PHYSICS 213 Syllabus

University of Kentucky — General Physics II  (Spring 2002)

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PHYSICS 213   (Spring 2002)
LECTURE meeting place Chem.-Phys. Bldg., Rm. 153 (“CP 153”)
LECTURE A (§§ 1, 3, 5, 7)
Meeting Time 		Tu & Th 9:30–10:20 a.m.
LECTURE B (§§     4, 6, 8)
Meeting Time 		Tu & Th 11:00–11:50 a.m.
Credit Hours 5 hours, including Lab
Prerequisites PHY 211 or 201 (or equivalent)
MA 109 and 112 (or equivalents) recommended
INSTRUCTOR Prof. David Harmin
Office CP 375
Telephone voice (859) 257–2664;   fax (859) 323–2846
Office Hours   M & Tu 1:30–2:30 p.m. & W 2–3 p.m.,  or by appointment  
Email david@harmin.pa.uky.edu


PHYSICS 213 — Table of Contents of this Syllabus

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BACK to the PHYSICS 213 Home Page    Welcome to PHYSICS 213!

General Physics II  is the second half of the algebra-based introductory physics survey course at the University of Kentucky.

We assume that you have already taken the first semester of this two-semester sequence, PHY 211 (General Physics I), or its equivalent. There you presumably got a feel for the basics of Classical Mechanics and learned the following: how to use vectors to describe quantities with magnitude and direction (velocities v, forces F, ...) and how to add them using vector algebra; how to wield Newton's laws of motion and gravitation, spearheaded by F=ma; how Energy plays a paramount role in all of physics; and perhaps a little bit how to think about rotational motion, simple harmonic motion, equilibria and statics, thermodynamics, and/or special relativity.

This semester we concentrate on Electromagnetism and Light, with a hint of Modern Physics thrown in at the end. The concepts and topics to be presented here—even what we mean by “light”—will likely strike you as more abstract than the directly experienced items of mechanics do (velocities, forces, ...), although we still rely on motion, Forces, and energy to measure those abstractions. Our principal constructs, Electric Fields (sets of vectors E) and Magnetic Fields (sets of vectors B), nevertheless provide us with an elegant, sensible, and useful framework for describing how things interact. Everything in our day-to-day physical world of colors, chemistry, electricity, biology, music, and skies ultimately owes its measureable properties to the laws and forces of Electromagnetism. (Well, OK, that's a white lie. Quantum Mechanics plays a critical part and radioactivity plays a minor but nonnegligible part. We'll have to relegate these difficult subjects to bit players in this drama. Gravity, too.) The package of four equations polished by Maxwell in 1873 represents one of the great gems of human inquiry. It has given us nothing less than the production of electrical power, the control of radio waves and wireless communication, modern computing and medical technologies—not to mention a deeper view of rainbows and galaxies and space and time and the rest.

Since you'll need to be conversant in algebra and basic trigonometry, a background in MATH 109 (College Algebra) and MATH 112 (Trigonometry), or their equivalents, is not only recommended but ESSENTIAL. (For a minimalist review, see Appendix A in our textbook.)

Physics is a subject with a rich history and many layers. At the level of PHY 213, it is already sufficiently difficult to require serious commitment, diligence, organization, and persistence on your part. It is admittedly hard work. There is no way around it: If you wish to succeed in this course at all, you will have to spend A LOT OF TIME outside the classroom working on it. But consider---we will be helping you learn many of Nature's secrets!! Getting there requires your collaboration with us. You cannot afford to slack off from reading, attempting problems, checking your answers and comprehension, consulting with your fellow students and the Instructors, ... You must always dig a little deeper. The only way to learn a language—and physics is one—is to force yourself to speak it every day. If you are willing to muster this level of commitment, you will accomplish much in this course.

See the Schedule of Reading & Homework [Problem] Assignments and Exams, which includes a Schedule of Topics.

Lecture Notes are also available, as are Homework and Exam Solutions (as they arise).

Labs are discussed here, which includes a Lab Schedule.

This PHYSICS 213 Web site is discussed below.

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BACK to the PHYSICS 213 Home Page    Goals

Our intention is expose you to Nature's electric and magnetic language, to shed light on, well, light itself. But just as importantly, we hope to help you learn to reason analytically about all kinds of problems where you need to make judgments about data, to invoke logic and a few (yes, a few!) fundamental rules, to analyze processes, to assess outcomes and predict and judge consequences. Reasoning well is not the same thing as “problem-solving” and certainly has little to do with rote memorization or working from a recipe, so

“Problem solving” per se is NOT the goal of this course!!

