Final grades

UPDATE 2: I think all the + and - parts are fixed now. I will check again shortly and again (later) in the morning.
UPDATE: Bear with me, I put in some of the + and - parts in wrong in myBama. Correcting it now, should be done by 01:30.

I am about to put up final grades on Moodle, and then on myBama. By the time I hit 'post' on this thing, they should be on Moodle already. There will be a new column called "Final Grade" which is just what it sounds like. The difference between this number and the "Course Total" is due to the bonus you may have received for improving on the assessment test, and extra credit if you did it. As before, please let me know if anything seems to be in error (e.g., missing HW or lab grades).

If there is anything I hate more than having to boil your entire performance down to a single letter (perhaps with a + or -), I don't know what it would be. It is agonizing to try and decide who gets what, and I end up sitting in front of the spreadsheet for hours making sure I didn't miss anything. It is by far the worst part of the job, I would much prefer to just say 'yea' or 'nay' and be done with it. What really happens is this: I grade the final exams twice, check the spreadsheet many times, and then look at each calculated final grade. If you're close to the borderline between grades, I look a few more times at your individual grades, and take yet another look at your final exam. I do what I can, and round up where I can justify it, but it always ends up that some people are just short of a letter grade, and it can't be helped.

In the end, after the final exam some of you moved up a letter grade, and some moved down. That's how it always ends up, and as a result, some of you will be happy and some of you will be quite unhappy. I hate to see people move down based on the final exam, but it has to happen in some cases, given that it is worth 25% of your grade. I was generally pleased with how it came out. A few of you really pulled yourselves up on the final, and that was good to see. A smaller number of you made a significant drop, and that is the main reason I spent a few hours going over each final exam one more time to be certain.

Anyway: I had a lot of fun this summer, and it was a pleasure to have all of you. Whether or not your grade came out how you wanted it to, I hope it seems fair at least, and more importantly, I hope you learned something useful.

Grade update

Pretty much all grades are up on moodle now, including the final exam scores (they took a long, long while to grade). The morning section averaged about 79% on the final, the afternoon section 75%. I graded it pretty leniently in the end, since time was definitely a factor. As a result of fairly lenient grading, scaling wasn't really necessary.

Tomorrow some time I will post a final grade average, taking into account all the dropped grades, the bonus for taking the assessment test, extra credit, etc. Letter grades will be posted on myBama on Tuesday, probably in the morning.

Again, check your grades to make sure that none are missing. I think everything that has been brought to my attention so far has been taken care of, but it is possible I've missed a homework or lab grade for someone yet.

If you have questions about how your final exam graded came out the way it did, I have your scores recorded by question and can answer that as well.

Photons

A nice post on how we know they exist. A great blog if you want to learn a bit more about physics.

Availability tomorrow

I'll be around Gallalee from about 11:00 tomorrow, and available up until the afternoon final (modulo ~30min to make copies and so forth).

The exam has been made, and I worked out all the problems to make sure they were reasonable. After doing so, I tweaked a few of them to make them more straightforward ...

Remember, if you have questions about a particular problem during the exam, you should ask. Sometimes the main difficulty is just figuring out what is being asked, and that I can usually help you with.

Notation

So we've discussed the fact that physics notation has quite a bit of historical baggage, and lacks precision at times (same symbol, different quantity ...).

Counterpoint.

Grades updated

UPDATE - lab grades were uploaded incorrectly. Should be fixed shortly.

HW6 grades are up, which means HW7 is the only one outstanding. One HW is dropped, Moodle takes this into account.
Quiz 8 grades are not up yet, but the rest are. One quiz is dropped, and Moodle takes this into account.

Lab grades are up now. Two labs are dropped, and this is accounted for in the Moodle average. Here are the labs I have grades for right now:

• Lab 1 = paper
• Lab 2 = errors (I don't have these grades for some of you from the TAs yet)
• Lab 3 = electric field applets
• Lab 4 = capacitors
• Lab 5 = equipotential lines
• Lab 6 = simple circuits / bulbs
• Lab 7 = resistors
• Lab 8 = RC circuits

Remember, Labs, HW, and Quizzes are 15% each of you total grade, and Exams 1 and 2 are worth 15% of your grade each. Moodle's course total should take this into account properly.

