Course Number: 1010 (3)
Course Title: Elementary Physics
- REPRESENTATIVE TEXTBOOK
- The Physics of Everyday Phenomena, 2nd Ed. by Thomas Griffith." Text is purchased at University of Utah Bookstore
- COURSE DESCRIPTION
- This is a one semester of the Introductory Physics course designed as a General Education course to satisfy a science foundation requirement. The objective of this course is to have students acquire a basic conceptual understanding of a number of the sub-areas of physics. A modest amount of algebra and arithmetic are used but the focus is on the conceptual understanding of the basic principles of physics. The major areas of mechanics, thermal physics, electromagnetism, and optics are addressed. However, depending on student interest and time available, some of the coverage of the above topics may be reduced in order to look at relativity, modem quantum physics, nuclear and elementary particle physics, and others.
- PRE-REQUISITE OR CO-REQUISITE
- None
- OTHER COMMENTS
- The amount of time spent on each topic or whether any time is spent on the topic identified will depend upon student interest and how the class is progressing through the course. Below is a list of topics, many, but not all, will be covered in this course. They are included to give the leader a sense of the immense breadth of physics. Even though there are 15 weeks in the semester, the reader should not assume a one week time allocation for each topic. The time spent on each will certainly vary.
- The Physics of Everyday Phenomena, 2nd Ed. by Thomas Griffith." Text is purchased at University of Utah Bookstore
- MANDATORY TOPICS:
- Topic 1:
- The Nature of Physics and Preliminaries
- Topic 2:
- Describing Motion in One or More Dimensions - Falling Objects and Projectiles
- Topic 3:
- Newton's Laws and Explaining Motion
- Topic 4:
- Circular Motion, Gravitation, and the Planets
- Topic 5:
- Energy and Oscillations
- Topic 6:
- Momentum and Impulse
- Topic 7:
- Fluids
- Topic 8:
- Thermal Physics
- Topic 9:
- Electrostatic Phenomena
- Topic 10:
- Electric Circuits and Circuit Analysis
- Topic 11:
- Magnetism and Electromagnetism
- Topic 12:
- Waves and Sound
- Topic 13:
- Light and the Formation of Images
- Topic 14:
- Physical Optics: Interference, Diffraction, Polarization
- Topic 15:
- Modem Physics - This last entry is a catch-all for relativity, modem quantum physics, nuclear physics, particle physics, and many more topics.
Prepared by Sid Rudolph (2/15/99)