Rather you could say that The goal of this course is Thinking. ... Plus some knowledge of physics, of course. This knowledge includes just a handful of basic physical principles and concepts. We will see how to apply these broad principles to a variety of physical circumstances and how to recognize their effects in the phenomena of your daily lives. We also envision applications of these foundations to your possible careers—which is no doubt why many of you are taking this class. Of course there's no escaping the fact that you will have to hone various skills to these ends—in mental-imaging, communication, and, indeed, problem-solving—as adjuncts to your reasoning skills. But learning problem-solving techniques and templates should remain subservient to your learning physics concepts and how to reason about physics and how to think in general. For you to gain anything from this course, problem-solving must not become an end in itself.

Realistically speaking, we know that the actual target of many students in introductory physics courses is some acceptable grade, otherwise known as a “Surviving Physics.” We sympathize. We are here to help not to hinder. The subject is technical, mathematical, difficult, with an evil reputation in some circles. One hunkers down, absorbs formulas, slogs through HW assignments, aims for optimal exam performance, and counts the microseconds till it's all mercifully over.

But that's much too pessimistic and self-defeating! Physics can be endlessly fascinating and beautiful, truly, even at our survey-course level. Don't take our word for it—see for yourselves. If you are curious at all about how the world works, if you have Questions ... here's a chance to Discover! Attitude is a major component of success in this course. So is Prose: Much more often than you might think, we prefer that you attempt to express yourself clearly through words and pictures rather than make flourishes with proudly memorized but ill-understood equations. Try your best to view all the questions and exercises and problems we come across as tools towards understanding and clear thinking—as exercise in the best sense of the word. You will discover not only answers to your questions but, if all goes well, many new questions.

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BACK to the PHYSICS 213 Home Page    The Textbook

Giancoli, 5th ed. The textbook for this course is the fifth edition of PHYSICS: PRINCIPLES WITH APPLICATIONS, by Douglas C. Giancoli (Prentice-Hall, 1998), which will be referred to here as “GIANCOLI/5”. (An earlier edition is no substitute, sorry.) Our main adventures with this tome will lie in Chapters 16–24, with brief excursions into Appendix D and Chapters 11, 26, & 30–31. Please note that GIANCOLI/5 is the only required text for PHY 213 (aside from the Lab Manual). Any other books, such as GIANCOLI's Student Workbook, may prove useful but are not required for this course; you shouldn't have to pay for them and we will make no official references to it.

GIANCOLI/5 is one of several resources that can aid you in this course. But, second only to your own brain, it is probably the one you'll spend the most time with. Use it wisely! It is loaded with information—perhaps one should say “laden” or “leaden” with stuff—so you need to familiarize yourself with its layout. If you haven't already done so, consider reading the Preface (pp. xii–xvii), studying the Notes on pp. xxii and xxiii, perusing the Appendices, especially A (p. 1036) and B (p. 1048), and glancing over the inside covers for a few minutes (yet again).

Our textbook has an interactive Web site (set up by the publisher, Prentice-Hall), which you are strongly encouraged to visit. Moreover, the Physics & Astronomy Dept., the Chem.-Phys. Library, your fellow students, and maybe even you yourself possess other physics textbooks out of which you can coax a second opinion. In this line of business, you're always better off hearing it from more than one source.

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BACK to the PHYSICS 213 Home Page    Course Format

PHY 213 presents each of you with two plenary LECTURES and two smaller RECITATION sections per calendar week. Our “work week” is, however, slightly skewed: it follows a cycle that begins with a LECTURE on Tuesday (Tu), then a RECITATION on Wednesday (W), a second LECTURE on Thursday (Th or “R”), and ends with a second RECITATION on the following Monday (M). The topics we study will be organized around 15 of these weekly units (except when disrupted by holidays—see the Schedule of Topics and the Schedule of Reading & Homework Assignments). Each week, ideally, the Tu LECTURE and the W RECITATION are paired to deal principally with conceptual issues and to present new material, while the Th LECTURE and the M RECITATION are paired to follow up on the physics concepts and to demonstrate mathematical techniques pertinent to the discussion and homework problems.

Class days will be referred to by week and weekday as #01W, #01R, #01M, #02T, #02W, ..., #15R.