Other than a couple of labs, HW7, and Quiz 8, please check to make sure that your grades seem to be correct. It doesn't happen often, but I do make mistakes. Sometimes it is a typo, sometimes I put a HW set in the wrong pile of papers and it doesn't get graded with the rest. If you're missing a grade you are sure you should have, or the number doesn't seem right, don't hesitate to ask me about it. That's the whole reason for online grades, greater transparency, so you can see what's going on with no surprises. (Of course, that being said, it is hard to keep up with the pace during the summer, so the feedback is not exactly instantaneous.)

Practice Problems

For more practice problems, you might want to start with the following:

HW 12 from Spring 2008 (solution available)

Final from Spring 2008. Though there are no multiple choice questions on your exam, these are worth studying as 'quick drills' to make sure you have the concepts down. (MC answers posted, problem answers are not)


Final from Fall 2007. Answers available for all questions. Again, the MC questions are good for a quick test of what you might want to look at in more detail, or work some longer problems.

Last homework

Here you go. It is due at the start of the final exam.

This homework is just a small review of sorts, with a little stronger emphasis on recent things. They are good practice questions for the final, one or two might even show up in nearly the same form on the final.

(Of course, this small homework set does not cover all the material. More practice problems will be posted tonight that cover most of the remaining material.)

Quiz 7 solution

Quiz 7 now has a solution posted. I'll be updating some of the homework solutions tonight.

Extra credit

Here is your chance for more points. A short paper will replace your lowest non-dropped quiz, HW, or lab. If you missed more than the allotted number of labs/HW/quizzes, for instances, this is kind of a big deal. You can replace a zero grade, and that can help a lot.

If you already have an "A" going in to the final, i.e., >=90% overall grade, I'm not going to read your extra credit submission. Extra credit, in my opinion, is meant to help people that could use a little boost, and may be on the borderline between grades. It is not an insurance policy for keeping your A going in to the final. If you already have an "A" you are better off studying for the final, rather than writing me a paper.

I suppose that isn't really fair, in some sense. In another more real sense, I shouldn't offer any extra credit at all, so take it when you can get it :-) It costs me a good amount of time to offer this, so I only want to entertain it for those who really need it.

More grades

HW5 grades are now posted on moodle. If you don't have a score for HW5, but are sure you've turned it in, feel free to remind me. I didn't quite get through that stack of homework this evening.

HW6 & 7 grades will follow tomorrow evening, along with some of your lab scores. Most of the lab scores you know already, but I will post what I have from the TAs tomorrow.

Final exam time

Thursday, 2pm: FINAL EXAM for 1-2:45 class
Friday, 8am: FINAL EXAM for 10-11:45 class

No, I don't like the 8am exam either, and I always seem to get that slot. Nope, I don't know why the exam time isn't the same as the class time ... that would make sense ... I've been wondering that for 5 years now. Not much we can do about it, but at least it is just one day.

If for some reason you have a conflict with the final exam time (a conflict which is more serious than 'it is way early and I don't want to get up,' for instance another final exam), we should talk soon to arrange something else.

Final exam

The following topics will be fair game for the final (text sections in parentheses). If I don't list it, it isn't covered. The listed sections in the textbook relate directly to sections in the notes, if you look at the topic headings for each section.

Relativity (26.1-6)
Electrical forces and fields (15.1-6,9)
Electrical energy (16.1-4,6-10)
Current & resistance (17.1-4,6)
dc circuits (18.1-5)
magnetism (19.1-9, excl. Ampere's law)
induction (20.1-6)
ac circuits / EM waves (21.1-3, 7, 10-12 + filters)
Reflection & refraction (22.1-5, 7)
Mirrors / lenses (23.1-6)
Quantum physics (27.1-2, 5-8)
Atomic physics (28.1-4)

Parts of chapters 27-28 we have not covered yet, and that is the subject of the lectures on Tues and Wed.

The exam will be broken up into (probably) three sections, and in each section you will have to solve something like 3/4 or 3/5 problems. The sections will be logical groupings of material, for example:

Section 1: electric forces, field, energy
Section 2: current, resistance, dc circuits
Section 3: magnetism, induction, ac circuits
Section 4: optics
Section 5: quantum, atomic physics

I'm not saying this is exactly how it will be, but more or less.

Thoughts on the final

I posted this last year, and it still stands. Here are some of my random thoughts on the final. It goes to 11.

