physics: Waves. Oscillations and AC circuits using complex variables, Fourier series and integrals, waves on strings, sound; electromagnetic waves from Maxwell's equations in differential form; physical optics.


Prerequisites: PHYS272, and MATH241.

 

Corequisite: MATH246 or MATH414.

 

Instructor: Prof. Carter Hall, Room 4211B, Phone: 5-6103, e-mail: crhall@umd.edu.

 

Office Hours: I will not hold scheduled office hours, but you are free to drop by my office at any time. To make sure that I'll be there when you come by, you can schedule an appointment with me, either in person or via email.

 

Schedule:

Three meetings weekly:  T,H....... 9:30 am - 10:45 am  (PHYS 1201)  

                                           F...........9:00 am - 9:50 am (CHEM 0115)

 

Required Texts: Vibrations and Waves, A.P. French, ISBN 0-393-09936-9.

(and possibly  Introduction to Wave Phenomena, A. Hirose and K. Lonngren, ISBN 1-57524-231-1.)

 

Website: http://www.physics.umd.edu/courses/Phys273/Hall-Spring-2012/

 

Homework:

The homework assignment will be posted on the course website each Thursday. It is the student's responsibility to check the website for the assignment each week.  Homework will be collected at the beginning of class each Tuesday (except for exam weeks.) The homework problems will be graded on a scale from zero to three: three points if completely correct, two points if mostly correct, one point if mostly incorrect, zero points for entirely incorrect or no answer. No make-up homework will be accepted, but the lowest two homework grades will be dropped when your final grade is calculated.

 

Lecture: Class time will be spent on a mixture of lecture material, lecture demonstrations, and conceptual questions for group discussion.

 

Exams: We will have two in-class exam plus a final exam. The final exam will take place on Monday May 14, from 8:00 am to 10:00 pm in PHYS 1201.

 

Honors Section: Honors students will also complete an honors project, to be approved by the instructor. Honors students will meet with the each other and the instructor once a month to discuss the status of their projects. Each student will prepare a presentation based on their project to be given to the other honors students at the end of the semester.  There may also be additional homework questions for students enrolled in 273H.

 

Grading:

Phys273:

Two in-class exams

 

40%

Final Exam

 

30%

Homework

 

30%

 

Phys273H

Two in-class exams

 

30%

Final Exam

 

25%

Homework

 

25%

Honors project

 

20%