Physics 2210 - Physics for Scientists and Engineers I

Course Objectives

Many of you are in programs in engineering and other disciplines. You may question whether physics will ever be helpful to you. The answer to this question is “yes!” The course will help you to understand and solve problems in a broad range of disciplines. The primary subject of this course is Mechanics. Mechanics includes motion in multiple dimensions, force and the laws of motion, energy, momentum, rotational motion, gravitation and oscillation. Elements of this subject material are found in all parts of nature

The three most important goals of this course are to: (1) learn some fundamental principles of physics (force laws, conservation laws, etc); (2) learn to describe real world phenomena quantitatively (kinematics, etc) (3) learn problem-solving skills that can be applied to other areas of science, engineering and life. The achievement of these goals will require a conceptual understanding of the physical principles, an ability to use equations to describe a particular phenomena and a methodical approach to problem solving.

This understanding is achieved by practice, just as a musician is required to practice an instrument. It will come through reading the text, listening to lectures, working through examples, and discussing questions with your TAs and other students. The assigned homework problems are absolutely necessary to develop this understanding. They are your "practice sessions.” They will test your knowledge, induce you to seek more understanding (through reading, working of examples) and help you to reach the “Ahah” stage.

On-line Access

Most of the course materials are accessed on-line. Your homework assignments will be accessed, turned in and graded electronically. They can be found on the Web. You should familiarize yourself with this course web-site and (WebAssign), and learn how to turn in your homework on-line and find your homework assignments. Solutions, old exams, important notices, and other information will also be posted on the 2210 course web page. It is essential that you check the course web-site and the WebAssign site regularly, because essential course information will be posted and updated there from time to time.

Course Content

We will study most of Chapters 1-11,and 13 and 15 of the textbook. Any excluded sections will be announced ahead of time. Unless specifically announced, you are responsible for all material in these chapters, whether it is covered in lecture or not, as well as any supplemental material actually covered in the lectures. This is the standard curriculum for an introductory semester-long course in Mechanics. We will be covering roughly one chapter each week. Please see the Course Schedule for details.

What is Expected of Students

Be sure to schedule enough study time. Typically, one should expect to spend no less than 2-3 hours on homework and review for every hour spent in lecture. There are three activities which will help you to succeed in this course:

1. DO YOUR READING OF SCHEDULED CHAPTERS BEFORE THE CORRESPONDING LECTURE! (Again, the Course Schedule will help you here.) You cannot learn physics just from the lectures! Lectures will help you understand and synthesize material, fill in gaps, and make additional connections. But focused reading of the textbook is a prerequisite to effective use of the lecture. Make use of the many Quick Quiz questions that are spread throughout each chapter. There are answers to these in the back of the chapter, and they are very useful in helping to determine whether you are grasping the concepts being presented.

2. Practice, practice, practice! The only way to understand physics concepts well enough to use them is to practice on problems. As mention before, just as with music or in sports, you must practice to be able to perform. A physics student who knows the textbook but cannot do problems will not succeed. Do the assigned homework problems, review problems (before exams), and other related problems in the textbook. Practice problems by mimicking the exam situation: start with a blank sheet of paper and work the problem through as far as possible without looking for help from the text, notes, or solutions until absolutely necessary.

3. Use Lecture Notes (on-line). These notes were created during spring semester 2006. They cover much of the material to be coved in the lectures this semester.

Memorization

There is often a great temptation in introductory courses to memorize the material. While this can be a useful strategy in some biology and chemistry courses, memorization does not work well in physics, because there is very little that is meaningful to memorize. The important issues in physics are the basic principles. In this course there are only a handful of them, and it is important not only to remember them but also to understand them.

Another common temptation is to memorize the meaning of symbols. This is particularly dangerous, because the same letter can be used in physics to represent very different quantities and concepts in different problems. The assignment of symbols is purely arbitrary, subject only to popular conventions. In solving physics problems, it is recommended that you verify what each given symbol actually means, rather than assuming the usual definition. You should also explicitly define your variables, adhering, where appropriate, to the usual conventions (for example, we usually choose F to mean the magnitude of an applied force).