(1) Relax. There is no reason to be more freaked out about this exam than any other, percentages and so forth notwithstanding. You should be less scared: broadening the scope of the material necessarily means that the difficulty level for any given problem goes down.

(2) There is only one way to study for this thing: read and solve problems. You will be given all of the required formulas, memorizing them will not help, nor will memorizing tricks or shortcuts. All problems will involve the systematic application of simple principles and simple relationships, there are no tricks. Rote memorization / cramming is not useful, but solving practice problems is.

(3) Cut your losses on the one chapter you really don't think you can master in the time remaining. You'll have a choice in problems, so you can avoid certain topics if you know the rest very well.

(4) Look at the previous final exams (spring/fall semesters mainly). They mostly don't have posted solutions, but I can tell you the answers at least.

(5) Few problems I have asked you before will appear on the final. Most likely no problems directly from the notes will appear on the final. However, about half of the problems will seem eerily familiar.

(6) Relax. You will need to have your wits about you, the problems on the final will involve logically solving problems step-by-step using simple rules. They will not involve remembering an arcane phrase or formula buried in the text, nor will they have many convoluted twists and turns. Most of them involve only 1 or 2 steps.

(7) Run the numbers on your grade. The final is worth 25% of the total grade ... it can only change your overall grade by so much. Not as much as you think. I will scale the average on the final if necessary, such that it is at least 75% for the class. It is unlikely to be necessary.

(8) I like crystals and mass spectrometers and circuits. Capacitors have been done to death though.

(9) Study the homework solutions I have online.

(10) Seriously, relax. Get some rest the night before, you'll be better off well-rested.

(11) Answers/solutions to your outstanding homework/quizzes will posted soon, and will be good to study from.

Grades / this week

I just posted Quiz 6 & 7 grades on Moodle, the homework grades will be updated later tonight.

Tomorrow, your quiz is on photons - energy per photon (E=hf), intensity of a beam of photons, etc.

Wednesday, several things will happen.
1) During the lab sessions, there will be a chance for review.
2) There is no real lab, you'll do the post-assessment test (worth some bonus points) and evaluations.
3) I will discuss a few things related to the logistics of the final exam.

Later tonight, I will be posting details about the final exam, and how to review for it. Tonight and tomorrow I'll be posting some of the HW and quiz solutions so you can use them for studying as well.

Finally, I will there will be a possibility for extra credit I'll post about tonight or in the morning.*

*If you have >90% in the class, I really don't want to see an extra credit assignment from you. I'll go over formal ground rules for the extra credit tomorrow, but it is not meant to be an insurance policy for those of you already getting a solid "A." The idea is to have a way to boost your grade if you're on the border line, etc.

Exam II grades

Your exam II grades are up on Moodle ... you'll get them back tomorrow. The average was 85/81 for the am/pm sections, so most of you should be happy. I was, anyway.

Tuesday, I should have the homework and quiz grades mostly up to date, and I have more lab grades from the TAs as well. At the very least, before the final you will know what your grade is going in.

This is a problem in teaching physics

Precision in language is important, but it is a slippery slope.

Monday's lecture

Monday, we'll start on Quantum Physics, and you'll do an associated lab on atomic spectra. I'll post that procedure tomorrow when the server is powered up again ... the power is off across most of campus!

UPDATE: servers are back up. Here is tomorrow's lab.

No quiz tomorrow. Be ready for one on Tuesday, and a review homework due Wednesday. Really, it will help with the studying ...

Exam 2 / HW 7

Here is yesterday's exam. I will have them graded by Monday, possibly with grades on moodle over the weekend. I'll post here when they are ready.

Your next homework (#7) is to do the remaining two exam problems you didn't choose yesterday. Due tonight by midnight, but we'll go over the problems quickly in class today.

Draft of the cheat sheet

Find it here. It will not change much, unless I find typos or obvious omissions.

(Also, I am not happy with the script "I" that I'm using to designate light intensity, as it looks too much like a "J". It will probably bother me enough that I will have to fix it.)

Today's lab

ac circuits.

HW5 solutions

A solution set to HW5 is out, though the solutions to the last couple of problems are a bit terse.

Quiz 5 & 6 solutions

Quizzes 5 & 6, along with their solutions, are now up.

Quiz tomorrow (Wed)

Reminder, there is a short quiz tomorrow on ac circuits. Basically, filters, entirely qualitative.

