PHYSICS 120 - PRINCIPLES OF PHYSICS I - FALL 2005

COURSE INFORMATION

 

Instructor: Victor DeCarlo

Office: 235 Julian Science Center

ext. 4652

Office Hours:  1:00-2:00 PM MWF

           9:00-11:00 PM R, or by appt

email: vdecarlo@depauw.edu

 

Required Texts: Thomas Moore, Six Ideas That Shaped Physics, 2^nd Ed., Units C, N, and R Physics 120 Lab Manual

 

About the Course: Physics 120 is the first part of the two-semester calculus-based introductory physics course for science, engineering, and pre-med students.  The course is organized around three units of the Six Ideas That Shaped Physics curriculum developed by Professor Thomas Moore of Pomona College.  Each unit identifies a particular fundamental physical idea (e.g., that conservation laws constrain the range of processes which can occur in nature) and explores its implications in a variety of circumstances. 

 

The main goals of the course are:

 

1)  to help you obtain a solid conceptual understanding of some of the fundamental principles of physics;

2)  to introduce you to basic problem-solving strategies and give you ample opportunities to practice those strategies;

3)  to provide a laboratory experience which emphasizes model building, hypothesis testing, and error analysis;

4)  to organize class time in such a way that you are actively engaged in thinking about and doing physics.

 

Grading: Your final course grade will be determined according to the evaluation scheme outlined below and described more fully on the next three pages.

 

            Unit C Exam: 16%                    Homework: 12%

            Unit N Exam: 16%                   Quizzes: 18%

            Final Exam: 23%                      Laboratory: 15%

 

Once your cumulative percentage score has been calculated, letter grades will be assigned according to the following grading scale:

 

          93-100 = A     90-92 = A-     87-89 = B+        

            83-86 = B     80-82 = B-     77-79 = C+

            73-76 = C     70-72 = C-     67-69 = D+

            63-66 = D     60-62 = D-

                                                00-59 = F

 

Exams: There are unit exams following the completion of Units C and N.  The unit exams will be administered during the lab period in order to give you more time to work; see the lab schedule on the penultimate page for the exam dates.  Each unit exam will be worth 16% of your final grade.  In addition, there will be a comprehensive final exam given on Friday, December 16.  The final exam will be worth 23% of your grade.

 

Exams will consist of conceptual questions, short numerical exercises, and word problems.  For each exam, I will prepare, with your input, a sheet of equations and numerical constants that you can use while taking the exam.  This equation sheet will be given to you a few days before the exam so that you will know what you need to study. 

 

I do not give make-up exams unless you can provide documentation of some dire situation which prevented you from being present at the exam.

 

Quizzes: To help prepare you for exams, and to encourage you to keep up with the material, I have scheduled seven quizzes during the semester.  These quizzes will be closed book, closed notes, and will cover the previous week’s material.  Quizzes will generally consist of a few conceptual questions plus a short word problem or two.  Approximately 20 minutes of class time will be allotted per quiz.  At the end of the semester I will drop your two lowest quiz grades and average the remaining five scores.  Note that I do not give make-up quizzes unless you have missed class for an extended period due to serious illness or some other extraordinary circumstance.   However, if some official DePauw activity is going to make it impossible for you to take a quiz, and you let me know in advance, I may allow you to take the quiz early.

 

If you miss a quiz, you will be given a score of zero.

 

Homework: Just as learning to play a sport involves more than listening to your coach and watching contests on TV, in order to master the material in this course you will need to do a lot more than glance at the textbook and sit passively in class.  That’s why, for one thing, class sessions will involve group and individual activities that require your active participation.

 

What you do outside of class is also very important.  The highest priority item on the list is something that should be obvious: you need to read the textbook.  And I don’t mean skim through the pages the way you would a Tom Clancy novel.  You need to sit down in a quiet place and read the textbook slowly and carefully; I recommend that you do this with a pencil in hand so that you can work through mathematical derivations, respond to the in-chapter exercises, and jot down questions as they come to you.  It’s a time-consuming, painstaking task, to be sure, but ultimately it should lead to greater understanding.

