PHY215 - Fall 2015 General Physics I (Honors and Majors)

PHY215 - Fall 2015
General Physics I (Honors and Majors)
Professor Britton Plourde
219 Physics Building, 443-8967, [email protected]
Office Hours: Tuesdays 1:30-3:30PM or by appointment
Graduate teaching assistant: Prashant Mishra, [email protected]
Lectures: Tuesday and Thursday 11:00AM to 12:20PM, 104N,
Physics Building
Required textbooks: Physics for Scientists and Engineers, 3rd
edition Vol. 1 (Chapters 1-15), R.D. Knight and accompanying
Student Workbook
PHY215 Course Description
Course content: This course covers Mechanics, a field of study pioneered by
Isaac Newton in the 17th century that is primarily concerned with describing the
motion of macroscopic objects in response to forces. In developing this subject
we will encounter several important concepts such as energy, momentum, and
angular momentum. This course is geared towards physics majors and students
in the Honors program. Thus, we will move at a fairly quick pace as we try to
touch on more advanced topics beyond the standard Mechanics curriculum.
Course outline:
• Weeks 1-4: Describing motion (kinematics)
• Weeks 5-6: Predicting and Explaining Motion (Newton's laws)
• Weeks 7-8: Energy and momentum
• Weeks 9-12: Extended objects, rotational dynamics
• Weeks 13: Thanksgiving break
• Week 14: Gravity, oscillations
• Week 15: Fluids
Course objectives: This course has several rather broad goals. They include
that you
• develop a good understanding of a few important concepts in physics
• learn to apply these concepts to familiar and unfamiliar situations
• gain the ability to reason qualitatively and quantitatively about physics
• get a flavor of more advanced topics outside of the typical Mechanics
curriculum.
Reading assignments: Reading assignments for each lecture are given on the
course calendar. You are strongly urged to do the reading in advance, since the
lectures will assume that you are familiar with the terms used in the text.
Lectures: During the lectures we will discuss important highlights from the
reading assignments, study demonstrations that illustrate key topics, work
through sample problems, and consider relevant conceptual questions.
A slide summary of the upcoming lecture topics will be posted on the course
website the evening before. This is intended to help you prepare for the lectures.
Some students may want to print these online slides beforehand and make their
own notes directly on these pages -- this is fine, although certainly not required.
Often, due to differences in the timing of demonstrations or questions, there may
be a few slides at the end of the set posted on the website that are not covered
during a lecture. These slides, or at least the concepts on them, will be discussed
in the subsequent lecture.
Attending the lectures will greatly improve your odds for success in the course.
Workshops: There are two one-hour workshops each week in which you will be
asked to work on a variety of tutorials and problem solving activities. Attendance
is required. You may miss up to three workshop sessions over the course of the
semester with no grade penalty; further absences will reduce your workshop
participation score. The workshops are organized so that you can gain the
maximum benefit from completing the workshop activities in collaboration with
the peers in your group as well as with assistance from the teaching assistant.
The activities that you complete in the workshop will not be turned in and they will
not be graded. Solutions for these worksheets will not be posted on the website.
Some of the workshop activities will be based on worksheets from the Student
Workbook that accompanies the course textbook. You will need to bring the
Workbook volume to each workshop. The workshop prior to each of the three
mid-semester exams will be used to work through sample exam-style problems.
Other workshop activities will involve various problem-solving activities including
some problems from the course textbook. Please bring your textbook with you to
these workshops. If applicable, worksheets will be handed out in class, although
you may want to bring your own extra paper. The activities for each upcoming
workshop will be posted on the course website the evening before, if not earlier.
Homework: There will be weekly homework assignments consisting of various
end-of-chapter problems from the textbook, conceptual problems, and examstyle problems. The assignments will be posted each week on the course
website and will be announced in the lectures. The homework will be due in the
workshop as indicated on the course schedule and will be checked for
completeness and selected parts will be graded in detail by the TA in a
conventional manner. At the end of the semester your lowest two homework
scores will be dropped. Solutions to some homework problems will be provided
at the course website. In all cases late homework will not be accepted.
Exams: There will be three eighty-minute exams throughout the semester during
the regularly scheduled lecture period. Each exam will focus on material from the
three or four weeks prior to the week of the exam but may include earlier material
as well. Sample problems from exams from previous semesters will be posted on
the course website and will be discussed in the workshop before each exam. The
lowest exam score (not including the final exam) for each student will be
dropped. In addition, there will be a two-hour final. The final exam will be
comprehensive.