Checking grades online

I now finally have the system set up so you can log in and see your grades.

1) go here: http://faculty.mint.ua.edu/~pleclair/moodle/
2) Click on "PH102 Summer 2010" (for both sections)
3) Then, to log in to the system:

• Your username is same as your bama email address
• Thus, if your bama email is "jdingus@bama.ua.edu" your username is "jdingus"
• If you have a @crimson address, perform the analogous string operation.
• Your password is the last four digits of your CWID. You can change the password if you like after logging in. In fact, this is an awesome idea. Please change it right away.

Once you have logged in successfully, you should be at the main PH102 course page. There are a great number of things on this page, most of them are not useful. I'm really only using this thing so you can view your grades. Facebook, blogger, email, and IM handle the rest well enough.

From this page, you can access your grades. You should see a link for "Grades" on the left-hand side of the page, about halfway down, under "Administration." For that matter, you can change your profile, create a little blog or discussion board, or all sorts of other things.

Any feedback you have on this system is helpful. Let me know if it works ... Right now, the first five quizzes, the first four homework sets, and your exam 1 scores are there. (Please check to make sure that is true ...) One homework and one quiz are being dropped from the listed average, as per the syllabus. The overall course grade is, for the moment, meaningless since I did not put in the proper percentages for each category. I'll do this soon.

If you are missing a grade, it means I didn't get it. Let me know if this is in error. Similarly, check that your scores in Moodle correspond to what you were handed back. Lab grades will appear there once the TAs send them to me ...

Online grades

I swear, I was getting ready to post grades online, and the power outage this evening brought down the server I need ... it should be up by 08:00 Tuesday, so Tuesday evening I can finish the update. I have graded all quizzes and all but the last HW set, which you'll get back tomorrow, but you'll have to wait one more day before I get grades online.

Hopefully Tuesday evening you will be able to log in to the open-source system I have set up to access all your grades. The server I have the software on did not power cycle well, so I can't finish uploading your grades to it until someone physically reboots it Tuesday morning.

(FYI, it is a secure system that you log in to, and I will post instructions on how to access it and determine your login and password. It is, in my opinion, less clunky than eLearning, and vastly easier from my end.)

It figures that I delayed one more day and this happened ... there is a lesson in there somewhere about procrastinating I guess.

Exam II this Thursday

Exam II is this Thursday. Same as last time, it will be held during the lab period, and we will have a lecture that day as well. The format will be nominally identical: you can skip 2 of the problems, you can bring a formula sheet, there won't be any multiple choice. I'll provide the basic formulas, also like last time. Basically, same thing, different material.

For the material, here's what it looks like:

Covered on exam II

• Book Ch. 18 (notes Ch. 5): end of dc circuits (combining resistors, multiple loops)
• Book Ch. 19 (notes Ch. 6) Magnetism (nothing on Ampere's law or the relativity stuff)
• Book Ch. 20 (notes Ch. 7) Induction
• Book Ch. 21 (notes Ch. 8) ac circuits (filters and audio circuits, basically)
• Book Ch. 21 (notes Ch. 8) EM waves (very little there, honestly.)
• Book Ch. 22 (notes Ch. 9) reflection / refraction (mirrors, refraction; no lenses)

The questions will be a bit heavier on circuits, magnetism, and induction (maybe 2 questions each) with not so much on EM waves or the start of optics (maybe 1 question each). More details to follow as the week proceeds ...

I will not make this exam purposely more difficult than the last one. However, most people find this material harder than the material from the first exam, in my experience. If you study the old homework & exam questions, you will probably be fine (presuming you've kept up with reading the notes or textbook).

Friday's homework

If you sent me homework by email on Friday, I'll send you a confirmation this evening. I got a bit behind this weekend.

Another day in the kingdom of fear

I'm glad we're still letting you do real, live labs with real, live equipment. Unlike these geology students, who can't have real rocks ...

(Or, heaven forbid, you try to find a chemistry set anymore. Sigh.)

So, even if you don't particularly like the labs, you can consider it something of a privilege to be allowed to do them anymore ;-)

Next homework

HW 6 is out, due Tuesday night. We'll go over some of them in class Monday, and the rest on Tuesday.

Monday

I've been a little bit ill this weekend, and have fallen behind ...