Mathematics

The natural language of physics is mathematics. Physics assigns very precise and definite meanings to English words, such as "force" and "work." It is important that you can accurately state your ideas in physics both mathematically and linguistically, and be able to translate between the two. For example, for a 1-D problem, one might say: "the electron starts from rest at the origin". This translates to: "x(t=0)=x(0)=0 and v(t=0)=v(0)= 0", assuming x(t), v(t)=dx/dt to represent the displacement and velocity of the object as functions of time, t.

Discussion Sections

To be in this course, you must register for a particular discussion section, and this automatically registers you for one of the two lecture sections: the 12:55 pm lecture (Section 001) or the 2:00 pm lecture (Section 010). The lectures meet on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. You may attend either lecture, but must take exams according to the schedule for the lecture section for which you are registered (see below). Any student that has a reasonable academic reason that does not allow him/her to take exams at the schedule time will be accommodated. You must contact Prof. Williams to obtain the exception (by email). This includes students who have another class scheduled during the last half hour of the one and one-half hour exams.

PLEASE NOTE: Permission codes will not be given out for this course. If you want to get into a particular discussion section but find that it is closed, register for some other open section that gets you into the lecture that you want. Then go to the TA for the discussion section that you would like to be in, and ask the TA for permission to attend that section. It is the TA’s decision as to whether or not you can enter into a particular section. We will do our best to accommodate as many students as we can, but there are room-space and workload considerations to be taken into account.

Discussion sections meet twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. There will also be a help lab with posted hours. The purpose of the discussion sections is to help you with the current homework assignment, discuss results and solutions of exams, and give you a chance to ask questions about the course material.

Lectures

The class meets three times a week for lectures (M,W,F). On each of those days, the lecture will be given twice (during the two lecture sessions), one right after the other. Approximately every four weeks (on Fridays) there is a 90-minute midterm exam given at a previously identified location, at the times of the Friday lecture sessions. All exam dates and times are set in advance, before the semester starts.

Homework

Most large classes in Physics use the web-based homework assignments and grading system provided by WebAssign. You will complete all homework assignments over the web and get immediate feedback (grading). For most problems, you will be given up to five opportunities to enter the correct answer. . This means that you will only be entering answers to the homework. There is a great danger in this. In contrast, on examinations, you will be required to present full solutions (showing all work) and will only have 1 try. Hence, I strongly recommend that you work out all homework problems on a clean sheet of paper (even though you will not turn these in) and compare these to the solutions provided by the TAs, which will be available after the problem set due date through WebAssign. You will be docked 10% if your first answer is not correct, to encourage careful thinking before entering an answer I highly recommend that you use the suggested Problem Solving Format Strategy on page 47 of the text. . It may seem that it will take more time, but experience shows that using a systematic method will save hours of hunting for a careless error.

Please note that WebAssign also provides on-line forums for homework that you may use to discuss problems with fellow students. These forums will also be regularly monitored by the TAs at times to be determined. You are encouraged to participate actively in the forums, to seek help and to offer advice to your classmates on how to approach problems. However, the forums are not to be used for the purpose of posting explicit solutions to the assigned problems in any form. Such postings will be removed by myself or the TAs as soon as we see them. Continuing to post such solutions may lead to a student being excluded from participation in the forums.

