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Physics 122: Fundamentals of Physics II
Spring 2005
Sections 0201-0206
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General
Course Information
| Instructor: |
Admin
Asst: |
| Donald N. Langenberg |
Stephanie Noel |
| Rm. 4211 Toll Physics Building |
Rm. 4211 Toll Physics Building |
| 301-405-9983 |
301-405-6052 |
| dnl@usmd.edu |
sjnoel@umd.edu |
Teaching Assistants:
| TA Name |
Section |
Room |
Phone |
Email |
| Brian Christy |
0202 |
4223 |
X56192 |
bchristy@umd.edu |
| Ardeshir (Payman) Eftekharzadeh |
0203
0204
|
4210 |
X56191 |
eftekhar@wam.umd.edu |
| Chris Eling |
0205 |
4205 |
X56028 |
cteling@physics.umd.edu |
| Joe Harris |
0201 |
4223 |
X561982 |
joeharri@physics.umd.edu |
Lectures:
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:30-1:45, Rm. 1410, Toll Physics Building
Prerequisites:
Successful completion of Physics 121 or equivalent course, and a good understanding
of algebra and trigonometry (at the level of Math 151).
Books: You are required to have the Physics
122 Tutorial and Laboratory Manual, Spring 2005 Edition, published by the Department of Physics.
You may
find College Physics, by Serway
& Faughn, 6th Edition, Thompson -Brooks Cole Publishers, helpful as a
reference and as a source of practice problems.
This book is available in two forms:
two volumes (I and II), and both volumes bound together. You may already have Volume I from Physics
121. In Physics 122 we will be covering
subjects from both volumes.
We will
not be using this book as the course text in the conventional manner. We will not be assigning specific sections
of it for study, nor will we routinely be using problems from it for homework
assignments. Nevertheless, study time
spent with this book will not be wasted.
Remote Answering Device:
You are required to have in lecture – and to use -- a remote answering
device (RAD), colloquially known as a “clicker.”
Its purpose is to make the “lecture” sessions an interactive learning
environment for all students. You will need to register your clicker (or
re-register it if you used it in Physics 121) in order to get onto the database
for Physics 122. There’s a registration
link on the Physics Department home page at www.physics.umd.edu/
What’s This Course
About?
There are two different but equally important answers to
that question.
The first is that, like Physics 121, this course is intended
to help you learn how to think about and to understand fundamental physical
phenomena in the universe you inhabit, and to apply your knowledge to circumstances
you will undoubtedly encounter in your careers. Its design is quite unconventional, and is based on several decades
of research on how humans learn things generally, and learn physics in particular.
You will find it rather unlike most science courses you have taken.
We’re less concerned about the answers you give to questions about
the natural world than we are with how you go about creating good questions
worth answering.
You will find on the class Web site a set of notes titled
How to Learn. It is recommended that you read these, perhaps even study them.
You won’t be tested on them, but your success in Physics 122 may well
depend substantially on how you respond to the advice these notes contain.
As you go along, keep in mind Albert Einstein’s assertion
(1936): “The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.”
Many students in this course or its predecessor express discomfort
about its style and structure. In
one way or another, they indicate that their primary concern is just learning
what they have to know to get a good grade, to do well on the MCAT or equivalent
exam, and to gain admission to their desired post-baccalaureate professional
school. Questions and uncertainty
bother them. They just want the right
answers. Take our word for it. In life, as in physics, questions and uncertainty
rule. The right answers are hard to
come by, where they exist, and in the long run knowing how to figure out the
right questions to ask is better than knowing the right answers.
The second answer is more prosaic. It’s about what we are going to study in Physics 122. Here’s a partial list:
Things that
oscillate; masses on springs, pendula, etc.
How pulses
propagate as waves (think “tsunamis”)
Electric
charge and how it behaves. (Did Ben
Franklin get it right?)
What’s a
field? And, is there anything else
in the universe?
Simple electrical
circuits or, how to fix your reading lamp without killing yourself.
Magnets. The Earth, refrigerator magnets, and where
your electricity comes from.
Now Back to Practical Matters:
Following is a tentative
calendar of major events during the semester:
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Week Beginning
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Lecture
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Tutorial
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Laboratory
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01/27/05
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Survey and
Introduction
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None
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None
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01/31/05
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Things that
Oscillate
ILD 8
Homework (HW)
1
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T1 Harmonic
Oscillation
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L0 Excel
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02/07/05
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Pulses and
Waves
ILD 9
HW 2
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T2 Pulses
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L1 Mass on
Spring
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02/14/05
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Electrostatics
ILD 10
HW 3
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T3 Electrostatics
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L2 Mass on
Spring
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02/21/05
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Currents and
Circuits
HW 4
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T4 Fields
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L3 Electrical
Resistance
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02/28/05
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More Circuits
HW5
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T5 DC Circuits
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L4 Electrical
Resistance
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03/07/05
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Circuits and
Magnetism
HW 6
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T6 DC Circuits
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Lab Quiz 1
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03/14/05
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MIDTERM EXAM
(03/17)
HW 7
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T7 Magnets
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L5 Magnetic
Interactions
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03/21/05
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SPRING
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BREAK
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!!!
