Physics 262 Home Page

• Instructor
• Text book
• TAs and Recitation
• Homework
• Exams
• Lab
• Calculators
• Course Grade Summary
• Couse Calendar

• Oscillations and waves;
• Fluids;
• Heat, Kinetic Theory, and Thermodynamics;
• Electrostatics and (some) Circuits.

• Home page:
• Click here.
• Office hours:
• After class, 1107 Physics
• By appointment
• Any time you need to talk, complain, ask questions, vent.  I have an open door policiy, but keep in mind that there may be times when I will have to kick you out if it's not the regular office hours.
• Email anytime, of course.

Volume 1 is available at the book store, volume 2 is available soon (as of January 24th).  We won't get to Volume 2 for a month or so.  I don't know how much it costs, but here is another place you can get it....

A CD found on the back page of your text has not much material relevant to this course. It is not required material, but you may find the simple animations
helpful. To install it you need a serial number, click here or read the ReadMe.doc file. After installing, run ip.exe and open a file in IPSOnPC. There are several
programs for chapter 13, and two having to do with the figures in chapter 18.

Caution: when I tried to access the "abundance of material" promised on p. xviii for the student web site, my browser was caught in an inescapable loop. Instead,
click here to access the "student home" for this book.

All sections will meet the first week of classes. TAs are there to help you with the concepts, and in particular to solve homework problems. There will be NO QUIZES in the discussion sections.  Just work on homework problems.  If you don't come to discussion because you are not having any difficulties, then that's great.  If you don't come because you think the TA is not doing a very good job, please let me know.  TAs need to learn how to teach, and I will keep your advice in strict confidence, and then will work with the TA to make it more useful.  If you don't come because you have other reasons, that's your business, you won't be penialized directly.  Note, however, that doing well in this course is really dependent upon doing and understanding the homework.  If you really work at the homework, you will do well.  If you don't, you probably won't.

We will grade 2 of the homework problems closely, and will assign most of the grade for the homework based on that.  The other problems will be graded very scantily.  You will get credit for doing the problem, but we don't have the resources to grade each problem closely.

 Homework and solutions will be posted online.

• Mid-term exams
• There will be 3 mid-term exams.  Times are as listed in the course calendar below, but are subject to change if we fall behind.  The exams will be frequently, though not exclusively, based on the homework assigned for the chapters covered.
• There will absolutely be NO make-up exams. Instead only the best two mid-term exam grades will count and will account for 35% of your semester grade.   By "best two", I mean that at the end of the year I will normalize all exams to have the same mean and standard deviation, and will pick the two exams that have the best score relative to the mean and standard deviation.  This way if you score 10 points above the mean on a hard exam, it will count more than if you score 10 points above the mean on an "easy" exam.
• In case class is canceled due to snow or any other cause, the exam will automatically be held on the next regular scheduled class day. If there is a fire alarm or bomb threat, the exam will be held at the same time in another room to be announced at that time.
• Final exam
• The final will be a mixture of what we covered all year, plus what was not covered in the last few weeks of classes.
• All students must take the final exam to pass the course.
• The Final counts for 25% of your semester grade.
• The final exam will be in this classroom, Thursday, May 17th, at 8am.  Check your final exam schedule NOW to be sure there are no conflicts (there shouldn't be). The only recourse if your final exam schedule is inconvenient (three or more exams on one day, vacation travel plans, religious activities, etc.) is to change your course schedule now, during the drop/add period.

1. Solutions and distributions for exam 1.
2. Solutions and distributions for exam 2.
3. Solutions and distributions for exam 3.

• Lab courses will NOT meet until the 2nd week of classes, Feb 5-9.
• The lab course 262A is taught by Professor Jawahery in PHY 3219.  Click here for the 262A web site.
• The lab will count for 20% of the course grade.  Professor Jawahery will pass your grade to me, and I will fit it into your final grade for 262.
• If you do not pass the lab course, you will automatically fail this course.  These are University rules.

• Feb 9      Last day for schedule adjustment (adding a course) for Spring 2001
• Mar 2      First exam
• April 6     Second exam
• April 13   Last day to drop with a "W"
• May 4      Third exam
• May 17    Final exam