All exams will be closed book, although you may bring one double-sided sheet
(8.5" x 11") of handwritten notes (no photocopies). Each student is responsible
for bringing a scientific calculator to the exams. There will be NO makeup exams.
Students who do not take the final or who miss more than one of the other exams
will not be given a passing grade.
Regrading requests: If you think a serious error has been made in the grading
of your exam, you may request a regrade. Write a note describing your concerns,
attach it to your exam, and resubmit at the beginning of the lecture period
following the return of the exams. It is important that you do not make any
changes or marks on the exam. Please note that you must have a specific
complaint. Unspecified requests for additional points will not be accepted.
Course grade: The various course components will contribute to your final grade
as follows:
•
•
•
•
Exams 1-3 40%
Final exam 25%
Homework 20%
Workshop participation 15%
The grades will be normalized if necessary such that the average course grade is
a B- or better, depending on the performance of the class as a whole.
Laboratory course: You are required to enroll in the accompanying laboratory
course (Physics 221). The two courses cover the same subject matter, but you
will receive a separate grade for each one.
Disability-Related Accommodations:
If you believe that you need accommodations for a disability, please contact the
Office of Disability Services(ODS), http://disabilityservices.syr.edu, located in
Room 309 of 804 University Avenue, or call (315) 443-4498, TDD: (315) 4431371 for an appointment to discuss your needs and the process for requesting
accommodations. ODS is responsible for coordinating disability-related
accommodations and will issue students with documented Disabilities
Accommodation Authorization Letters, as appropriate. Since accommodations
may require early planning and generally are not provided retroactively, please
contact ODS as soon as possible.
Academic integrity:
Syracuse University’s Academic Integrity Policy holds students accountable for
the integrity of the work they submit. Students should be familiar with the policy
and know that it is their responsibility to learn about course-specific expectations,
as well as about university policy. The university policy governs appropriate
citation and use of sources, the integrity of work submitted in exams and
assignments, and the veracity of signatures on attendance sheets and other
verification of participation in class activities. The policy also prohibits students
from submitting the same written work in more than one class without receiving
written authorization in advance from both instructors. The presumptive penalty
for a first offense by an undergraduate student is course failure, accompanied by
a transcript notation indicating that the failure resulted from a violation of
Academic Integrity Policy. The standard sanction for a first offense by a graduate
student is suspension or expulsion.
For more information and the complete policy, see
http://academicintegrity.syr.edu/academic- integrity-policy/
Religious observances policy:
SU religious observances policy, found at
http://supolicies.syr.edu/emp_ben/religious_observance.htm, recognizes the
diversity of faiths represented among the campus community and protects the
rights of students, faculty, and staff to observe religious holidays according to
their tradition. Under the policy, students are provided an opportunity to make up
any examination, study, or work requirements that may be missed due to a
religious observance provided they notify their instructors before the end of the
second week of classes. For fall and spring semesters, an online notification
process is available through
MySlice/StudentServices/Enrollment/MyReligiousObservances from the first day
of class until the end of the second week of class.
Clinic: Physics teaching assistants will be available for consultation in the
Physics Clinic, located in room 112S in the Physics Building. Clinic hours will be
posted on the Physics Department web page.
