PHYSICS 101N Elementary
Physics Syllabus
Dr. Gary
Copeland Fall Term 2007
OFFICE: Room 239 OCNPS, 4600 Elkhorn Ave. - just west of Webb Center.
CONTACT INFORMATION:
683-4619 or call 683-3568 and leave a message.
E-mail: gcopelan @
odu.edu
Course
Home Page: http://www.physics.odu.edu/~gcopelan/p101/index.html
OFFICE HOURS: Monday, Wednesday from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a. m. No appointment required - Drop in consultations with students at other times will be handled as time permits. My Office Hours and Schedule.
PREREQUISITES: Curiosity about the universe and some high school math skills.
COURSE GRADE: Your grade is computed using the following weights.
| Quizzes (two at 10% each) | 20% |
| Laboratory | 20% |
| In-Class Quizzes and attendance | 5% |
| Homework | 25% |
| Final Examination Tuesday Dec. 11 @ 12:30-3:30pm | 30% |
QUIZZES and FINAL EXAMINATION:
1. Quizzes and the final examination are "closed-book." I will furnish you with equations as needed.
2. You must bring a calculator to the examination. You may not share calculators.
3. No "make-up" examinations will be given. Consult with me before you miss an examination in case you have a legitimate reason for missing an examination.
4. Your attention is drawn to the Honor Code.
LECTURES: Room 200 OCNPS Tuesday and Thursday 1:30-3:30pm
You are urged to attend all scheduled lectures for several reasons: you paid for them; material not in the text will be presented; homework problems will be discussed; assignments will be made; and tests will be scheduled. I will on occasion take roll during the lecture and there are in-class quizzes.
The major reasons that students fail this course are: skipping class and/or not doing the homework,
for that reason I take attendance in the lecture and count it in the grade.
If you skip classes and do not do the homework, you will never pass the exams!
LABORATORY: This is an important part of Physics. Attendance is required in the laboratory. A schedule of our best estimates as to which experiments will be conducted is attached to this document. Read the experiment before you go to the lab. Students who fail the laboratory will fail the entire course.
1. Homework problems from the text are assigned on a separate link on the home page and are due as announced. In addition, every once in a while special work will be assigned in class in order to highlight a special physical principle - generally these short calculations will not be graded - but they do sometimes show up on quizzes.
2. Assigned homework is to be submitted on paper and placed in the mailbox outside of OCNPS 124 by noon on the homework due date. See the homework link on homepage for the list and dates.
3. The format will be one problem per page. Copy the problem at top of the page. Draw a figure as required. Show all work and identify your answer with an arrow and underline it. Format is important since the human grader must check by hand hundreds of submissions, so follow instructions. Fold length wise and print on the outside, your name, ODU ID, assignment number and date on the outside.
4 Time extensions for homework will not be considered in general. See me of more information.
A detailed listing of your performance will be posted periodically (after exams are handed back) for your inspection and comparison with the others in the class. A histogram and class statistics will be posted that shows graphically how your performance compares with your class mates.
COURSE OBJECTIVES: Elementary Physics, Physics 101-02N is a two semester physics sequence including laboratories.
101N-102N. Elementary Physics. Lecture hours; laboratory 2 hours; 4 credits each semester. PHYS 101N is a prerequisite for 102N. An introductory descriptive course which develops and illustrates the concepts of physics in terms phenomena encountered in daily life. The first semester covers mechanics, electricity and magnetism. The second semester covers sound, light, fluids and heat. (offered fall-spring sequence)
TOPICS COVERED in the textbook. A list of the possible coverage is below.
Chapter 1 About Science
Mechanics Chapters 2 through 10
Electricity and Magnetism Chapters 22 - 25
See the list on the main class home page. Assignment dates and times are subject to changes - which will be posted on the Web Site.
LABORATORIES:
All laboratory sections meet in OCNPS Room 138 on Wednesday.
Syllabus and Schedule for Laboratory Fall Term 2007
Schedule is linked to the Class Home page.
1. Purchase a bound notebook of a type as designated by your lab instructor. Do this after the first lab meeting which is the first week of classes. In it you will record data as well as write up your laboratory reports. The reports will be turned in for grading. Students who fail the lab work will fail the entire course.
2. There are several scheduled laboratory sections for Fall 2007 all taught on Wednesdays. So do not miss lab since there are no other sessions in a given week.