Monday (tomorrow) there will be a short quiz on induction (Friday's lecture) with an related lab.

Tuesday night, you'll have a homework set due, it should come out later tonight or early Monday morning.

Why calculators are not helping you learn physics (or math)

Have a read. In particular, comment 6 is appropriate.

In my opinion, and Dr. Orzel's it seems, using a calculator except when absolutely necessary is really obscuring a lot of the physics going on in the problems, and, ironically, making things more tedious than they need to be. (I have a sort of boilerplate rant about using numbers in problems, which is why I often just don't include numbers in the problems. They only hide the interesting physics.)

That being said, you're free to use calculators whenever you like. All I'm saying is that they are, if anything, probably hindering your learning process if you become too reliant on them. Try solving some of the next homework set without a calculator, and see if you notice a difference in your understanding of the problems.

Today's lab

Sorry I forgot to put this up earlier ...

Today, you'll explore RC circuits, which we covered last week and will come back to next week when we discuss ac circuits and audio filters.


Before you do the lab, however, I'd like you to explore this applet on circuit construction. There are no real instructions, just spend 10-15 minutes constructing different circuits to get a feeling for how things work. Of particular interest is the 'grab bag,' from which you can choose various household items and try to run current through them. Too much current, and you will start a little virtual fire ...

HW 5 is out

HW5 is out. It has bits of dc circuits and magnetism, all stuff we've covered already. Due Friday before midnight.

Punting

Let's punt Friday's quiz in celebration of your dominance of my first exam.

You win this round. [shakes fist]

There is, however, still a homework coming out shortly that is due Friday.

More slides

The dc circuits and magnetism slides are now up. Including many slides I didn't use on related topics.

Wednesday's labs

Wednesday, we'll do two labs on circuits:

Simple circuits with light bulbs
Resistor addition

Please have a look through the procedures before the lab sessions, it will save you time in the end.

Exam 1 / Homework 4

Well, exam 1 is over. I should have it graded and returned to you Wednesday morning. For now, the exam is here.

That brings up homework 4, and it is simple. The exam had you do 6 out of 8 problems, your homework, due Tuesday before midnight, is to do the other two problems.

So, short notice, but short homework.

Things which tempt me greatly

This.

As the undergrad adviser for physics and astronomy, I enjoy giving undergraduates advice. Occasionally, however, when confronted with a vague question, it is hard to resist the temptation to be a bit silly ...

With regards to the link above, I'm thinking of some sort of Fight Club crossover, "My class is Jack's inflamed appendix."

In other news ...

Remember what I said about photons having momentum, and how one could use that for spacecraft propulsion?

Done. Very cool stuff, though the linked summaries are somewhat ... lacking. Knowing what you know of relativity and mechanics, can you spot some places where the articles are incorrect or misleading?

Last-minute things

First: an error in the HW2 solution has been corrected; I solved #2 incorrectly ... it is fine now.

Second: There won't be any questions from Ch. 18 in your text (Ch. 5 in the notes), i.e., dc circuits. There will be questions on current, resistance, and resistivity, but not on resistors and circuits with resistors. I know I said it was fair game for the exam, but once I got to making it up, I had enough questions without digging into dc circuits. So, that's one less thing to worry about.

Third: here's a preview of your formula sheet for the exam. It may change as I find typos or change my mind about something, but it will look very much the same. You are still allowed to bring in one 8.5x11in sheet of paper of your own with whatever you want on it; this preview is meant to help you figure out what you needn't bother putting on the sheet ... (You can bring in one sheet with both sides filled, or two sheets with a single side filled, which I figure amounts to the same thing.)

Fourth: DO NOT FORGET A CALCULATOR. I will bring a few spares, since someone's calculator invariably dies on exam day ...

Finally: relax. You have been well trained for this thing, if I do say so myself :-) and you will be fine.

HW 3 solutions are out

Here you go.

Quiz 3 and 4 solutions are up

Find them here.

Quiz 3

Quiz 3 was all over the map. The average score (across both sections) was 77, with a standard deviation of 19. Looking at the distribution, however:

It has no discernible pattern. Based on the average, it is hard to justify curving the quiz, but based on the number of people at the low end, it almost begs for it.

There are three possibilities here. One is that I just let it go, and a lot of you drop this quiz (undesirable). A second is that I let you do some extra work (perhaps a paragraph essay on the questions you missed), to make up, for instance, half the credit you missed. A third possibility is that I just decide to drop two quizzes for the course instead of one.