All Students registered for PHY 213 also have LABORATORY work; each lab meets once a week, on Tu, W, Th, or F. The Lab schedule is independent of our LECTURE–RECITATION schedule but topics covered are correlated between them within a week or so.

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BACK to the PHYSICS 213 Home Page    Lecture vs. Recitation

Every student in PHY 213 has registered for one of 7 sections of PHY 213 this semester: catalog code numbers 04348 001 for §1 through 04355 008 for §8, excluding 04349 002 (§2 was cancelled). Please be sure you know your section number (1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8), when and where it meets, your Recitation Instructor's name and office hours, and how to get a hold of that person. LABs are discussed briefly below and more extensively [here]. See above for LECTURE information. Here's the RECITATION and LABORATORY schedule and the LECTURE schedule:

PHY 213 RECITATION & LABORATORY Schedule   (Spring 2002)
Sec.
# 		RECITATION
LABORATORY
Meets at ... Room Instructor Meets at ... Room Instructor
1 MW 08:00–08:50 a.m. CP 397 John Scoville Tu 01:00–02:50 p.m. CP 167 Samara Wadley
2 MW 08:00–08:50 a.m. CP 297 —CANCELLED— W 01:00–02:50 p.m. CP 167 —CANCELLED—
3 MW 09:00–09:50 a.m. CP 397 Dan Dale Th 01:00–02:50 p.m. CP 167 Samara Wadley
4 MW 09:00–09:50 a.m. CP 297 Gargi Shaw Tu 03:00–04:50 p.m. CP 167 Oleksandr Zelyak
5 MW 10:00–10:50 a.m. CP 397 Chad Howard W 03:00–04:50 p.m. CP 167 Oleksandr Zelyak
6 MW 10:00–10:50 a.m. CP 297 Herb Fertig Th 03:00–04:50 p.m. CP 167 Oleksandr Zelyak
7 MW 08:00–08:50 a.m. CP 183 Gargi Shaw F 08:00–09:50 a.m. CP 167 Samara Wadley
8 MW 11:00–11:50 a.m. CP 297 David Harmin F 10:00–11:50 a.m. CP 167 George Mihalache-Leca
LECTURE
LEC. A TuTh 09:30–10:20 a.m. CP 153 David Harmin
Q&A TuTh 10:25–10:50 a.m. CP 153 David Harmin
LEC. B TuTh 11:00–11:50 a.m. CP 153 David Harmin

The TuTh LECTURES provide our main venue for introducing new topics—see the Schedule of Topics. There we will use conceptual questions (see about “ConcepTests” under Peer Instruction below) to practice thinking in physical terms, view live demonstrations, review some problem-solving matters, administer hour Exams, and make course announcements. Reading Quizzes and ConcepTests (all multiple-choice) will be given in almost every LECTURE. You are strongly encouraged to ask questions at any time about the material under review, even if you are reluctant to pipe up in a large lecture hall.   Some of the instructor's Lecture Notes will be available online. Immediately following most LECTURES (10:25–10:50 a.m.), the INSTRUCTOR will hold an extra, very informal question-and-answer-and-discussion session.

During RECITATION, you will have the opportunity to interact with other students and an instructor in a smaller class. There you can collectively review the physics principles introduced in the preceding LECTURE(S), review answers to QUESTIONS and solutions to PROBLEMS assigned for that day, and ask questions about things you're confused about (those reluctant to ask questions in public ought to feel less intimidated in the smaller class) ... and then ask more questions. Don't be shy! Recitation Quizzes will be given during every RECITATION meeting except on #01W and pre-Exam days.

Your Recitation Instructor is the primary person with whom you should negotiate regarding: advice on tackling homework problems; Recitation Quizzes; getting back graded 1-hour Exams; queries about the grading of your Recitation Quizzes and hour Exams, and submitting Exams for regrades; an excused absence from an Exam; and records of your grades. Your Recitation Instructor will grade your Recitation Quizzes, and all the course's Instructors will collectively grade the Exams. Note that when it comes time for us to assign you a grade at course's end, it will be your own Recitation Instructor who knows you and your performance best and who could best inform a borderline decision. Also note that your feedback is always welcome and encouraged regarding all aspects of the course—suggestions, complaints, and compliments alike. Please free to approach the INSTRUCTOR and all the Recitation Instructors with your comments or questions.