Please note that in order to be marked correct for the problems that require numerical answers, you must pay close attention to the rules for handling significant figures, enter the correct number of significant figures (three is the typical value), and be within 2% of the answer (the actual numerical values used in each problem are randomized). You must also pay close attention to the units (provided in the question) in which the numerical answer must be given. (If your correct answer is in meters, but the question calls for the answer to be given in centimeters, it will be off by a factor of 100 and will be marked wrong!) WebAssign provides hints for formatting any answers that must be expressed using variables (symbolic formatting) and for cases where you have the right answer but an insufficient number of significant figures. (Here is a tutorial on the use of significant figures.) Please be advised: You are likely to believe at various times that WebAssign has mistakenly marked your problem in error with "the big red X." Look again! Check your analysis, check units, check significant figures! WebAssign is by no means perfect, but experience has shown that it (and not you) will be right in 99% of these cases.

All homework should be completed on Tuesday and Thursday nights. Actually, the precise due time is 10:00 a.m. on the following Wednesday or Friday morning. Each problem in the assignment is worth 2 points, whether the problem has 1 part or 7 parts. (You will notice, for example, that WebAssign will make a five-part problem worth 0.4 points per part.) At the end of the term, your five (5) lowest homework scores will be automatically dropped. No regrades will be allowed, and NO LATE HOMEWORK WILL BE ACCEPTED. Please don't even ask. Homework is due so often and for so many students that there is no time to handle it; solutions have to be posted right away. Consider that you have up to 5 chances to miss homework without penalty (regardless of the reason). Due dates and times, point values for each problem, and maximum number of submissions are clearly indicated on WebAssign for each assignment. Barring some long-term server catastrophe at WebAssign, you are responsible for understanding and meeting these terms.

Getting Started with WebAssign

At the WebAssign Login Page, enter your UNID number (starting with "u" and followed by the rest of your ID number with the first digit removed) and password (the same login and password you use for the Campus Information System). Your first assignment is entitled "Intro to WebAssign 2007." It will help you become familiar with WebAssign and the procedure for completing online homework assignments. However, it is not an exhaustive exercise which tests you on all you need to know about WebAssign.

Midterms and Final Exam

For detailed rules please refer to the Exam Procedures page. There are four (4) midterm exams and a final exam. YOU MUST TAKE THE FINAL EXAM TO PASS THIS COURSE. All exams are closed book. You may not bring any materials to the exams but a single 3” by 5” card, with helpful equations and relationships on it, and a calculator. Having a 3” by 5” card is a good idea for several reasons. First it will help you to study and focus on the most important relationships. Second, you will not have to memorize all the formulas. Thirdly, it will allow you to quickly find the equations of interest during the exam. Do not believe that you can do well on the tests without understanding the material, however. The tests will not be easy.

Normal scientific and graphing calculators are allowed during exams. We do not allow laptop PCs , palm pilots or other devices with significant text (alphanumeric) storage capability, or those with wireless communications devices. If there is any doubt as to whether an item is allowed, ask your TA. TheTA's decision is final.

The Final Exam is comprehensive. Some previous semester's midterm and final exams are posted on the course web page. They are a good measure of what this semester's exams will be like. Other old midterm exams from previous versions of this course are available. I do not guarantee that they will be completely relevant to the present exams, as the course content and emphasis has changed over the years.

Midterm Exam Schedule

Midterm 1: Friday, January 25
Midterm 2: Friday, February 22
Midterm 3: Friday, March 14
Midterm 4: Friday, April 11

Exam locations:

Section 001: 12:55-2:30 p.m.      WEB 101, 105 [map]
Section 010: 2:00-3:30 p.m.     WEB 102, 104 [map]

Midterm exams last 90 minutes and are thus longer than the normal lecture hour. Please arrive 10-15 minutes early on exam days so that we may get you seated, get the exams distributed, and allow you the full 90 minutes to complete the exam. On the day of the first midterm, plan to arrive extra early to get settled and to make sure you can find the location of the exam (see maps above). Because of space constraints, you must take the exam at the assigned time and location corresponding to the lecture section (001 or 010) for which you are registered! If there is a scheduling conflict that can be resolved by taking the exam at another time, this can be arranged, but you must notify Prof. Williams by email in advance. Legitimate academic conflicts will be recognized and accommodations made. Students who have a class that starts an hour after the exam begins will be accommodated.