I am not promising any of these three, but the last option is probably more likely. I'd rather not have one quiz drag a lot of you down, when in retrospect I can understand where you were tripped up. Some sort of action will be taken, in the end, and by the end of the course the quiz average will be 75-80%, minimum.

HW 2 solutions are up

Find them here. I did parts of them quickly, so let me know if you find any mistakes.

Exam Guidelines

Exam 1 is coming up on Monday. The exam will be held during your lab period, but will take place in the lecture room. It will take you 60-90 minutes. Don't be late. Here's what it will cover:

Electric Forces & Fields (Ch. 15 in the text)Electrical Energy & Capacitance (Ch. 16 in the text)
Current & Resistance (Ch. 17 in the text)

See the course schedule for the particular sections in each chapter you are responsible for. Note also that relativity is absent. The material we cover tomorrow (Friday) will be on the test.

The format of the exam will be (approximately) 6 problems (i.e., solving stuff, no multiple choice), you pick any 5 to solve. Put another way, I'll give you 6 problems, you can skip any one of them you like, they are all worth the same amount. To head off an obvious question: if you do all six, I may grade all six and take the best 5. Or,  I might just grade the first 5. Who knows. Your best bet if you do all six is to tell me which 5 you want me to grade.

I will provide a formula sheet with all relevant constants and basic formulas, a list which should be sufficient to solve all problems. Additionally, you are allowed to bring in a single 8.5x11 inch sheet of paper with your own notes, formulas, etc. -- anything you want, really. Front and back sides are allowed, I will allow two sheets with only a single side if you prefer that. You are additionally allowed writing implements and a calculator (i.e., not a cell phone or any network-enabled device). You can feel free to program your calculator in arbitrary ways, however, just no internet or peer-to-peer communication of any kind.

I don't know if I can stress enough that you should not forget your calculator.

More details will follow over the next couple of days. For now, I suggest reading the chapters and old homework/exam solutions.

Slides from today's lecture

... are up here. I'll use the same slides tomorrow to finish current/resistance and start with dc circuits.

Friday's quiz

Tomorrow's quiz will derive entirely from Ch. 16 in the textbook, or the equivalent sections in the notes.

UPDATE: I swear this one should be easier than the last one.

You will need: 1) the rules for combining series and parallel capacitors (formulas given),  and 2) the rule for calculating energy stored in a capacitor from voltage and capacitance (formulas also given).

One thing I haven't mentioned explicitly: if you put batteries together in series, and connect them plus-minus-plus-minus, you add the potential differences. So, two 3V batteries connected in series with the same polarity gives 6V. Charges moving through the batteries in series would get a boost of 3V potential difference from the first, and another boost of 3V from the second, and thus each charge acquires 6V potential after moving through the two batteries in series.

Two 3V batteries connected with opposite polarities (so plus-minus-minus-plus) usually leads to zero V, and undesirable behavior.

Thursday's Lab

Today, you'll investigate the equipotential lines around some charged conductors.

Sorry for not getting this up earlier ... I had my days mixed up.

Powerpoint slides used in class

Here you can find the powerpoint slides I used in class, along with a few extras I didn't. I have the slides from relativity, electrostatics, and electrical energy up at the moment.

(If you are in the pm class, I didn't use as many slides due to the room being inconvenient, but you might find the slides useful anyway.)

Problem-solving template

In past courses, I've tried off and on to have students use a problem-solving template that my colleague Prof. Mankey developed. The basic idea is to give you a general structure for solving problems by compartmentalizing the problem-solving process. Break it down into fairly general steps that most problems have (though not always in the same order) so you have a guide for how to start and finish problems.

The template is not something you will be required to use when solving problems, but if you're having trouble with the homework, it might help. Details below the fold ...

HW3 is out

Homework 3 is now out. Since I'm late by about a day getting it out, I'll push the deadline back one day ... so this is due by 11:59pm on Friday, 16 July.

We'll go over most of these problems Thursday and Friday in class, at least enough to get you started.

(This means you have no HW or quiz tomorrow, but you have both on Friday ...)

HW3

I'm a bit late putting out the next HW ... it will come out tonight, but not be due until Friday instead of Thursday. Check back tonight ...

