Physics 6A/6L Introduction to Physics I Winter 2001

Physics 5/6 A through C are the UCSC introductory physics courses with calculus. The coverage of material is roughly as follows:

A. Mechanics, including rotation, gravity, and oscillations.

B. Waves, sound, fluids, optics, and heat.

C. Electricity and Magnetism

Calculus is used in this course from the beginning, so Math 11A or 19A or equivalent is a prerequisite. This course cannot be properly taught without some very basic use of integration, which may precede its introduction in your second-quarter calculus course. Some students have complained about this in the past, but as long as you understand derivatives of polynomials, it should not be a problem. Also, math courses tend to take their time moving beyond one dimension, but in physics we cannot completely avoid considering our 3-dimensional world. For example, when discussing the concept of work and conservative potentials, I will need to discuss the concept of a “line integral” in our 3-dimensional space.

Textbook: University Physics, Young and Freedman, 10th Edition.

Physics 6L Lab Manual: available at the Bay Tree Bookstore.

Library Reserves: On reserve in the science library you will find a binder with copies of the assignments and solutions to the homework and exams (after the homework is due and after the exams have been taken, of course). There also are copies of the textbook. Homework solutions will also be available online in the electronic reserves.

Web Page: I will maintain a web page that includes the latest information on the course, the assignments, and so forth. You can find a link to the web page from my personal page, for which the address is given at the beginning of this document. The course web page has a link to the library reserves web page.

Laboratory: The lab course Physics 6L must be taken along with this lecture course (unless you have already completed it). There will be eight weeks of lab, which will start the week of January 8 . The last lab will be the week of March 12. You are expected to complete all eight labs. Missing one will affect your evaluation. At least seven of the eight labs must be attended and completed for a passing grade in the lab course. If an emergency or illness causes you to miss more than one lab, then you must contact your TA and try to arrange to attend another lab session the same week, with the permission of the other TA. Making up a lab during one of the following weeks will be next to impossible.

Please come to the first lab prepared with the lab manual and a new lab notebook in which to do your work. The lab notebook should be bound, 10” by 7 7/8”, and “quad” ruled (pages look like graph paper). Such notebooks are available in the bookstore with a black-and-white marbled cover and about 80 pages. Your notebook will remain in the laboratory throughout the quarter—the lab work, including write-up, must be completed in the three-hour session.

Each lab has associated with it a one-page “prelab,” which is a set of questions to be answered by you before coming to the lab. They are designed to encourage you to come to the lab session prepared, so they will be collected by the TA upon your arrival and graded. The prelab questions are included in the lab manual.

Homework: An assignment will be passed out each Friday and will be due the following Friday at the beginning of class. All students will be expected to complete all of the assignments. The homework should be the most important part of your learning experience in physics. It is nearly guaranteed that you will learn next to nothing, in the long term, from the lectures and reading assignments if you do not take the effort to solve problems and answer questions on the homework. Some of the homework problems will be easy, amounting to little more than finding the right formula to plug numbers into. However, I prefer to give problems that require you to think about the concepts in order to find the correct solution. The majority of the problems will not require calculus, but given that this is the calculus-based physics sequence, I will make an effort to look for problems for the homework and exams that require the use of calculus (without being too difficult or laborious). It is important that you make an honest effort to solve the more difficult problems. They are the ones that will lead to a firm understanding of physics. If after struggling with a problem you cannot solve it, then be sure to seek help from a classmate, a teaching assistant, or myself. Students are encouraged to work together on homework, but do not forget that you will be alone during the examinations. It is essential that you think long and hard about a problem or question before asking for assistance. That is the only way to improve your own problem solving abilities and the only way to ensure that the knowledge becomes firmly etched in your memory.

Each homework set will be graded (unless it is turned in late) and returned via the alphabetical cubbyholes marked Physics 6 inside Room 121 in the Thimann lab building (the 6A lab room). The solutions will be posted on the wall in Thimann and put on reserve in the science library (hard copy and ERES), so be sure to look carefully at any problem that you worked incorrectly. Advanced undergraduates will grade most of the homework. The graduate teaching assistants and I will grade the exams. Errors in grading do frequently occur. If you think that there was an error in the grading of your homework or exam, then do not hesitate to see me about it (unless the error is in your favor, of course). However, given the size of the class, I don’t want to be nit-picked about the grader’s judgement as to how much partial credit to assign to incorrectly worked homework problems. There will be many graders, so it is not unlikely that you and your friends will receive different scores for identically incorrect solutions. Each of your assignments should go to a different grader, so it should average out in the end, as far as homework is concerned. On the exams, a single person always grades a given problem for all students, in order to keep the grading consistent.

Lectures: I would like for you to make at least a first pass at each reading assignment, as listed above in the syllabus, before coming to class. Due to the limited time, the lectures will not cover all of the material in the textbook. In fact, the lectures are intended to supplement the textbook, not substitute for it. In the lectures I will concentrate on improving your conceptual understanding of the principal topics of the course. I will also work on problem solving and calculational techniques as time allows, but I will rely upon the discussion sections to complete that job.

Lectures will consist of presentations of the principal topics, some example calculations, demonstrations using various pieces of laboratory apparatus, and occasional “active learning sessions.” The latter work as follows: You first try to answer a multiple-choice question on your own. I then request a show of hands for each of the possible responses. You look around yourself for a neighbor who disagreed with you, and you discuss the question together, each trying to convince the other. A second show of hands is then requested. If there remains some disagreement, then I spend some more time going over the question. The multiple-choice questions will stress conceptual understanding of the physics. Studies have shown that this method of interactive learning is very effective at overcoming common misconceptions that arise in the study of physics. Trying to explain a concept to a peer is extremely effective in firming up your own understanding, and quite often a peer is able to explain a concept in a way that gets it across to you more effectively than I am able to accomplish in the traditional lecture. (At the very least, taking a break from the lecture wakes everybody up!) Therefore, it is to your advantage to participate seriously.

