Last changes August 19, 2004
This is an experimental section.
At TAMUK this is an Honors section; it is likely to expect a bit more from the
student than in other sections. This section is also being offered via the
TTVN video network to other institutions in the Texas Electronic Coalition
for Physics. At some of these institutions, University Physics consists of
4-hour (4 semester credit hour or SCH) courses which include lab, whereas at
TAMUK the corresponding lab is a separate course. Some information in this
syllabus will apply only to such students; other information will apply only
to TAMUK students.
Course Description: (TAMUK) (3 hours credit, 3 hours lecture per week)
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.
This course qualifies toward fulfilling the general education requirements at Texas A&M University-Kingsville in the area of Science, provided the accompanying laboratory course, PHYS 2125, is also taken.
Meetings: Lecture 9:00-9:50 MWF, (TAMUK) Sec. HR1: Hill 102
Faculty: Dr. Paul H. Cox,
Professor
Office: Hill 211
Phone: (361)593-2623; or department phone (361)593-2618. University phones
have voice mail; my not being in when you could have called is no excuse.
email: phcox at tamuk.edu
Department fax number: (361)593-2184
Professor's Webpage:http://physics.tamuk.edu/~cox/
(Note no www before "physics".)
Office hours:
Scheduled office hours (subject to change):
MWF 12:00-12:50, TR 11:00-12:50, R 1:00-3:50
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, including 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: motion, forces and Newton's Laws,
work and energy, impulse and momentum, rotation, fluids, temperature and
heat, etc.
Student learner outcomes: Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to recognize, in unfamiliar contexts, the concepts covered in the course, and will be able to apply these concepts to work unfamiliar problems, as evidenced by satisfactory completion of an assessment exam. Further information will appear on related webpages.
Text: Young and Freedman, University Physics, Eleventh edition. We will use mostly the first half; PHYS 2326 will cover roughly the second half. (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. There should be other similar texts in the library of any college or university where physics is taught.)
Evaluation:
TAMUK, other 3-hour schools:
Forty percent of your semester point score will come from the final exam.
At Kingsville it is scheduled on Wednesday, Dec. 8, 10:40 AM-1:10 PM; the
time for other schools will be arranged later, depending on local schedules.
The final will be comprehensive, though not necessarily completely so.
Forty percent of your semester point score will come from quizzes,
fifteen percent from assignments. These will usually alternate, with usually
at least one or the other each week. Assignments will be distributed in
class, normally due at the start of the next class period. Each quiz will
be scored as twenty-five 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. Each such point will be worth about
a tenth of a percent of your course grade; the exact value will depend on
the number of assignments and quizzes, which may vary due to unforeseen
circumstances.
Five percent of your semester point score will come from reports on what you
have done outside of class. This is an experiment on my part; I want regular
reports on how much time and effort you spend on physics outside of class.
Of this 5 percent I will award at least 3 if your reports are timely and
complete, even if what they report is that you did nothing. Further
specification on this requirement will follow.
Evaluation:
4-SCH schools, including WT:
For students at these schools, your laboratory grade will be determined
locally and will be reported to me at the end of the term.
If you are failing in either component, lecture or lab, by policy your course
grade will be F; credit in this course represents credit for both lecture
and lab work, so both parts must be earned.
If both parts are passing, then the lecture grade, determined by the same
process as described above for TAMUK students, will count 3/4, and the lab
grade 1/4, of the course grade.
Evaluation, forms:
Most test (quiz and final) 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, but such credit may be lost due to accompanying
incorrect steps; 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). This
includes incorrect use of units, vector notation, and equal signs.
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 before assigning letter
grades, unless that would produce downward revisions.
Attendance, etc.:
Prompt regular attendance is important to success in every scheduled endeavor,
including classes. Because recent changes in government policies require
such information, I will generally check attendance. 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, if you miss just
once, that class that you miss will probably be the only time that some
concept will be covered that will mean ten or twenty points on a quiz or
the final (or both).
Actions such as coming late, leaving early, being interrupted by cell
phones, etc., are substantially matters of infractions of courtesy to your
classmates, and I expect to leave responding to such interruptions to their
discretion, as long as they are not substantially disruptive.
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 degree candidates will require an early final, they should notify me early
in the term, and again about two weeks before finals. At the latter time,
a time for such an early final will be arranged. If an early final is
scheduled for degree candidates, then other students may choose to take
the final at that time, thereby finishing early. However, the final
will cover the entire course even if the early exam time precedes discussion
of some sections.
