Course Description: (3 hours credit) A calculus-based introduction to physics. Topics include: kinematics, vector analysis, force dynamics, equilibrium, work, energy, momentum, collisions, fluid dynamics, and thermal physics. Prerequisite: One year of high school physics or PHYS 1305, 1105. Corequisite: MATH 2313.
Meetings (Sec. HR1): 9:00-9:50 MWF, Hill 117
Faculty: Dr. Paul H. Cox,
Professor
Office: Hill 211
Phone: 2623; or department phone 2618. University phones have voice mail;
my not being in when you wanted to call is no excuse.
email: phcox@tamuk.edu
webpage:http://physics.tamuk.edu/~cox/
(Note no www on the front.)
Office hours:
Scheduled office hours (subject to change):
MWF 10:00-10:50, 12:00-12:50, TT 11:00-1:00
Also MWF 11:00-12:00 and 1:00-2:00 by appointment
Unscheduled Office Hours by appointment
Informal office hours when in
Course objectives:
Students who should pass this course will be able to:
(1) Work correctly with physical quantities. This includes correct and
complete treatment of appropriate units, which includes mathematically
correct combining of units and correct conversion of different units (whether
within metric, i.e., using prefixes, or between "British" and metric). This
also includes correct treatment of accuracy in data.
(2) Work correctly with vector quantities, especially when information does
not group direction and size data; work both with size-and-direction forms and
with component forms of vector data, and convert between them.
(3) Analyze situations to recognize all the information which is
present and all the influences which must be acting; identify all the
forces; and group those forces which are on a relevant object.
(4) Solve new problems, using general principles and techniques, in
the areas discussed in the course.
Text: Young and Freedman, University Physics, tenth edition. PHYS 2326 will continue with the same text. (The material can be learned from any text at this level if you just study by topic, not by chapter number. There are several such texts in Jernigan Library and also in the physics departmental library room, Hill 204.)
Evaluation:
One-third of your semester point score will come from the final exam. It is
scheduled for Wednesday, May 7, from 10:40 to 1:10. The final will be
comprehensive, though not necessarily completely so.
Two-thirds of your semester point score will come from assignments and
quizzes. A tentative schedule of quizzes is attached. Assignments will be
distributed in class, normally due at the start of the next class period.
Each quiz will be scored as fifteen to fifty points, at usually 10 or 15
points per problem depending on length and difficulty; homework assignments
will be scored at five points per problem. There should be around 400 such
points, from quizzes and homework combined, during the semester.
Most test questions will be short problems. Multiple-choice or other
short-answer question forms may be used occasionally, generally graded
all-or-nothing. (The final exam may be about 1/3 multiple choice.)
Otherwise, partial credit will be possible when earned by legible,
comprehensible work; correct answers accompanied by incorrect steps or
incorrect usages will not receive full credit. Certain significant errors
will receive substantial penalties whether relevant to work or not (and can
cancel partial credit; however, negative scores will not be given).
Point values awarded will be determined generally by penalizing steps omitted
and mistakes made (not according to an A-quality = 90%, etc., scale).
Hence total points scored will be curved at term end, unless that would
produce downward revisions.
Attendance, etc.:
Prompt regular attendance is important to success in every scheduled endeavor,
including classes. However, there is no component of this course grade
directly attributed to attendance. If you can complete the assignments
and score high (honestly) on all the quizzes and the final, you can receive
an A without sitting through any other part of the course. (However, that is
extremely implausible unless you are registered for this course only in order
to validate knowledge acquired elsewhere.)
You should recognize that, in accordance with Murphy's Law, the time
you miss will probably be the only time that some concept will be covered that
will mean ten or twenty points on a quiz. Actions such as coming late,
leaving early, being interrupted by cell phones, etc., unless they are
substantially disruptive, are matters of infractions
of courtesy to your classmates, and I leave responding to such disruptions
to their discretion.
Make-up quizzes will not be given. If absences on a quiz date are
foreseeable, an early quiz may be arranged. Otherwise, if the circumstances
causing the absence warrant, a substitute credit based on other quiz results
may be allowed (it will be calculated near the end of the term, when I have
enough information to estimate your performance relative to your peers). The
amount of allowable substitute credit will depend on the circumstances, and
will also be a decreasing function of the time when I receive information
about the circumstances.