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03/28/05
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Review Midterm
HW 8
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T8 Magnetic
Interactions
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L6 Magnetic
Interactions
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04/04/05
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Light and Refraction
HW 9
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T9 Light and
Shadow
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L7 Refraction
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04/11/05
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Light and Images
ILD 11
HW 10
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T10 How to
Tell Where Things Are
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L8 Refraction
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04/18/05
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Light and Interference
HW 11
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T11 Real Images
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L9 Interference
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04/25/05
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MIDTERM 2
HW 12
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T12 Two-Source
Interference
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L10 Interference
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05/02/05
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Structure of
Matter
Photons
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T13 Wave Properties
of Light
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Lab Quiz 2
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05/09/05
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Last Day (05/12/05)
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The Elements of the
Course:
We assume you are responsible students who are prepared to
assume responsibility for taking full advantage of the learning experience
this course is designed to provide to you.
Therefore, the following is intended as advice to the wise, not as
statements of requirements.
Lectures: We will do our best
to make attendance at lectures worth while to you. They will involve your active participation
via the use of your clickers, interactions with fellow students, and feedback
to the instructor. This semester your
responses to clicker questions will be tracked and will earn “participation
points.” They will be modest in quantity,
but may have some weight at the end of the course in determining your final
grade.
Tutorials: These will provide additional opportunities
for give-and-take between you, your fellow students, and your TA.
It is important that you give your TA ample opportunity to understand
what you are thinking and how he can help you come to an adequate understanding
of the subject at hand.
Laboratories: Participation in laboratories is
required! Physics Department policy is that you must
complete every lab in order to pass the course! There will be an
opportunity for making up missed labs for excused absences.
Homework: Doing the homework is perhaps the single
most important element of the course. Sets
of homework questions will be assigned weekly,
due the following week. They will
be graded by your TA. Typically, one
question on each set will be graded in detail, and the others will be reviewed
to ascertain whether you’ve made a good try at responding to them.
Solutions to each set will be posted on the class Web site.
You should review these solutions carefully as a routine part of your
work in the course. Consider this
as a crucial part of completing the Learning Cycle described in the How to Learn notes posted on the class
Web site.
Exams: There will be two midterm exams (tentative
dates: March 17 and April 28 (12:30-1:45), each covering the material
preceding it since the beginning of the course or the previous exam.
There will be a final exam, time to be determined, covering all of
the course material. In order to reduce the effect of time pressures
on you, the final exam will be designed as a two-hour exam, but you will be
given four hours to complete the exam. Expect
questions designed to reveal your thinking ability, not what you’ve memorized
without understanding.
Each midterm exam will be
followed by a makeup exam the following week. If you miss a midterm, you must
take the makeup. There will also be
a makeup exam for the final exam.
Course Center: The course center this semester will be
in the Slawsky Center located in the central hall on the first floor of the
Physics Building. (Last semester’s
center in the basement has been converted into the tutorial room for Physics
122). The TAs will hold office hours
there on a schedule to be determined and posted. It is recommended that you make a habit of using the course center
as a place where you can wrestle with physics concepts and homework questions
with help from the TAs and from your fellow students.
Grading: Point scores from
the various elements of the course will be weighted as follows:
Midterm 1: 150
points
Midterm 2: 150
points
Final Exam: 300
points
Homework: 200 points
Laboratory: 200 points
Participation: 50 points
Total
1000 points
Yes, the arithmetic is a bit out of kilter, but we expect
that not most of you will not exceed 1000 points. The participation points here
are mostly clicker responses. You get a point per response, regardless
of the answer you give. Along the way, there may be other ways to get
participation points (taking diagnostic surveys for education research, finding
mistakes in homework problems or solutions, etc.) In addition, there are participation points built into the grading
system for the laboratories. Final
grades will be “curved”.
Excuses: If you have a valid excuse for missing an exam or homework, see your
instructor to arrange what to do about it, beforehand if at all possible.
Ex post facto (after the fact) excuses
will require validation and may not be acceptable
Special
Needs:
If you have any
special needs relevant to this course, please contact the instructor.
Education
research: As noted at
the beginning, the style and format of this
course are based on research on the teaching and learning of physics. That research is ongoing, so this course can
be viewed as an example of research in progress. To that end,
there may be diagnostic surveys at the beginning and end of the course, and
you may be asked for your consent to use videotapes of your work and photocopies
of assignments as data for our research. You'll
get participation points for filling in the surveys, but your answers to the
surveys will have no effect on your grade in the course. Nor will it
have any effect on your grade whether you grant or decline consent, if we
ask for it.
Finally, please
see the University policy
regarding the Honor Pledge.
GOOD LUCK, AND REMEMBER, “PHYSICS IS PHUN!”