You are encouraged to ask questions at any time during the lectures. Of course, I will always be happy to answer questions after the lecture and during office hours. However, it is frequently frustrating to be asked a question just after the lecture only to realize that I didn’t get something across completely or effectively during the lecture. It is usually too late then to rectify the problem for the class as a whole. For that reason, if something is not making sense, please speak up and ask your question during the lecture. Do not assume that you are the only one in the lecture hall who did not understand some point. Most likely there are 100 or more other students present who have the same question (whether they realize it or not).

Discussion Sections: you are strongly encouraged (but not required) to attend regularly the weekly discussion sections. They will concentrate on problem solving and could, therefore, be useful to you when working homework problems and preparing for the exams. The instructor should not actually work your homework out for you, but similar examples can be worked out in the section, hints can be generously supplied, questions answered, and so forth. The discussion session times and locations are

7:00¾8:30 pm, Tuesday, Thimann Lecture Hall, Room 1.

6:00¾7:30 pm, Wednesday, Nat. Sci. Annex, Room 101.

Office Hours: All students are strongly encouraged to make good use of my office hours. I have set aside that time specifically to work with students. If nobody shows up, then certainly I will always find something else to work on. You must not feel that you are interrupting, however, if you come during my office hours and find me working. You have first priority during that time, and I will be happy to meet with you, help with homework problems, and discuss anything even remotely related to the course material.

As soon as the information is available, I will pass out a schedule of office hours for the teaching assistants, so please make good use of those opportunities as well. In fact, many students appear to be more comfortable going to the teaching assistants for help than to the professor. That may be understandable, but it is unfortunate for me. I would like to encourage all students to come, if possible, to my own office hours at least once during the quarter. Such one-on-one interaction with students is as important for me as it is for you. I need that direct interaction in order to get a good sense of how well the course material is getting across and what problems the students are having.

If you find my door closed, please don’t hesitate to knock. I am usually also receptive to relatively quick questions outside of my office hours, although you may have to look around a little to find me. I am usually on campus Monday through Friday and can be found in my office or in the SCIPP laboratory and office area on the third floor of the Nat. Sci. II building. If there is a special and urgent need, then you can make an appointment to meet with me outside of my office hours. Please understand, however, that my time constraints cannot allow me to establish regular tutoring sessions with students outside of my scheduled office hours, especially with such a large class.

I am also readily available via e-mail. If you have specific questions that you can write down, then send them to me and I will try to respond as soon as possible.

Exams: Midterms: January 26 and February 23. Final: Saturday, March 17, 8:00 to 11:00 am.

The exams will be designed to reflect the emphasis of this course on conceptual understanding. Part of each exam will consist of traditional problem solving, while the remainder will stress the concepts and relationships in more qualitative ways. The conceptual half will include short essay questions and some multiple choice questions similar to those discussed in class. In fact, many of the multiple choice questions used in class and on exams will be similar to what are found in the MCAT physics test.

Exams will be closed book, with no notes allowed. You will be expected to memorize the basic formulæ and definitions. I will provide with the exams a list of necessary physical constants, plus any esoteric formulæ that one should not be expected to memorize. There will be very few such cases this quarter, but an example might be the factor of 2/3 in the moment of inertia of a sphere. I expect you to know by heart basic mathematical facts, such as the relationship between the area of a circle and its radius. Each student should bring a scientific calculator to all exams.

No makeup exams are scheduled. If you miss an exam due to an unavoidable catastrophe, then please come to see me about what to do, together with appropriate documentation of your excuse. Please do not ask to take the final exam early.

Evaluations: Grades and evaluations will be based on the homework and exam scores according to the following approximate weights:

· Homework: 25%.

· Midterm exams: 17.5% each.

· Final exam: 40%.

The relatively heavy weight put on the homework is intended to encourage you to complete all of the assignments and to give some help to those students who have difficulty with exams even after working hard. If you can ace the exams without handing in the homework, then I will disregard the homework and evaluate you based on the exams. On the other hand, if your exam performances are mediocre or borderline failing, then your homework effort can make a major difference in your grade and evaluation. The vast majority of students should understand that they need to do all of the homework (and that does not mean copying the solutions from a friend) in order to do well on the exams.

Class Courtesy: Please make a special effort to arrive at class on time. Also, please avoid leaving early. Students going in and out during the lecture are extremely disruptive to the rest of the class and to me. If you unavoidably arrive late or absolutely must leave early, then please take a seat in the back rows of the lecture hall.

Learning Physics Takes Work. Doing all of the reading assignments, participating in the lectures and labs, and working all of the assigned homework problems is the minimum effort needed to gain a competent understanding of each of the topics covered in this course. You should expect to work at least about 16 hours per week on this course alone: 4 in class, 4 in lab (including preparation before the session), and 8 studying the book and doing homework (including attendance of the discussion sections). That is not unreasonable for 6 units of university credit. Depending on your abilities, to truly excel in the course may require somewhat more effort. Take a look at the introductory section in the textbook, “How to Succeed in Physics by Really Trying,” for some suggestions on study habits.

In any course, it is advisable to keep up with the work throughout the quarter, but that is especially crucial in physics. The material builds upon itself throughout the 3-quarter sequence. It is simply not possible to understand Chapter 3 if you do not first understand Chapter 2, and so forth. You cannot take a week off from the physics homework under the assumption that you will miss just 10% of the course. If you do so, you will be in trouble the following week and the week after and so forth, unless you go back and learn the material that you missed. If you keep up with the pace every week, then hopefully you will not only excel on the exams but will also enjoy the experience of learning physics.