Reminder: If you are taking PHYS 2325 because of a program requirement, you
will normally be required to take 2125 at some time. If you are repeating
and/or you are not clear on your requirements, see me after lecture.
Content, schedule:
Most material in Chapters 1 through 14 and 17-18, if time permits (rare) on
to Chapter 20, will be covered in lecture, possibly except Ch. 13. Chapters
13, 15-16, and from 21 on (though Ch. 37 material is rarely if ever reached)
will be covered in PHYS 2326. Handouts may be provided for some material.
A recommended problem list is being developed; in its absence, you may
consider all odd-numbered problems in the text to be suggested. These
problems will not be graded, but may be examples for lecture discussion.
Test questions should generally be comparable.
The pace should be about a chapter a week, half a chapter or more a
session; 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 proportional
coverage of material not tested earlier.
I do not drop students for excessive absences, normally; if you simply stop
coming, you may expect to receive an F. Further, under new government
regulations you may face financial penalties.
The following Tentative Schedule is rather optimistic; it is subject
to change. If delays occur for any quiz, later quizzes are likely to be
delayed the same number of periods, unless material is skipped. Exact dates
for each quiz will be announced at least a period in advance.
Sep. 1: Quiz 1. Chapter 1: Units, vectors
Sep. 6: Labor Day holiday
Sep. 10: Quiz 2. Chapters 2 and 3: Motion
Sep. 20: Quiz 3. Chapter 4: Newton's Laws
Sep. 27: Quiz 4. Chapter 5: ": Friction, Circles
Oct. 4: Quiz 5. Chapters 6 and 7: Work, energy
Oct. 11: Quiz 6. Chapter 8: Momentum
Oct. 22: Quiz 7. Chapters 9,10,12: Rotation, gravity
Nov. 1: Quiz 8. Chapters 11, 14: Elasticity, fluids
Nov. 8: Quiz 9. Chapter 13: Oscillation
Nov. 17: Quiz 10. Chapters 17,18: Temperature, heat
Chapters 19,20: Thermodynamics: Tested on final, if covered
Nov. 25,26 (Th., Fri.): Thanksgiving holiday
Dead week: Nov. 27 through Study Day, Dec. 2
Final exam: TAMUK, Wed., Dec. 8, 10:40 AM-1:10 PM, same room
Misconduct: See the Student Handbook. Students who engage in
any form of misconduct are subject to disciplinary procedures.
My 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 may 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 of the course.
A special warning: a problem being in a multiple-choice format does not mean it is a quick-answer problem; it principally means that applying the correct concept, rather than the details or accuracy of the calculation, is being assessed.
The purpose of tests is to see if you have learned at least some of what you were supposed to. In a physics course that learning does not involve straight memorization, it involves understanding of basic principles and especially of how to apply them. The reason physics is required, for 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.
Physics is not a subject one can learn by only listening and reading; it requires practice. A few students in this course have had sufficient correct practice before starting this course; most students should expect to have to allocate substantial amounts of time - not on the night before the final - to this material.
I think the approach to learning this material that seems to work for the most students is: read, then work problems, then ASK QUESTIONS. First, read the text, seeing if it seems to make sense. If so, try some problems. If a single problem gives you some difficulty, try another before spending a lot of time on one: just a change of context might be enough to let you recognize what you missed on the first try. As a rule of thumb, if you have spent half an hour on a single problem without making progress, it's time to look at a different problem. (A long problem may require more than half an hour simply to work out the details; that's why I indicate 'half an hour without progress'.) At whatever point you encounter significant difficulty, you have identified something to ask about in class. Continue reading and noting questions through the chapter; you may even find that some later application of the concept answers your early questions. Now attend the lecture, and ask your questions. After lecture continue with reading and problems. When no one asks questions, the lecture may go smoothly but not as much learning may occur.
IF YOU DON'T ASK YOUR QUESTION, IT PROBABLY WON'T GET ASKED. And in that case you won't have the knowledge you need come test time. Don't wait, thinking to ask someone else; they are likely to have an inadequate answer, if not a wrong one, if they have an answer at all. As college students, you are becoming adults, expected to act responsibly on your requirements; you are also expected to be learning how to acquire knowledge on your own initiative, not waiting for it to be handed to you. Even if I recognize what your difficulty may be, I won't come to you to resolve it. In most cases I won't even recognize what your problem is until you can put it into some specific question, because I never faced the types of difficulty with physics that many of you have.