There will be no make-up tests or exams. The only exceptions to this rule are (a) absence due to a University sponsored activity or to military duty, and (b) serious medical emergencies. In either case the student must provide complete documentation. All requests for exam accommodations are handled exclusively by Professor Williams; do not address such requests to anyone else, as they will not be honored. In the case of exception (a) the request for a make-up exam must be filed with Professor Williams at least one week in advance of the anticipated absence. Please note that all exam dates and times have already been determined; mark your calendars now! Resolve any conflicts as soon as possible!

Final Exam Schedule

The final exam is Friday, April 25, 2008, 3:30 - 5:30 p.m. (both sections) in rooms HEB 2006 and 2008 [map]. All sections will take the final at the same time and locations.. This is a University departmental scheduled exam time. THERE WILL BE NO EARLY FINAL EXAMS!

Determination of Course Grade

Your grade for the course will be based on your homework , midterm and final exam scores. The homework counts 25%, the mid-terms 50%, and the final 25%. The lowest five (5) homework scores will automatically be dropped. The lowest midterm score will be automatically dropped.

The course is graded on a standard curve: the median score will be in the C+/B- range. Roughly speaking, the third of the class that is just higher than the median, is looking at some form of B. The third just lower is looking at some form of C. The extremes in the curve get A's and D/E's. I will use natural breaks in the scores to determine the actual lines between grades. Depending on these breaks, somewhere between 10 and 15% of the class will get some form of A.

Near mid-semester, I will provide a formula to you to estimate your grade based on homework and exams completed up to that point. Please note that these are only estimates, and that your final grade may change significantly, particularly since the final exam is worth 25% of your final grade.

Please note that most homework assignments will be worth 12 points, with occasional deviations to 10 or 14 points. The five lowest homework scores will be dropped automatically, maximizing your total homework score.

Any request for regrading of a problem on an exam must be made before the following exam. You must fill out a re-grade form (found on this web site) and attach it to the entire problem (not just one part) to be regraded. (Do NOT submit problems that you are not asking to be re-graded.) You must use a separate regrading form for each problem. These sheets should be given to Professor Williams in class before the next mid-term exam. In the case of Midterm #4 (last midterm), you must submit a request for re-grading before the end of the last course lecture on April 23. Problems will NOT be re-graded after the next exam occurs. Exams MUST be done in black or blue pen (NOT red), in order to be eligible for a regrade. No exam done in pencil will be re-graded. When you submit a request for the regrading of a problem, the entire problem will be re-graded, not just the parts that you are disputing. It is usually the case that you will not lose points by submitting a re-grade, but this is not guaranteed. Submitted problems for re-grade will be evaluated and returned with the following exam.

You are allowed to ask for regrades on the final exam. This request will only be considered in the case that you are near a course grade boundary, and there are some additional special rules. The request must be made by 5 pm on May 7th, 2008. You must turn in a regrade form for each problem, just as with the midterms. However, you must turn in the entire final exam for a regrade. The entire exam will be regraded (not just the problems you submit for a regrade).

Students Must Check Course Grades

It is the student's responsibility to ensure the accuracy of all recorded homework and exam grades (which will reflect what is in our database). These are all accessible from the WebAssign website. Please check your scores regularly, keep all your returned tests (handed out during discussion sections), and contact your discussion TA in case of an error.

Important Dates

Deadline for submitting regrades:
By next exam - Midterms 1-3
April 23, 2008 - Midterm 4
Deadline for notification of recording errors, clerical errors, or arithmetic errors on any midterms or homework. – April 25 2008 (Final Exam) Unless you point out any scoring or recording error by this date, the scores as recorded will stand.
Aporil 25, 2008 -Final Exam
May 5, 2008 – Graded Final Exams available from Mary Ann Woolf in JFB 205
May 7, 2008 – Deadline for all requests for re-grading of Final Exam

Use of Course Website

We make extensive use of the course website. Consult it regularly! There is a link from the course website to the WebAssign login page Course information, announcements and changes will be posted there as soon as the information becomes available under News and Announcements. There is also information on how to contact the TA's. Homework and exam scores will be available from the WebAssign site.

