Spring 2004
Exams - Grading - General Remarks
Solutions
- Syllabus
- Suggested Reading
in Other Sources
The
answer keys for the exam questions can be found in the Syllabus.
Please note that a number
of things can change and for accurate information you should always check
this web page.
Instructor: Aurel Bulgac
E-mail: bulgac@phys.washington.edu
Class: Section
A MTuThF, 8:30 am - 9:20 am, PAA A102
Office: PAB B478
Phone: (206)685-2988
Office Hours: M 10:30
am - 11:20 am, W 10:30 am - 11:20 am, PAA Study Center AM018 and by appointment.
TAs Office hours:
Yeechi Chen
- Tu 10:30 am - 12:20 pm, Th 3:30 pm - 5:20 pm, PAA Study Center, AM018
Edmund Meyer, - Tu 2:30
pm - 4:20 pm, Th 11:30 am - 1:20 pm, PAA Study Center, AM018
Course web page: http://faculty.washington.edu/bulgac/116S04/welcome.html
Epost for Phys 116, Spring 2004
Use Epost to start a discussion group, find buddies to study with,
etc. I shall only ocasionally check this discussion board.
Quick Poll
From time to time I shall create short and simple questions and
give you ample time to answer them (only once) and later
I shall show you the results and if necessary we shall briefly
discuss them.
1
(due 04/08 11:59 pm) - 2(due
04/08 11:59 pm)
Send an anonymous message to the instructor
Unless you sign the message, there is no way for me to know who send
the message or the sender's email.
The best thing is to use the link above to my e-mail if you want
me to know who you are, as then your e-mail
address will show up. Several times I tried to answer to anonymous
e-mails, in which the author sent me an
e-mail address and he/she expected an answer, but the e-mail address
supplied was wrong.
|
|
| Tycho |
Textbook:
Douglas C. Giancoli, Physics, 5th Edition, Prentice Hall.
You might find the following link of interest and
helpful:
http://cw.prenhall.com/giancoli/
Suggested reading:
E-book
by David J. Raymond (here you can read about waves in particular)
Homework is not required, but it is strongly advised
that you do it. One cannot
master the material unless one is able to solve
correctly problems. As a matter
of fact this is how you are going to be tested
in exams, but solving problems
and providing exact numerical answers. Unless
you practice by solving problems
the most likely outcome of the exams will be
failure. As you already know, unlike
many other fields of human inquiry, physics
is an exact science.
You must have a computer account for email and work.
Your homework will be
done on the web using a system called Tycho,
developed at the University of
Illinois. This system is still under development
and so far it has been greatly
appreciated by the students using it. There are
essentially two things we will use:
homework and gradebook.
In the homework portion, every week several problems
will be posted for you to
solve. As you will discover immediately, there
are two types of problems:
a) Standard Homework Problems have a numerical
answer. You will get
immediate feedback as to whether the answer supplied
is correct or not. In many
problems, you can ask for pre-programmed help.
Full credit is given (if done
before the deadline) for the correct answer, independent
of how many submissions
were needed to obtain it. b) Interactive Examples
are often somewhat more
difficult problems (level 2 or 3 of Giancoli's
text). Help in these problems usually
comes in the form of more questions. The hope of
the writers is that solution of
these problems will lead to better conceptual understanding
rather than just
equation manipulation.
I strongly suggest as well for you to solve the
problems at the end of each chapter. They
will not be either graded or required. However,
the exams will most likely consist of
problem chosen from the end of the chapters
Each week I shall provide solutions to the end of the
chapter problems. The
solutions would be accessible from here
with an uid and passwd that I shall provide.
Many students in the past have found these solutions
extremely helpful in gaining
a deeper understanding of the material presented
in class and in the textbook.
Please note that some of the symbols do not show
up correctly, mostly various
Greek letters, so you will have to do some guessing.
There is no simple way for
me to correct this.
Click on the link http://tychosrv.phys.washington.edu/courses/phys116/spring04/
to login into the Tycho sytem and do your graded
homework. Follow the
instructions on the login page. Your homework,
exam and final grades will be
posted using the Tycho system as well. The sudent
database is updated daily
during the first week of the quarter daily and
every two days during the second
week. If you experience difficulties login into
the Tycho system please write to
Laura Clement lclement@u.washington.edu.
Exams - The Rules: EXAMS MAY NOT BE TAKEN LATE OR EARLY!
THERE WILL BE NO MAKEUPS. If for some reason you miss one of the midterms,
the one you missed will be
your low grade. Please arrange your vacation schedule
so you take the final exam
at the proper time.
There will be three one-hour
mid term exams and one final exam. Each hourly
exam (from 8:30 am to 9:20
am sharp) will consist of multiple-choice questions
and these will be machine
graded. No partial credit will be given. The exams are
closed book, but you will
be permitted to have one 8 1/2" x 11" sheet of hand
written notes to aid
you, no xerox copies or any other copies of any kind. In
addition you will only be
allowed to have a calculator, an eraser, a #2 pencil and
a pen. Scratch paper will
be provided. Do not forget to bring a bubble sheet
(Standard Answer Sheet).
You can get them at the Hub, By George and other
places around the campus.
The final exam will be over all
the material covered during the quarter. The
problems on the exams will
be chosen from the Tycho homework or the end of the
chapter problems (level II
or III of difficulty). You will be expected to solve
numerically each problem
and choose the correct answer among the 4-5 alternatives
suggested. On a typical
exam the average student will provide correct answers
to about 5-7 problems, with
a standard deviation of approximately 2.
Cheating will be dealt with harshly.