 

To help you focus on the important ideas in each chapter and formulate questions related to the readings, I have prepared a series of worksheets - one for each chapter that we will cover this semester.  These worksheets are available on Blackboard and consist of simple numerical exercises and conceptual questions that you should be able to answer if you’ve read the material carefully.  I will not collect the worksheets, but in order to persuade you to work on them I will, periodically and without warning, give a short worksheet quiz at the start of class.   These quizzes will include a question or two taken directly from the worksheet assigned for that day and perhaps a vocabulary word.  Your scores on the worksheets quizzes will be figured in as part of your homework grade.

 

Since I believe that textbook problems are a good way of gauging your understanding of the material (contrary to the claims of some students who say “I know the stuff, but I can’t seem to do the problems”), I normally assign about a half-dozen textbook problems from each chapter as practice exercises.  In addition, roughly once every ten days, you will be given a set of extra problems for which you will be asked to write full solutions.  On the day these problems are due, we will hold a lottery: the problem numbers will be put into a hat and one number will be drawn.  I will then collect and grade the problem whose number was selected.

 

Generally, I am more interested in how you do a problem rather than whether you’ve gotten the right answer, and so my grading of homework will be more concerned with process rather than accuracy.   (But don’t get me wrong, getting the right answer is important, too!)   Thus, in writing up homework solutions, I expect you to write out your algebraic steps neatly and in detail, and that you indicate the physical concepts you employ in arriving at your answer.  For most problems, you should follow the general problem-solving framework introduced in section C5.3, paying special attention to the conceptual representation of the problem (this is where you build a mental model of the situation and identify the relevant physics principles) and to the evaluation of your solution (does your answer make sense?  If not, why not?)

 

Each homework problem that you submit can earn up to 10 points, allocated as follows:

 

Translation into pictures and symbols - 2 points

Conceptual model - 3 points

Mathematical solution - 4 points

Evaluation - 1 point

 

I encourage you to work collaboratively on the worksheets and homework problems - studying together is one good way to learn physics.  But don’t just copy work from a friend!  You will help yourself in the short run (good score on the homework assignment, maybe) but punish yourself in the long run (you’re not learning anything, and it’ll show on exams and quizzes).  Plus, let me point out that there is a difference between working together and copying work - the latter constitutes academic dishonesty, and if I have reasons to suspect it you will be confronted with the charge according to the procedure outlined in The Academic Handbook.

 

 

Laboratory: You should purchase a separate notebook just for the physics lab.  This “lab journal” will be your record of everything you do during the lab period.  The journal should include all your raw data, calculations, numerical analysis of the data, graphs, etc.  Although I will not collect your journals, it is important that you maintain a complete, accurate, and readable journal for reasons discussed below.

For two experiments, you will be required to write a lab report in which you describe your experimental procedure, the results of your experiment, and the meaning or significance of your results.  Reports, when required, are due by the next lab period.  Your grade on a lab report will be based on a number of criteria including content, clarity of writing, grammar, and spelling.  (Yes, even scientists should be able to write well!).  If you are not satisfied with your grade on the first lab report, I will allow you to rewrite it; if you choose this option, your lab report grade will be the average of your two scores.  See the document titled The Lab Report in the Physics 120 lab manual for information on what I expect in the way of format and content for these reports.  Each report will be worth 20 points toward your lab grade.   

 

Another 30 lab points can be earned via scores on three lab quizzes administered roughly every fourth week during the semester.  The lab quizzes will consist of questions and exercises related to the lab experiments and will be announced several days in advance.  You can use your journal when taking a lab quiz, but no other material (like, for example, the lab manual) may be referenced.   Since you will be using your journal when writing reports and taking lab quizzes, it's obviously a good idea to make sure your journal is complete and well-organized.

