Physics 121 – General Physics

Spring term 2001, University of Rochester

Information, Syllabus, and Schedule

P121 is a physics survey course designed for physics and engineering majors. The topics of vectors, linear and multi-dimensional motion, work, energy, gravitation, simple harmonic motion, conservation of momentum and energy, constant acceleration motion, rotational motion, thermodynamics, and waves, will be covered at an introductory university level with some introduction to mathematical techniques used in more advanced courses. Students are assumed to have some knowledge of calculus, though the techniques will be reviewed as they are used. No previous physics instruction is assumed.

Course instructor:

Prof. Steven Manly e-mail: manly@pas.rochester.edu

Phone: 275-8473

Office: B+L 203E

Office hours – I will try to be around T 1-3 and W 9:30-11:30. Sometimes I can't make these hours due to travel. I'm often around. Drop by if you want to speak with me. If I can drop what I'm doing, I'll be happy to chat. If you want something more definite at a time other than the ones listed, email for an appointment.

Course web site:

Extensive use will be made of the web for distributing course materials, making announcements, etc. The class URL is http://hertz.pas.rochester.edu/class/P121_2001/ If you have problems reaching this site (and you've verified it is not your problem), please contact me.

Course e-mail:

I will set up a course e-mail distribution list. Time-critical announcements, grades, hints for problem sets, corrections for problem sets, etc. will be sent to you via e-mail. Make sure you are on the distribution list! I will send out email to the class as a test during the first week of class. Let me know if you don't get it.

Lectures:

Hoyt Hall, Tuesday-Thursday, 9:40-10:55

Textbook:

q Douglas Giancoli, Physics for Scientists and Engineers, Volume 1, 3rd edition (2000), Prentice-Hall.

Workshops:

An integral part of this course will be "physics workshop". You will meet once a week, for two hours, with a group of up to nine other students and a leader. During this time, you will work on a "workshop module" that I prepare. The module will contain simple questions, conceptual exercises, and quantitative problems relevant to the material covered the week before in class. Much of this will be review and practice. Some of it will be new and relevant material.

The basic idea of the workshop concept is to institutionalize the study group with some leadership and supervision from the professor. The students in the workshop are expected to work through the module. The workshop leader will act as a facilitator, not a lecturer … and not an answer-giver. I KNOW my workshop leaders can do the problems. Our job is to help you find it within yourself to do them! To a large extent, it is up to YOU to make your workshop section work.

No attempt will be made to sort out students in the workshop sections according to mathematical ability, gender, date of birth, tattoo color, pierced appendage, etc. Students who are rather challenged by this course will find the support available in workshop very helpful. Those of you who find this material easier may be surprised to hear that research on workshops tells us that you will benefit even more. It turns out you learn a great deal when you try to teach something. I urge you all, regardless of capability, to participate in, and enjoy, the workshops.

We will sort out the workshop times and assignments during the week of January 22. Workshops begin the week of January 29.

Workshop leaders:

Ø Drew Abrams, dabrams@pas.rochester.edu

Ø Candice Bacon, candice@astro.pas.rochester.edu

Ø Dave Baranson, db003h@mail.rochester.edu

Ø Christopher Haimberger, haimberc@pas.rochester.edu

Ø Susan Hammontree, sh006g@mail.rochester.edu

Ø Dan Quinn, dq001i@mail.rochester.edu

Laboratory:

The laboratory must be passed in order to pass this course. You must do (and hand in) all the labs get a grade for this course. The laboratory grade will be averaged in as 14% of the lecture grade. All questions regarding the laboratory should be sent to the laboratory e-mail address (physlabs@pas.rochester.edu) or addressed to Professor Bigelow. The e-mail address is appropriate for the majority of your questions. We will be in touch about how to sign up for laboratories soon. Labs begin the week of February 5.

Problem sets:

I will ask you to do a set of problems each week that illustrate and/or enhance what we've discussed in the lecture. P121 is a quantitative, problem-driven course. I will work mostly on concepts in lecture … but the exams will consist of quantitative problems. It is absolutely critical to your survival in this course that you work on these problems each week! For the vast majority of the class, it is not possible to do well in the course without struggling with most of the homework problems throughout the semester.

A week after each problem set is assigned, I will release a solution set. Your job is to study these solutions, understand your mistakes, and correct any misperceptions or holes in your understanding. You are encouraged to discuss the problems with others. However, I urge you to struggle with each problem on your own first. After all, you will not be allowed to discuss the problems on the exam until after you have turned it in!

Your solutions to the assigned problems will not be graded. However, you will seriously reduce your chances of a high grade in this course (and some of you will be dead meat in this course) if you do not do them regularly (in a quiet setting where you can concentrate)! Consistent hard work on the problem sets will pay off through higher exam grades. Also, please work to keep up with the course. Physics does not cram easily. Many concepts/techniques need time to jell.

I will ask the workshop leaders to keep track of workshop attendance and to evaluate whether or not you made a valid attempt at the problem set for the week. This will be one of my gauges as to the level of effort you put into the course. This will be taken into account during the final letter grade assignment and will be the deciding factor for hairline grades.