For exam schedule see the Syllabus
Grading will be done on a curve,
with the class average being about 2.7. This will
vary depending on the performance
of the class as a whole. Approximately 5-10 %
of the class will receive
4.0, and 0.7 will be the lowest passing grade.
Each hourly exam will also count
for 25 % of the grade, while the final two-hour
exam will count as two one-hour
exams for 25 % of the grade. Your score on each
exam will be normalized so
that each exam, regardless of the number of questions
or the difficulty of the
exam, will count the same. This score will be converted to
an exam grade point (2.3,
3.2, etc.). The approximate (it can change!)
formula which will be used to compute each grade
for each exam is
Your Grade = (Your exam score - Average exam score)/Standard Deviation + 2.7
At the end of the quarter, your
lowest exam grade will be dropped and your course
grade will be the average
of the remaining three exam grades and, if that is the
case the extra credit for
the homework. The graded homework on Tycho is not
required for the grade. However, if you have worked
out the assigned problems
and obtained the correct answers before the posted
deadline you can received
up to 0.3 point towards your final grade (on top
of the grade based on exam results).
0.3 will be awarded for 100% correct answers.
The instructor reserves the right
to modify this grading procedure in any way as long
as no student receives a
course grade lower than one calculated by the method
described above.
All the mathematics you need to know to be able
to take this course is summarized
in Appendix A of the textbook. Please review
various number notations, solving
linear and quadratic algebraic equations
and systems of 2-3 linear equations
with respectively 2-3 unknowns, plane geometry,
areas and volumes and basic
trigonometry.
People often ask for suggestions on problems to
solve. Let me
say it again here, hopefully, for the last time,
as I hate soundind so
professorial, but I am one. As with studying
a foreign language, there is
no minimum you can do, after which you become
fluent. Even your
native tongue requires a continuous effort to
master it, if you care of
course. It is the same with sports, with fitness
and essentially
everything else worth knowing and having in
life. This is your education
and you are at that age when you are fully responsible
for it. You cannot
get away with the idea that you will not need
physics in the future. That
is a bunch of BS (which, if you did not guess,
does not stand for Bachelor
of Science). You live in the 21st century, so
you should have a
minimum science background, unless you want
to relate more with people in
caves of course and shoot arrows at clouds when
you get angry at gods.
Moreover, this course is more than about physics,
it is about teaching
you a new way of thinking, on how to approach
problems, to solve them, to
understand Nature and so forth. This way of
thinking is not something you
are born with, to most of us it does not come
easy, it is very "unnatural"
but extremely effective. Not even gods had it!
They all (at least those
who "took care" of the ancient Greeks) lived
in a small village on
top of Mount Olympus, never used cell phones
(people in villages hardly
ever need them) never flew to the Moon, or to
America, never had TV of CD
players and so forth. I am here to help you,
as I put it often, to "coach"
you. I cannot simply show you how to run, you
have to do the running, I
will tell you how much more you need to and
where.
So, about problems. Solve ten at random in each
chapter, see how
comfortable you are, how long it takes. If it
takes too long or you do not
get the correct results, then you need more
practice. And go from there.
You will know when you had enough and more practice
of this type will
simply blunt your edge. Then you can go to the
next level, whatever that
might be. The solutions are given to you mainly
to check yourself, not to
read them at once. The same with "meditation",
you cannot meditate
for ten minutes every day and then you achieve
everlasting happiness or
whatever you are supposed to achieve. It is
the same as it was with that
fellow in New York City, who asked "How do I
get to Carnegie Hall?" and
the answer was "Practice, practice, practice!"
Nobody ever found another
way, maybe you will, and then lots of students
like you will build a
temple to honor you and you will become rich
and famous and guys like us
professors will be obsolete. Imagine that, no
school at all, ever! At
least no lectures and homework and exams, but
keep the parties.
Many would think that having
only one small cheat sheet, instead of an open book
exam, makes life harder.
You would be surprised to know that is just the opposite.
And to give you an example.
I do have a book, which is supposed to help me use
some piece of software.
It has just about twice as many pages as the Bible
and even though it's on
my shelf, next to me, I hardly ever open it, it
takes forever to find
something there.
| Dates | Topics | Chapter-Section | ||||||||||||||
| March 29 - April 2 | Vibrations and Waves | Chapter 11, review Chapter 9, section 6 | ||||||||||||||
| April 5 - 9 | Waves and Sound | Chapters 11 and 12 | ||||||||||||||
| April 12 - 15 | Review of Faraday's law | Chapter 21 | ||||||||||||||
| Friday, April 16 |
Exam # 1
|
Chapters 11 and 12
|
||||||||||||||
| April 19 - 23 | Electromagnetic waves, Light, Geometric Optics | Chapters 22 and 23 | ||||||||||||||
| April 26- 30 | Light, Geometric Optics, Wave nature of light | Chapter 23 and 24 | ||||||||||||||
| May 3 - 6 | Wave nature of light | Chapter 24 | ||||||||||||||
| Friday, May 7 | Exam
# 2
|
Chapters 21,
22 and 23
|
||||||||||||||
| May 10 - 14 | Optical instruments | Chapter 25 | ||||||||||||||
| May 17 - 21 | Early quantum mechanics, Models of atom | Chapter 27 | ||||||||||||||
| May 24 - 27 | Quantum mechanics of atoms | Chapter 28 | ||||||||||||||
| Friday, May 28, | Exam # 3
|
Chapters 24,
25 and 27
|
||||||||||||||
| Monday, May 31, holiday | Memorial Day | |||||||||||||||
| June 1 - 4 | Quantum mechanics of atoms, some nuclear physics | Chapter 28 and maybe 30 | ||||||||||||||
| Tuesday, June 8
8:30 am - 10:20 am |
Final Exam
|
Comprehensive
|