PHY215 - General Physics I (Honors and Majors)
Calendar
Week 1
• Tues., Sept. 1: Lecture #1.1 Course overview, motion in 1D (Reading: 1.1-1.8)
• Wed., Sept. 2: Workshop #1.1 Motion in 1D
• Thurs., Sept. 3: Lecture #1.2 Kinematics and graphs (Reading: 2.1-2.3)
• Fri., Sept. 4: Workshop #1.2 Velocity, motion with graphs
Week 2
• Tues., Sept. 8: Lecture #2.1 Constant acceleration (Reading: 2.4-2.7)
• Wed., Sept. 9: Workshop #2.1 Acceleration in 1D
• Thurs., Sept. 10: Lecture #2.2 Vectors, vector components (Reading: 3.1-3.4)
• Fri., Sept. 11: Workshop #2.2 Vectors
Week 3
• Tues., Sept. 15: Lecture #3.1 Kinematics in 2D (Reading: 4.1-4.3)
• Wed., Sept. 16: Workshop #3.1 Motion in 2D
• Thurs., Sept. 17: Lecture #3.2 Kinematics in 2D (4.5-4.6)
• Fri., Sept. 18: Workshop #3.2 Motion in 2D
Week 4
• Tues., Sept. 22: Lecture #4.1 Circular Motion (Reading: 4.7)
• Wed., Sept. 23: Workshop #4.1 Problems on circular motion
• Thurs., Sept. 24: Relative Motion (Reading: 4.4)
• Fri., Sept. 25: Workshop #4.2 Practice problems for Exam 1
Week 5
• Tues., Sept. 29: Exam 1 (Reading: review)
• Wed., Sept. 30: Workshop #5.1 Review exam & introduction to forces
• Thurs., Oct. 1: Lecture #5.1 Forces, Newton's laws (Reading: 5.1-5.7, 7.1-7.5)
• Fri., Oct. 2: Workshop #5.2 Applications of Newton's laws (1)
Week 6
• Tues., Oct. 6: Lecture #6.1 Weight and friction (Reading: 6.1-6.6)
• Wed., Oct. 7: Workshop #6.1 Weight and friction
• Thurs., Oct. 8: Lecture #6.2 Tension, Dynamics in 2D (Reading: 8.1-8.5)
• Fri., Oct. 9: Workshop #6.2 Applications of Newton's laws (2)
Week 7
• Tues., Oct. 13: Lecture #7.1 Impulse and momentum (Reading: 9.1-9.6)
• Wed., Oct. 14: Workshop #7.1 Problems on momentum and collisions
• Thurs., Oct. 15: Lecture #7.2 Collisions, Energy (Reading: 10.1-10.3)
• Fri., Oct. 16: Workshop #7.2 Conservation of momentum, energy
Week 8
• Tues., Oct. 20: Lecture #8.1 Energy, springs (Reading: 10.4-10.7)
• Wed., Oct. 21: Workshop #8.1 Conservation of energy, springs
• Thurs., Oct. 22: Lecture #8.2 Work, power (Reading: 11.1-11.5, 11.8-11.9)
• Fri., Oct. 23: Workshop #8.2 Practice exam problems for Exam 2
Week 9
• Tues., Oct. 27: Exam 2 (Reading: review)
• Wed., Oct. 28: Workshop #9.1 Review exam & introduction to extended objects
• Thurs., Oct. 29: Lecture #9.1 Extended objects (Reading: 12.1-12.5)
• Fri., Oct. 30: Workshop #9.2 extended objects
Week 10
• Tues., Nov. 3: Lecture #10.1 Center of mass
• Wed., Nov. 4: Workshop #10.1 Problems on center of mass
• Thurs., Nov. 5: Lecture #10.2 Torque, moment of inertia (Reading: 12.4-12.5)
• Fri., Nov. 6: Workshop #10.2 Calculating moment of inertia
Week 11
• Tues., Nov. 10: Lecture #11.1 Rotational dynamics (Reading: 12.6-12.8)
• Wed., Nov. 11: Workshop #11.1 Problems on torque and rotational energy
• Thurs., Nov. 12: Lecture #11.2 Angular momentum (Reading: 12.10-12.11)
• Fri., Nov. 13: Workshop #11.2 Problems on angular momentum
Week 12
• Tues., Nov. 17: Lecture #12.1 Rolling (Reading: 12.9)
• Wed., Nov. 18: Workshop #12.1 Practice exam problems for Exam 3
• Thurs., Nov. 19: Exam 3 (Reading: review)
• Fri., Nov. 20: Workshop #12.2 Review exam
Week 13
• Mon., Nov. 23 – Fri., Nov. 27 - Thanksgiving - no classes
Week 14
• Tues., Dec. 1: Lecture #14.1 Newtonian gravity (Reading: 13.1-13.6)
• Wed., Dec. 2: Workshop #14.1 Problems on gravitation
• Thurs., Dec. 3: Lecture #14.2 Oscillations (Reading: 14.1-14.8)
• Fri., Dec. 4: Workshop #14.2 Problems on oscillations
Week 15
• Tues., Dec. 8: Lecture #15.1 Fluids, pressure (Reading: 15.1-15.4)
• Wed., Dec. 9: Workshop #15.1 Problems on fluids and pressure
• Thurs., Dec. 10: Lecture #15.2 Fluid dynamics (Reading: 15.5-15.6)
• Fri., Dec. 11: Workshop #15.2 Review for Final Exam
Final Exam: Thursday, Dec. 17, 3:00 – 5:00PM