3. Calculators, graph paper, and straight edges will not be provided in the laboratory. You must read the assigned experiment before the laboratory begins and bring those things required. Due to the nature of this course, topics in the lecture and the lab will not always be phased such that the student sees the topic in the lecture first. Thus it is vital that the student read the laboratory and pertinent text sections before the lab is attempted. On occasion pop quizzes are held in order to insure that the students have read the assigned laboratory.
4. Scheduled experiments are listed on the course home page.
5. ATTENDANCE: Completion of the assigned experiments in a scheduled lab is your most important task. Consequently, attendance is mandatory. You will be told the attendance requirements in class. The best bet is to attend all scheduled labs. It is the responsibility of the student in inform their instructor of the absence and to arrange for a make-up of the work to be missed.
6. Laboratory reports: See the notes included with the lab manual for the details of what a report should contain. Your laboratory instructor will discuss the format for your laboratory report and their grading procedure. Record the data taken in a bound notebook that is used only for this laboratory. No loose leaf notebooks or scrapes of paper are allowed for the collection of data.
PHYSICS LEARNING CENTER:The schedule will be posted on the doors to Rooms 142 and on the web at listed on the course home page. Note: The Learning Center will be open starting the second week of class.
POLICY ON ACADEMIC DISHONESTY:
Students may consult the ``Student Disciplinary Policy and Procedures'' Manual (located in the department secretarial office) for details. A significant item is the following:
``All official disciplinary sanctions, including grade sanctions, which are assigned to a student as a result of an act of academic dishonesty, will be recorded on the student's official University transcript.'' Look at the University Policy statement at The Honor Council.
Although not taught as a formal course, taking tests is a science in itself. Students skilled in this subject more than in physics sometimes can score high on a test, although the author of the test tries his/her best to make the test measure ability in physics, and not in "testpersonship." Here are some results of "testpersonship science":
* First read the instructions carefully.
* Before starting to work on one particular problem, take time to read all problems at the beginning of the test period. Normally, there is one problem which appears easier or quicker to solve than others, or which, although not more difficult than others, gives more points. Do this problem first, and the most difficult problem last. In other words, be sure to get all the credit for the things that you know.
* Read the problem carefully, until you understand every word completely. If the wording is ambiguous, call a supervisor and ask. Do not assume, e.g., that all angles are measured from the horizontal, unless it is stated in the problem; the assumption of the problem inventor might be opposite to yours; rather ask. Very often students, in their hurry, assume the problem is asking one thing, while in fact it is asking something else. If necessary, state the assumption you make. Partial credit is much more likely if this is done.
* Calculate exactly what is asked for by the simplest method allowed by the problem (sometimes the method might be prescribed to be a graphical method, even though analytical calculation might be easier, or vice versa).
* State (or show) clearly and in a logical sequence what you do.
* Plan your time. If a particular problem takes too long, abandon it and try another. If you have only 5 minutes left to the end, it might be more fruitful to attempt the next problem than to insert numbers in a complicated formula to gain the last 4 points for a numerically correct answer.
* Attempt all problems and hope for partial credit.
* Draw a diagram. If possible, write neatly and legible, separate scratch calculations from your mainstream argument; underline partial and final results.
* If you can't solve a particular problem, don't panic, solve all others first. Then consider that problem. It may be that a constant is given with this problem, or other incidental information, e.g. Pi = 3.14, g=10 m/s2, which might give you a hint.
* If you have time left in the end, check if your answers are physically reasonable. If you have somehow found a speed twice as great as that of light something is terribly wrong (it might be the problem, however, so don't worry too much). Similarly, the period of a planet circulating the sun is the order of magnitude of a year or so, not 10 seconds or 1018 years (which is longer than the age of the universe); also the diameter of an atom is the order of 1x10-8 cm = 1x10-10 meters, but obviously not 10 km or 10 m. If you are pressed for time, at least write something so the grader knows that you know what does or does not make sense.
* Even it you think you have written nothing but garbage for some problem, do not tear it up or otherwise throw it away. Sometimes you can get partial credit for your garbage. In any event, you can't get less than the zero you would get if you turned in nothing or don't put your name on the quiz.
Adapted from the Teaching Assistant's Manual from the University of Maryland by Dr. A. W. Weidemann.