To make this system work, you should try to attend all LECTURES and all biweekly RECITATION meetings for your assigned section and pick up your graded materials only from your Recitation Instructor. For purposes of enlightenment (it's healthy to get a second opinion) you may also attend other sections' RECITATION meetings with the permission of their instructors.

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BACK to the PHYSICS 213 Home Page    Labs

Experimentation is an essential component of all science. Testable “experience” is the sine qua non for endowing all our lofty physics concepts with empirically well-grounded meaning. The LABORATORY component of PHY 213 is required of everyone because we consider it vital to an education in physics.

We have attempted to coordinate the timing of experiments done in LABORATORY sections and the topics we cover in LECTURE and RECITATION sections.

For detailed information on LABORATORY experiments, equipment, the programmable calculators you'll need, Lab Reports, LABORATORY Rules and Procedures, etc., please see the Laboratory Assignment Schedule and Guidelines. You may also contact Prof. David Harmin, the “Superintendent” of labs for PHY 213, or Mr. George Mihalache-Leca, the student Supervisor of PHY 213 labs. Or you may get in touch with Mr. Steve Ellis, our Lab Specialist, who is in charge of all undergraduate labs in the Dept. of Physics & Astronomy. See the Table above for LAB rooms and times. Lab Reports and Grades are discussed below and in more detail elsewhere.

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BACK to the PHYSICS 213 Home Page    Peer Instruction

During a typical LECTURE, much of your time will be spent teaching each other! Recent research in physics education has indicated that this is a very productive way to keep people “actively engaged” in class—by having them do something. These are group efforts and will constitute a major activity of most LECTURE periods. We use questions, called “ConcepTests,” that require little calculation, if any. They are rather like puzzles, carefully designed to lay bare some of the more confusing or subtle or difficult-to-picture concepts we employ, in order to force you to confront them explicitly and to rectify possible misconceptions. We also hope that this type of daily interaction will foster the formation of study groups outside of class.

In this format of Peer Instruction, the INSTRUCTOR shows everyone a conceptual question and a few multiple-choice answers. First you are given a minute or so to come up with an answer on your own. Answers are recorded. Then you must try again but this time you work together in groups of three or four, and your group must come up with a unanimous answer. Everyone in the group should participate, invoking whatever arguments seem appropriate to convince and disprove and correct and support each other in order to reach a consensus. This all happens with essentially no interference from the INSTRUCTOR, by the way. You record your second answer—your group's answer—which may be different from the first but doesn't have to be. Finally, the class as a whole discusses the best answer.

Two or three or four ConcepTests, typically, will happen each LECTURE. All responses to all ConcepTests will be collected and “graded”to furnish us with information about how the whole class is progressing—but no answers as such will count towards your final grade. You will, however, receive credit for handing in your answers for the day's ConcepTests (see Grades).

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BACK to the PHYSICS 213 Home Page    Homework Assignments

Refer to the Schedule of Reading & Homework [QUESTIONS & PROBLEMS] Assignments and Exams or to the Solutions page for each day's assigned work. Dates and assignments are organized according to our TuW+ThM work week. You should consult this schedule frequently. Any amendments, corrections, or changes to these assignments and the course schedule will be announced primarily in lecture and secondarily in recitation and through our course’s Web pages.

A reading assignment from GIANCOLI/5 is associated with every LECTURE in the Reading & HW Schedule (excluding Exam days). Each assignment asks you to read or review some Chapter Sections out of GIANCOLI/5. It is essential that you seriously attempt—usually more than once—to study all the material aimed at a particular LECTURE before the Lecture meets! The Reading Quiz given in each LECTURE will pertain to that day's reading assignment.

The material covered in a Tu LECTURE has a corresponding homework assignment due the next day, in the W RECITATION, while that covered in a Th LECTURE has a corresponding homework assignment due in the following M RECITATION. Most assignments include both QUESTION- and PROBLEM-type questions found at the end of each chapter in GIANCOLI/5.

No homework assignments will be graded! Nor will they be collected. Solutions will be posted in the Chem.-Phys. Library (on reserve) and on our Web site. Homework is “due” on the W or M for which it is assigned in the sense that: some of it will be reviewed in RECITATION; each Recitation Quiz will be based on that day's homework assignment; and the assigned QUESTIONS and PROBLEMS are intended to keep you on schedule and to give you the practice you need in thinking about the course's current topics.