Office Hours

The instructor has posted office hours: 10:30 am - 12:00 noon on Wednesdays and Fridays. Outside of these you can meet with Prof. Williams by appointment. These may be granted very promptly (i.e. you might call or e-mail and be told to come on over), but Prof. Williams cannot guarantee specific times to meet with you outside of the posted hours. Please respect the fact that he does not like to be interrupted between noon and 12:55 pm on lecture days; he uses this time for last-minute prep before the two hours of lecture. He also reserves the right to adjust or cancel office hours on days when he is traveling or has other engagements, which he will announce as they occur. He is best reached by e-mail, not by phone. He checks e-mail most days and will respond promptly.

The TAs will also be available during the help lab hours. This is an important resource for students, which is often under-utilized. If you have questions that you have not been able to get answered in the discussion sections or during the lectures be sure to attend the help lab. Doing something about getting your questions answered is your responsibility.

Time After Lecture

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, Prof. Williams gives two consecutive lectures from 12:55-1:45pm and again from 2:00-2:50pm. This leaves only a short period of time to answer questions AND prepare for the next class. Therefore, only a few, short questions can be answered during the brief intermission.

Honesty

Cheating of any kind on an exam is a very serious violation of University rules and is unethical. Students caught cheating will receive a failing grade for the course and will be sent on to the University Disciplinary Committee for further action. All teaching assistants, including the course marshall, and the administrative assistant for the course are to be considered proxies for Professor Williams when you are dealing with them regarding this course. They are to be listened to and treated with respect at all times.

Recent Changes in Student Code

All students and faculty need to be aware of important changes in the Student Code that went into effect in the last couple of years. Students now have only 20 business days to appeal grades. The date that grades are posted on the web is considered the date of notification. A "business day" is every day the university is open for business, excluding weekends and University-recognized holidays. If the student cannot get a response from the faculty member after ten days of reasonable efforts to contact him or her, the student may appeal to the department chair if done within 40 days of being notified of the academic action. Students should definitely document their efforts to contact a faculty member.

Similarly, faculty members who discover or receive a complaint of academic misconduct (e.g., cheating, plagiarism) have 20 business days to "make reasonable efforts" to contact the student and discuss the alleged misconduct. Within 10 more business days the faculty member must give the student written notice of the sanction, if any, and the student's right to appeal to the college Academic Appeals Committee.

All students and faculty members are urged to consult the exact text of the Student Code if a relevant situation arises. The code is on the University web site at http://www.admin.utah.edu/ppmanual/8/8-10.html.

Drop/Add/Withdrawal (to be added)

Last day to drop (delete) classes with no tuition penalty-Wednesday, January 16.
Last day to add classes is Tuesday, January 22.
Last day to elect CR/NC options is Tuesday, January 22.
Last day to withdraw from term length classes is Friday, February 29.
NOTE: It is now university policy that your courses will be irrevocably DROPPED if tuition is not paid on time!
Here is the entire Spring 2008 Academic Calendar.

Students with Disabilities

The University of Utah Department of Physics seeks to provide equal access to its programs, services and activities for people with disabilities. If you will need accommodations in this course, reasonable prior notice must be given to the instructor and to the Center for Disability Services, 162 Olpin Union Bldg, 581-5020 (V/TDD) to make arrangements for accommodations. You are strongly encouraged to come and talk to the instructor about your disability and necessary accommodations within the first two weeks of the semester.

Holidays

Monday, January 21	Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Monday, February 18	Presidents' Day
Monday-Friday, March 17-23	Spring Break

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This page is maintained by: Mary Ann Woolf woolf@physics.utah.edu
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