If there are degree candidates in the class, they should notify the
instructor early in the semester, and remind him about two weeks before
finals. If so, an early final will be scheduled according to their
requirements. Once it is scheduled, if it is, any other student who prefers
to finish the course early may also take the final at that time.
Content, schedule:
Most material in Chapters 1 through 12, 14 through 16, if time permits (rare)
on to 18, will be covered in lecture, possibly also Ch. 13. Chapters 13 and
from 19 on (though Ch. 39 material is rarely if ever reached) will be covered
in PHYS 2326.
A recommended problem list will be developed. These problems will not be
graded, but may be examples for lecture discussion. Test questions should
generally be comparable.
The pace should be at least a chapter a week; students are expected to read
ahead so as to be prepared with questions on any confusing points. Each
quiz problem will involve at least some material since the preceding quiz,
but may be cumulative as well. The final will be comprehensive, though with
somewhat more than equal coverage of material not tested earlier.
This tentative schedule is rather optimistic; it is subject to
change. If delays occur for any quiz, all later quizzes will probably be
delayed the same number of periods, unless order of topics is changed.
Quiz #: Chapters: Main topics: Date
Holiday: MLK Day (Monday, 2d week, 1/20)
Quiz 1: Chapter 1: Units, vectors: End 2nd week (1/24)
Quiz 2: Chapters 2 and 3: Motion: Begin 4th week (2/3)
Quiz 3: Chapter 4: Newton's Laws: Middle 5th week (2/12)
Quiz 4: Chapter 5: Newton's Laws in friction, circles: Middle 6th week
(2/19)
Quiz 5: Chapters 6 and 7: Work, energy: End 7th week (2/28)
Quiz 6: Chapter 8: Momentum: End 8th week (3/7)
Holiday: Spring break: March 10-14
Quiz 7: Chapters 9,10,12: Rotation: Middle 10th week (3/26)
Quiz 8: Chapters 11, 14: Elasticity, fluids: Middle 11th week (4/2)
Quiz 9: Chapter 13: Oscillation: Middle 12th week (4/9)
Holiday: Easter break: April 18
Quiz 10: Chapters 15, 16: Heat: Begin 14th week (4/21)
Chapters 17, 18: Thermodynamics: Tested on final
Dead week: Fri. 14th wk (4/25) through Study day, Th. 15th wk (5/1)
Final exam: Wednesday, May 7, 10:40 AM to 1:10 PM, same room
Students with Disabilities, including learning disabilities, may have reasonable accommodations made if appropriate notice is given. This normally requires registration, including appropriate documentation, with the Services for Students with Disabilities office.
Misconduct: See also the student handbook. Students who engage in
misconduct are subject to disciplinary procedures.
Quiz/test problems will be story problems and will require thinking; knowing formulas will not be enough. It will sometimes not be obvious where to start in order to arrive at the required answer, while in many cases information will be provided that seems related but is not actually required. If you don't see how to get the final answer but do see how to get some addtional values, do that and then look at the overall problem again with the new information. On quizzes, each problem will relate substantially to a current topic but will often require additional steps based on previous material; on the final the same applies except that the topic and the extra steps can be from any part.
The purpose of tests is to see if you have learned at least some of what you were supposed to. In this course that learning does not involve straight memorization, it involves understanding of basic principles and of how to apply them. The reason physics is required by most curricula that require it, is that people in that field believe it is important for you to understand these principles and be able to use them in new situations - the situations that were not covered in your courses. The only way to test if you have some degree of that ability is to give you test problems that call for you to apply your knowledge in a new situation, or at least one that is at least somewhat different from those that were previously discussed. Unfortunately this calls for a skill which may not be teachable; the only way I know to acquire it is practice, on as varied a problem set as needed. The recommended problem list is only a minimum, intended to be extensive enough to include problems covering all the major topics, without being very repetitive. If you have trouble, repetition with variations may be an answer, and is the reason that physics textbooks have long lists of problems. Countering the necessity of a possibly unteachable skill as a requirement for mastery of physics, is the fact that mastery of that skill is not required for progress in physics; since I curve grades, as low as 40% of possible points has been known to be a passing grade.