Although homework will not be collected or graded ... The responsibility is yours to check your methods, explanations, and solutions without delay and to seek help when you need it.  ASK QUESTIONS!  It is essential that you not fall behind in your reading and homework assignments. The course material is cumulative (!!!) so your progress won't readily withstand large gaps in your commitment.

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BACK to the PHYSICS 213 Home Page    Quizzes and Exams

Three types of Quizzes are to be given and graded regularly in this course and evaluated for credit: Reading Quizzes, ConcepTests, and Recitation Quizzes. (Scores for Lab Reports also include a short quiz.) There will be three one-hour Exams during the semester and a two-hour FINAL Exam during Finals Week. Exam dates are given in the HW schedule. Grades based on point totals are discussed below.

Calculators will be permitted—though not needed—for most Quizzes, the hour Exams, and the FINAL Exam. You will not be permitted to use your own formula sheets on any Recitation Quizzes or hour Exams, but one-sided formula sheets will be allowed for the FINAL Exam. In any case, physical constants and a list of formulas will be provided with each Exam. You many not refer to GIANCOLI/5 or any textbook or notes of any kind during Reading Quizzes or Recitation Quizzes or any Exams. But anything goes for ConcepTests.

Solutions to Reading Quizzes and ConcepTests will be announced immediately after they are given. Solutions to Recitation Quizzes will be available from your Recitation Instructor. Solutions to the hour Exams will be posted in the Chem.-Phys. Library (on reserve) and on our Web page.

If you have a question about the grading of a Recitation Quiz or an Exam, or if you believe that an answer justifies more points, or that your work has been judged unfairly, you are welcome to request a regrade. Please talk to your Recitation Instructor first about the seriousness of the discrepancy (as you perceive it). If it's a Recitation Quiz, settle it right away with your Recitation Instructor if possible. If action needs to be taken on an Exam: present in writing an explanation of what your objections are, together with your examination, to your Recitation Instructor, who will funnel your case through our system of graders for a reappraisal. You must do this within one week of the day the graded Exams have been returned to the class. Your Recitation Instructor will return your reassessed papers to you. (Please avoid 1- or 2-point complaints unless they're really important.) Lab-report queries should be handled through your Laboratory Instructor.

See The Writing Requirement below regarding well presented, “correct” solutions.

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BACK to the PHYSICS 213 Home Page    Excused Absences

If you miss a LECTURE, discuss make-up grades for missed Reading Quizzes or missed ConcepTests with the INSTRUCTOR. However, if you are absent from a RECITATION and wish to make up a missed Recitation Quiz, you should discuss with your Recitation Instructor whether you have a valid reason for having missed it. This must be done before the next RECITATION meeting of your section. If your Recitation Instructor agrees, then he or she will give you a make-up Recitation Quiz some time before your next RECITATION class. (In case of a conflict or problem arranging a make-up, you may contact the INSTRUCTOR as a last resort.) Take a look at the schedule.

If you know in advance that you will have to miss one of the three hour-long Exams, speak to the INSTRUCTOR or your Recitation Instructor in person at least one week in advance of the Exam date regarding your reason (participation in a school-sponsored event or competition, unreschedulable medical appointment, religious holiday, etc.) and present a written document attesting to the reason. To receive an excused absence, you must have a Valid University Excuse, which we take as defined under Excused Absences on p. 54 of the 2001–2002 University of Kentucky University Bulletin. See also the University of Kentucky handbook, Student Rights and Responsibilities, § 5.2.4.2. (Needless to say, oversleeping, extended vacations, and sports spectating are not “Excused” absences!)

If you miss an Exam for an unscheduled reason (medical or family emergency, ...), contact the INSTRUCTOR or your Recitation Instructor As Soon As Possible.

The same rules for missed Exams apply to missed LABORATORIES; contact your Laboratory Instructor.

An excused absence from one Exam will result in a make-up grade calculated in the following standard way. We can calculate everyone's total for all Exams taken and rank the class according to these totals. We do this—but just for those Exams you have taken; based on this we note your standing in the class. You then receive a score for the missed Exam that preserves your total-Exam-score ranking when all Exams are taken into account. In other words, your make-up Exam score will not change your overall performance on the Exams relative to the rest of the class.