Wednesday's quiz

Wednesday's quiz is all about charges moving through electrical potential differences and electric fields. E.g., if a charge q moves through a potential difference of V, how much energy is gained or lost? If a charge q is placed in an electric field, what force does it experience? What is the difference between the motion of positive and negative charges? You'll have to recall what we talked about Tuesday, along with the basics of PH101 - relating force, mass, and acceleration.

There will be plenty of useful hints about the quiz in Wednesday's lecture.

HW1 solutions

HW1 solutions are out, you'll get them back (along with quiz 2) during Wednesday's class.

Wedensday's lab

Wednesday's lab will be all about capacitors, or at least how they combine in parallel and series.

You can find the procedure here.

Apologies for posting it a bit late, but please read the whole procedure before getting started with anything and start connecting wires, capacitors, and power supplies all willy-nilly.

Big safety hint: make sure your power supply is turned off, and maybe even unplugged to be sure, before wiring up your circuit. Before turning on the power supplies, make sure the voltage and current knobs are turned all the way to zero.

Capacitors can react angrily to a sudden spike in voltage, and the magic smoke inside may escape ...

Quiz solutions

Quizzes 1 and 2 and their solutions are up, find them here.

Homework 2 / Monday's lab

Homework 2 is out, due by the end of the day on Tuesday. We'll go over most of them in class by the end of Tuesday.

Monday's lab will be a series of Java applets that will help you get a 'feel' for electrostatics. You can find the applets here, and the procedure here.

Homework submission

Just a couple of things that will make grading easier for me:

1) Putting your last name in the filename you send helps a lot, so I don't have to rename everything. For example, "p_leclair_HW1.pdf" is really handy. "leclair_p_HW1.pdf" is even better, since it alphabetizes nicely I look at all the files together.

2) If you know how to do it, combining separate scanned pages/pics into a single file is good, but don't spend too much time figuring it out if you don't know how. I can suggest how to do this on various platforms if you're interested.

3) If you turn in a hard copy, I don't necessarily need a copy of the problem set itself, you can just turn in your work.

4) Include "PH102" in the subject line of the email, and possible HW1 or something like that to help the filtering.

Basically, it costs a little more time if I get 30 emails with a subject like "homework" or "physics homework" and filenames like "homework.docx" or "hw.jpg". I can sort this out very easily, I'm mainly pointing these things out because it probably isn't something you thought about. I wouldn't have either, until I started taking email homework submissions.

These are really just suggestions, I'm happy to deal with any sort of files you send. I can read pretty much any file format you can think of (that is not a challenge, btw), and keep things pretty organized, so it isn't a huge deal. The main point is: if you can save me some seconds per submission, this is nice because I have 68 students between two sections.

Just to reinforce: there haven't been any problems at all so far, even with the cell phone pics (many of you have good phones, it seems), I'm just letting you know what would help if it isn't difficult for you.

Also, thanks for the cat pictures. Nice looking cat.

Lab 2: uncertainty & standard deviation

Thursday's lab will deal mostly with how to assess uncertainty in measurement, and introduce you to some key data analysis techniques. The procedure is here, please read through it quickly before Thursday's lab period.

You might also find this short PPT presentation useful/amusing. Basically, it applies the same statistical techniques to a very simple experiment: drawing cards from a well-shuffled deck.

HW1 / Due Fri 9 July

Homework 1 is out, due this coming Friday by the end of the day. Hard copies can be turned in at Friday's class or in one of my mailboxes, you can also submit your homework by email.

Most of these problems deal with material from today's lecture, which we'll review a bit on Thursday, including example problems similar to those on the homework. During Friday's class, I'll help you set up some of the harder problems and answer any last-minute questions you might have.

Slides from today's lecture

Here are the slides from today's lecture, which includes the course overview, all the figures I used in explaining relativity, and a few extras.

Welcome to PH102 / Summer 2010

Welcome to PH102! At the bottom of this page, or here, you will find our course calendar, which you should review carefully. A small spreadsheet with the schedule and each day's reading can be found here. We will stick to our schedule rigidly, as our time is quite short over the summer semester.

You may also want to look over the course syllabus and other information, which you can find here. The slides I'll present in lecture will also show up online shortly, I will post separately here to let you know.

Finally, I have written some fairly lengthy notes for this course, and my lectures will follow these notes for the most part.