 

Most labs will require that you submit some materials (usually, graphs and calculations) as part of an exit interview at the end of the lab period.  The exit interview is an opportunity for you to discuss the results of the experiment with your lab instructor.  Skipping out on lab before completing the exit interview will result in a three point deduction in your final lab grade for each infraction.

 

Occasionally, circumstances (sports activities, competing class requirements, illness, etc.) will make it impossible for you to attend lab at your scheduled time.  If that happens, it may be possible for you to attend one of the other Physics 120 labs during the week.  But no matter what, any missed lab must be made up by the end of the following week or the three-point-deduction rule (see above) will be enforced.  Note that it is your responsibility to make arrangements to make up a missed lab.

 

Class participation: I expect you to come to class regularly and to demonstrate intellectual liveliness in the classroom.   I reserve the right to adjust your final course score up or down by a point or two based on the extent and quality of your class participation.

 

 

And finally…

 

 

Physics 120 is a “Q” Course:  Success in this course is strongly tied to your ability to reasoning quantitatively, and for that reason you will automatically earn your Q by completing Physics 120 with a passing grade. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  LAB SCHEDULE

(subject to revisions)

 

Week	Lab Experiment
Aug 30	Measurements & Uncertainties
Sept 6	Collisions
Sept 13	Crater Formation (lab report required)
Sept 20	Rolling Balls
Sept 27	Conservation Laws
Oct 4	UNIT C EXAM
Oct 11	Air Track Dynamics
Oct 18	No lab (Fall Break)
Oct 25	Falling Bodies (lab report required)
Nov 1	Centripetal Force
Nov 8	Projectile Motion
Nov 15	UNIT N EXAM
Nov 22	Physical Pendulum
Nov 29	Atwood’s Machine
Dec 6	Film: Time Travel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                        PHYSICS 120 - FALL 2005

                             CLASS SCHEDULE

 

	Monday	Wednesday	Friday
Aug 22-26		Course Introduction	C1: Interactions
Aug 29-Sept 2	C2: Vectors	C3: Interactions Transfer Momentum	C4: Particles and Systems
Sept 5-9	C5: Applying Momentum Conservation	Catch-Up Day Quiz 1 (C1-C4)	C6: Intro to Energy
Sept 12-16	C7: Some Potential Energy Functions	C8: Force and Energy	Catch-Up Day Quiz 2 (C5-C7)
Sept 19-23	C9: Rotational Energy	C10: Thermal Energy	C11: Energy in Bonds
Sept 26-30	C13: Ang Momentum	Catch-Up Day Quiz 3 (C8-C11)	C14: Conservation of Angular Momentum
Oct 3-7	N1: Newton’s Laws	N2: Vector Calculus	N3: Forces from             Motion
Oct 10-14	N4: Motion From Forces	N5: Statics	Catch-Up Day Quiz 4 (N1-N4)
Oct 17-21	Fall Break	Fall Break	Fall Break
Oct 24-28	N6: Lin. Con. Motion	N7: Coupled Objects	N8: Circularly Constrained Motion
Oct 31-Nov 4	Catch-Up Day Quiz 5 (N5-N7)	N10: Projectile Motion	N11: Oscillations
Nov 7-11	N12: Intro to Orbits	Catch-Up Day Quiz 6 (N8-N11)	N13: Planetary Motion
Nov 14-18	R1: The Principle of       Relativity	R2: Synchronizing       Clocks	R3: The Nature of        Time
Nov 21-25	R4: Metric Equation	Thanksgiving Break	Thanksgiving Break
Nov 28-Dec 2	R5: Proper Time	R6: Coordinate Transformations	Catch-Up Day Quiz 7 (R3-R5)
Dec 5-9	R7: Lorentz                 Contraction	R9: Four-Momentum	Catch-Up Day / Review
Comprehensive Final Exam: Friday, December 16, 1:00-4:00 PM