Winter 2005
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, 12:30 pm - 1:20 pm, PAA A102
Office:
PAB B478
Phone:
(206)685-2988
Office
Hours: W 2:00- 3:00 pm, PAA Study Center
AM018 and by
appointment.
TA Office
hours: Brian Smigelski
- M 1:30 - 2:30 pm, W 4:00-5:00 pm, Th 1:00-3:00 pm, F 9:00-10:00
am, PAA Study Center, AM018
Course web page: http://faculty.washington.edu/bulgac/116W05/index.html
Epost for Phys 116, Winter 2005
Use Epost to start a discussion group, find buddies to study
with,
etc. I shall only ocasionally check this discussion board.
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 12:30 pm to 1:20 pm
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 sounding 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 | ||||||||||||||
| Jan 3 - 10 |
Vibrations and Waves | Chapter 11, review Chapter 9, section 6 | ||||||||||||||
| |
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| Jan 10 - 14 |
Waves and Sound | Chapters 11 and 12 | ||||||||||||||
| Jan 17
|
Martin
Luther King Day |
|||||||||||||||
| Jan 18 - 20 |
Review of Faraday's law | Chapter 21 | ||||||||||||||
| Friday,
Jan 21 |
Exam # 1
|
Chapters 11 and 12
|
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| Jan 24 - 28 |
Electromagnetic waves, Light, Geometric Optics | Chapters 22 and 23 | ||||||||||||||
| Jan 31 - Feb 4 | Light, Geometric Optics, Wave nature of light | Chapter 23 and 24 | ||||||||||||||
| Feb 7 - 10 |
Wave nature of light | Chapter 24 | ||||||||||||||
| Friday,
Feb 11 |
Exam
# 2
|
Chapters 21,
22 and 23
|
||||||||||||||
| Feb 14 - 18 |
Optical instruments | Chapter 25 | ||||||||||||||
| Feb
21 |
Presidents
Day |
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| Feb 22 - 24 |
Early quantum mechanics, Models of atom | Chapter 27 | ||||||||||||||
| Friday, Feb 25, | Exam # 3
|
Chapters 24, 25
|
||||||||||||||
| Feb 28 - Mar 3 | Quantum
mechanics of atoms |
Chapter 28 | ||||||||||||||
| Mar 7 - 11 |
Quantum mechanics of atoms, some nuclear physics | Chapter 28 and maybe 30 | ||||||||||||||
| Thursday,
March 17 8:30 am - 10:20 am |
Final Exam
|
Comprehensive
|