If you miss two or more Exams with excused absences, or if you miss the FINAL Exam with an excused absence, you automatically receive an incomplete (“I” grade) for the course and must make up all work by a future date to be determined in consultation with the INSTRUCTOR. If you miss any Exam without an excused absence, you receive a 0 for the Exam. If you miss two or more 1-hour Exams without excused absences or if you miss the FINAL Exam without an excused absence you automatically fail the course (“E” grade).

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BACK to the PHYSICS 213 Home Page    Grades

Your point tally for PHY 213 will be computed as follows:

So the point totals look like this:

PHYSICS 213 Max. Point Totals   (Spring 2002)
APPROX.
#
  		MAX.
EACH
  		MAX.
TOTAL
(RAW) 		MAX.
POINTS
(RESCALED)
Reading Quizzes 25 2 50 60
ConcepTest sets 26 1 26 40
Recitation Quizzes 24 5 105 200
Laboratory 13 15–20 ~ 220 200
One-Hour Exams   3 100 300 300
FINAL Exam   1 200 200 200
TOTAL 1000

Letter grades {A, B, C, D, E} will be assigned based on your total score. All scores will be “curved”—there are no predetermined cutoffs. Although student performance in our physics survey courses tends to follow a generic bell-shaped curve, our curve will not necessarily be hammered into a strictly bellish shape. (Consider the bactrian camel.) Final grade distributions will depend on how well, in our judgment, students have learned the material. Preliminary grade distributions will be announced after each hour Exam but are to be interpreted only as temporary indicators of your progress.

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BACK to the PHYSICS 213 Home Page    The Writing Requirement

PHY 213 belongs to the University Studies Program. Therefore, we take seriously the notion that you should endeavor to express yourselves clearly in writing.

Does the work in physics courses consist solely of mathematical problem-solving? NO. If it did, homework and exam solutions would comprise lists of formulas, equations, numbers, names, symbols, and fragments thereof—with no sentences in plain English explaining what is going on, and perhaps with little or no logical organization. Sorry, that won't do.

As in any enterprise where one person's work must be communicated to other people, science writing needs prose to make technical material as clear as possible to the reader. Complete, well written sentences provide the material needed to clothe the mathematical statements that give body to most physics solutions. (Qualitative questions, which usually demand no numerical answer, obviously have to be handled prosaically.) All your answers should be accompanied by at least some explanation in words of what you're trying to show. A missing explanation might trigger the comment “Why?” on your work. Correct spelling and grammar are desirable as well.
[Here's one tip: its is a possessive pronoun, like hers, while it’s = “it is” is a contraction, like here’s = “here is.”]

All Quiz and Exam problems will be graded with the following guidelines for judging “correct” solutions in mind. The key concept is CLARITY. We look for:

Finally, consider this: The solution to any type of problem has not been completed until you understand why the answer makes sense. Use some words—complete sentences—to explain or sum up a result. This helps a reader (i.e., a problem's grader) to see why your solution is a feasible approach and to see that you see that your answer is a sensible response to the question. Sensible: “The student held the two charged objects 5 cm apart”; nonsensical: “She held the objects 5 km apart.” Of course, you receive no credit for a correct answer that has been obtained for the wrong reason, but if you try to explain what you have in mind you might get some credit even for an incomplete or incorrect answer.

Clear thinking has no voice without clear expression.

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BACK to the PHYSICS 213 Home Page    Collaboration and “Problem-Solving”

We encourage everyone to form study groups in which you work on this course with other students, if at all possible. You will find that being compelled to explain verbally how you propose to think about both simple and difficult problems is an invaluable aid to your understanding abstract concepts. (This reflects the learning-a-new-language approach to studying physics and forms the rationale for our using Peer Instruction in LECTURES.) Work through as many PROBLEMS as possible together. Talk about all of the QUESTIONS. Make up problems for each other—and yourself! Try to do especially difficult ones; these can very effectively pinpoint sources of confusion and topics that might require some extra work or review. Be sure that you can prove to each other why certain laws apply to a problem and others do not, why certain methods are justified and why others are not, why certain data are relevant and others are not, why a particular sketch or graph may help illustrate a point, what hidden assumptions lurk behind a problem's wording, etc.

We cannot overstate the futility of formula memorization in learning physics. When you understand what something means, you know how to use it. Equations provide relationships not ideas. We'll give you the formulas. You'll have to know when their use is appropriate and what they signify. We also frown upon the use of “recipes” for solving certain classes of problems. Many problems are no doubt related, or are similar, and can be tackled with similar mathematical techniques. But memorizing and filling in problem-solving “forms” will not help you appreciate what features of the physical world the various problems investigate. Avoid memorizing formulas. Ask questions. Enjoy the puzzles.

