Relativity Exercises / Homework

Relativity is tough stuff, and the course will get easier after this (I think, YMMV). In particular, the last exercise today was tough. Getting a better handle on relativity will require a little patience and practice.

If you had trouble with the exercises today:

• we will go over them in detail in Thursday's class
• I am available most of tomorrow if you need help - send me an email
• we will do some homework problems in Friday's recitation

Finally, here are a couple of links that might help you: one, two. The first is a bit more general and helpful, I think.

Printed Course Notes Available

Printed and bound copies of the course notes are now available at the SUPe store, on the shelves.

The notes packets are $37.85, or about 15 cents per page for 251 pages. Keep in mind that nearly all the figures are in color, so they are giving you a good price on these. It is a tough price to beat if you want to print them up on your own ... the library wants 25 cents per page, for example.

Again, they are not required, but I do recommend them. From next week on, starting with electrostatics, I think they will be a big help. You can still view them online if you'd rather not buy them.

Physics Help Desk Hours

The hours for the physics help desk are now posted. They may change slightly in the next week or two, as the GTA's schedules may still change.

Find them here [link on page], or here [directly to pdf].

Note that all of the help center hours are in the afternoon/evening.

Tomorrow's Exercises (28 Aug 07)

Below is a link for tomorrow's exercise:

Relativity Exercises [pdf]

You don't need to print these out ahead of time if you don't want to. Once the lecture portion is finished, you will break up in to groups to work on these exercises, and you can print them at that time.

Of course, I'm not stopping you from reading them ahead of time, but it is not necessary.

"Lab" for tomorrow

We will not have any proper lab "experiments" this week while we study relativity. Rather, we will work on in-class exercises and problem solving during the second half of class tomorrow and Thursday.

So, for tomorrow, all you need to do is glance through Ch. 26 a bit, and be ready to solve problems in groups. Nothing to print out or bring to class this time. There will be work due at the end of class, however ...

This is a temporary thing, just while we finish relativity. Proper labs will begin next week when we start with electrostatics.

Course introduction

The course introduction is available now as a PDF ... here [pdf].

This file contains all the official sort of information for your reference.

A few figures I'll use to discuss relativity are there too.

Welcome to PH102, Fall 2007

It worked very well last semester, so once again I am blogging ph102. There are many good reasons for doing this, but most importantly, it lets me keep you up to date on a daily (or better) basis. Browsing the archives will give you an idea of how I run things.

Bookmark this blog, it will be your main source of information this semester. I suggest you check it in the morning before class, if you are not into the RSS madness.

A few things to note:

• atom/rss feeds available. you even can get updates on facebook
  
• search for "rss" under facebook apps
• you can post comments and give me feedback or ask questions.
  
• you can post anonymously
• I will respond promptly
• all posts are archived and search-able
• I try to tag all the posts to keep things organized
  
• this blog is public. no grades/personal info of any kind will be posted. your privacy will be preserved
• do not add any personal information in comments if you don't want it public
• there is no 'undo' on the internet
  
• inappropriate comments will be swiftly deleted
  

I keep very late hours. Don't assume it is too late to send a message, Futurama is on at 1:30.

Here are a series of informative posts from last semester which will be useful to get you started:

Logging on to WebAssign (homework system)

Useful online resources

Course Calendar (Google Calendar; no account required to view)

Finally: I am trying to write a ph102 book. The notes available at the supestore (not required) are the first draft of that book, save a couple of unfinished chapters. I will greatly appreciate any comments you might have on the notes, suggestions for improving clarity, and especially finding and squashing obvious bugs.