Grades:

q There will be three "term" exams during the course of the semester and one final exam at the end. You are allowed to drop one "term" exam or 1/2 the final exam (that is to say, reduce the weight of the final exam grade by a factor of two in the final grade calculation) or the project. Those term exams kept are worth 17% of your grade and the final is worth 34% unless you "drop" it, in which case it is worth 17%. You must take the final exam to pass the course.

q Your laboratory grade counts for 18% of your final course grade.

q You will not receive a grade in the course until you have completed the required laboratory work.

q In the event you miss an exam, that one will count as your drop grade. Don't miss two.

q Your grade will be calculated via one of the following formulas (total of 5), taking the one that yields the highest numerical average:

2 term exams*(17% each) + 1 final*(34%) + 1 lab grade*(18%) + 1 project*(14%)

3 term exams*(17% each) + 1 final*(17%) + 1 lab grade*(18%) + 1 project*(14%)

[3 term exams*(17% each) + 1 final*(34%) + 1 lab grade*(18%) ] *(103/100)

q Your initial relative position on the grading curve depends solely on the numerical grade as calculated above. Professor Manly will then assign letter grades to the numerical scale. There is no fixed curve to be assigned … no grade quotas. If you all do "A" work in my eyes, you ALL get A's and I get to deal with the dean and the chairman of the department … but so be it. It's a problem I would love to have!

q If you are very close to (but below) a grade boundary … and many of you will be … I will give you the higher grade near the boundary if you have put in effort in the class and the lower grade if you have not. Three things will go into this evaluation: 1) attendance of workshops, 2) effort on problem sets, as determined by workshop leaders, and 3) my own evaluation of your efforts as determined by my interactions with you outside of class and your class participation, to the extent I can put names with the faces. Components 1) and 2) of this evaluation are determined by the number of "checkmarks" you earn in the workshops. You get one checkmark for each workshop you attend and an additional checkmark if the workshop leader determines that you are reasonably prepared and have made significant effort on the appropriate problem set. Note: that does not mean you know all the answers! This generally degenerates into an evaluation of whether or not you really participate in the workshop.

q If you are at the bottom of the curve, it does not necessarily mean you are failing the course. It means I have to look very carefully at your scores and effort. If you are living on bits of partial credit and are putting in little visible effort, then you may not pass the course. If you are making more mistakes than you should, but are putting in effort and show that you are learning something by taking a pretty good crack at a number of problems through the semester, then you will pass … not in any danger of an A, but you may get through with a C.

What to expect from my exams:

Plug-and-chuggers beware! I rarely give a problem on an exam that is exactly like something you've seen. I will give some problems that are very similar to what you have seen in order to check for basic brain activity. However, I am much more interested in testing your understanding of the concepts/techniques and your ability to use them when facing uncharted territory. Often my exam problems are almost trivial if you understand the concepts and quite difficult if you don't. Typically, they are not hard technically (I'm not testing your ability to do math). We do give substantial partial credit for good attempts. Often the mean on my exams is around 65/100. If the class and the exam are "normal", the mean is roughly a high B. In the past, some students have found the low numerical means somewhat frustrating. Be aware that you'll benefit from working to understand the concepts behind the problems. If you spend time plugging numbers into whatever equation seems to work without putting much thought as to why that is the correct equation … well, you won't enjoy the exams very much.

Where's the prof?:

I expect to travel fairly frequently this semester for my research. You are my priority. I will do all I can to schedule my travel so that it has a minimal impact on P121. However, I won't be able to completely avoid it. Class will go on. I'll do my best to arrange a decent guest lecturer. In general, I'll make sure that the lecture fits right in with what we are doing. I will usually be in e-mail contact when out of town … though I may not have all my records, solution sets, etc. My apologies in advance.

Presentation or poster:

A fraction of your grade (14%) will come from a verbal or poster presentation to the class about something in the real world that is relevant/interesting to you and can be understood or made to work using the principles of mechanics. You aren't on your own in this task! These will be a group effort (organized around workshop sections by default) … a fun way to get to know one another and share the joys of physics ;-) More on this later in the semester …

Schedule and syllabus:

This course schedule is approximate. The exam dates are fixed.

Lecture	Date	Topic	Chapter in text
1	Th 1/18	Organizational crap, units, vectors	1
2	T 1/23	Straight line motion, const accel	2
3	Th 1/25	Motion with const. accel., vectors	2,3
Lab lecture	F 1/26	Laboratory: Intro to Statistics 2:00 to 3:15 (location TBA)	Lab manual
4	T 1/30	Multidimensional motion, vectors	3
5	Th 2/1	Projectile and circular motion	3
6	T 2/6	Newton's Laws	4
Exam I	Th 2/8	0800-0930, location TBA	-
7	Th 2/8	More on Newton's Laws	4,5
8	T 2/13	A little more on Newton's laws	4,5
9	Th 2/15	Work, energy, vector scalar product	6,7,8
10	T 2/20	Gravitation	6,7,8
11	Th 2/22	Potential energy, energy conservation	6,7,8
12	T 2/27	Collisions, momentum	9
13	Th 3/1	Center of mass	9
14	T 3/13	Rotational motion	10, 11
Exam II	Th 3/15	0940-1055, Hoyt	-
15	T 3/20	Rotational motion	10,11
16	Th 3/22	Angular momentum, cross product	10, 11
17	T 3/27	Angular momentum	10, 11
18	Th 3/29	Equilibrium (regular time, Hoyt)	12
19	T 4/3	Fluid mechanics	13
20	Th 4/5	Simple harmonic motion	14
21	T 4/10	Waves	15
Exam III	Th 4/12	0800-0930, location TBA	-
22	Th 4/12	Waves, sound	15,16
23	T 4/17	Music	15,16
24	Th 4/19	Thermodynamics	17
Posters	Sat. 4/21	Project poster session, time/loc TBA	-
25	T 4/24	Thermodynamics/presentations	18
26	Th 4/26	Thermodynamics/presentations	19
27	T 5/1	Thermodynamics/presentations	20
Final Ex.	Th 5/10	1600-1900, location TBA	-