Virtually all the physics problems that arise in PHY 213 have this in common: One must (1) make judgments about the relevance of given information, (2) formulate specific questions by analyzing those data using tried-and- true “Laws of Nature,” which place constraints on the possible relationships among the data, (3) translate those relationships into mathematical statements (because, for reasons nobody has ever grasped, mathematics seems to be the appropriate language for physical science to use when speaking about the world), (4) “solve” those mathematical statements for any loose ends, i.e., implied values of other quantities we don't yet know, and (5) make judgments about how those implications are to be interpreted as statements concerning the physical world. The “problem” is (1), the “answer” is (5), and (4) is purely math. The hard parts are (2) and (3)—sculpting data and laws into well-defined physics questions.

That's about as formulaic as one's thinking should ever get. Use words words words. Try to explain. Puzzle through the tough parts. That's how science is done: not by juggling equations but by exchanging observations and ideas. Anyway, in “real-world” research there are no answers and we usually don't even know how we “should” do things; it's mostly invention and trial and error. Occasionally this exploration leads to a discovery—but it's the exploring that's really compelling.

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BACK to the PHYSICS 213 Home Page    Cheating

We have ZERO tolerance for cheating or plagiarism in any facet of this course. If anyone is discovered cheating on any Recitation Quiz or Exam, or representing anyone else's work as one's own, that person will be prosecuted to the full extent permitted by the regulations of the University of Kentucky. Conviction entails an automatic E grade for the course and possible expulsion from the University. See §6.3 et seq. of the University of Kentucky Student Rights and Responsibilities (Part II). If you have any questions, please contact Academic Ombud Services (109 Bradley Hall) at 257–3737.

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BACK to the PHYSICS 213 Home Page    Web Site

Presumably you arrived here via the PHYSICS 213 Home Page on the World Wide Web. Our Web page's URL—Internet address—is http://www.pa.uky.edu/~david/WebPages/Phy213s02/ ; note the uppercase letters. You can also surf to it from the Department of Physics & Astronomy's Home Page, whose address is http://www.pa.uky.edu/  (these two addresses end with a slash character). On our Web site you should find hyperlinks sprinkled all over the place to online versions not only of sections of this Syllabus, but also to a Reading and Homework Assignment Schedule, a topics Schedule, a schedule of Labs, information about Instructors and course sections, Homework and Exam solutions, some LECTURE notes, announcements, and links to various resources on- and off-campus. Having a Web site also makes it easier for all of us to communicate conveniently via Email. Access to the Web is available through computers found in the Young Library Microlab (257–9296), the Chem.-Phys. Microlab (CP 148, 257–4325), and at other sites around campus.

Our textbook has an interactive Web site (set up by the publisher, Prentice-Hall), which you are strongly encouraged to visit. Go to http://www.prenhall.com/giancoli/ and choose the GIANCOLI/5 with our book's cover (or go directly to http://cw.prenhall.com/bookbind/pubbooks/giancoli/), and explore. The site's features are organized by chapter in GIANCOLI/5 and include a list of learning objectives, various types of practice questions and problems (which you can submit for “grading”), applications, an MCAT study guide, and related links.

Inquiries about computing and Email accounts at University of Kentucky should be directed to User Account Services (128 McVey Hall), 257–2900. You can create your own computing account using a Web site. For HELP! call the Help Desk at 257–1300 or check out their Web site. Another alternative is the Customer Service Center.

[PHY 213 Syllabus]   Back to the Table of Contents       



BACK to the PHYSICS 213 Home Page    Miscellaneous Resources in the Dept. of Physics & Astronomy

Departmental Main Office CP 177257–6722
Prof. David Harmin (INSTRUCTOR) CP 375257–2664
Mr. Steve Ellis (Lab Specialist) CP   68257–5845
Prof. David Harmin (PHY 213 Lab Superintendent) CP 375257–2664
Mr. George Mihalache-Leca (PHY 213 Lab Supervisor) CP 250257–3941
Prof. John Christopher (Director of Undergraduate Studies) CP 171257–5660
Prof. Joseph Brill (Chair) CP 177257–6722
Resource Room (staffed with T.A.s to answer your questions)        CP 148       

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Last updated 5 February 2002   by David A. Harmin