PHY 2624
Engineering Physics II
Section 5701 (Laboratory 5702)
Instructor: Paul Williams, Ph.D.
Office: NRG 2217
Phone: 223-4871
Grading Policies
Tentative Syllabus and Laboratory Schedule
Homework Policies
Laboratory Policies
Office Hours: I will hold office hours according to the following schedule. I hold office hours in order to aid students. Please feel free to come and visit, get help, whatever.
TH 12 Noon-1:00 PM Or by appointment.
Tests: There will be three tests and a cumulative final. The tests will be closed notes and books and will be spaced at approximately four to five week intervals. The tests will be cumulative and will reflect the homework assignments. You may replace the grade on one previous test with your grade on the final, with the provision that you may not replace the grade for an exam you did not take. No make up exams will be given.
Laboratory: Physics is a laboratory based science. Concurrent enrollment in the laboratory section 5702 is required. The laboratory will be 25% of your total grade.
Grade: Your grade will be determined as follows:
Tests 45%
Final 20%
Homework 10%
Laboratory 25%
Based on the following scale:
A 90-100
B 80-89
C 70-79
D 60-69
F 0-59
Attendance: Attendance is required and I expect you to attend class regularly. It is my experience that a typical student will drop a letter grade for each three to four absences.
Problems: If some problem arises causing you to miss an assignment, please see me in advance if at all possible and I will try and make accommodations. Incompletes are not given except under extreme circumstances.
Help: If you need help, get it. I hold office hours to help students and you should view me as a primary source of aid. Also free tutoring exists in the parallel studies tutoring lab, and I highly recommend this service. Feel free to work on homework assignments with classmates. However, regardless of the source of help you receive, you are responsible for your own work. If you copy someone else's homework without doing it yourself, you will not understand the material and despite having a good homework grade will not do well in the course.
Tentative Syllabus and Laboratory Schedule
Text: Physics for Scientists and Engineers, 4th ed., Raymond Serway.
The date in the first column of the table below for the Monday of that week of the semester. For each week, the first line lists the sections to be covered in the text and the second line gives the lab activities.
Week/Date Tuesday Thursday
|
1 8/24 |
Introduction 23.1-5 |
23.6-7 |
|
Lab |
Intro. Lab, Review of Vectors |
24.1-4 |
|
2 8/31 |
25.1-5 |
25.6-7, 26.1-4 |
|
Lab |
E-fields |
Catch Up |
|
3 9/7 |
26.5, 27.1-3 |
27.4-6 |
|
Lab |
Parallel Plate Capacitor |
Ohm's law |
|
4 9/14 |
28.1-3 |
Test #1 |
|
Lab |
Test #1 Review |
Test #1 |
|
5 9/21 |
28.4-5, 29.1-2 |
29.3-5, 30.2 |
|
Lab |
Wheatstone bridge |
DC circuits |
|
6 9/28 |
30.3-8 |
30.9, 31.1 |
|
Lab |
Definition of the ampere |
ampere cont. |
|
7 10/5 |
31.2-5 |
31.7, 32.1-2 |
|
Lab |
Introduction to the oscilloscope |
Test #2 Review |
|
8 10/12 |
32.3-6, 33.1-2 |
Test #2 |
|
Lab |
RL and RC circuits |
Test #2 |
|
9 10/19 |
33.3-7,9 |
34.1-4 |
|
Lab |
RLC circuits |
Catch up day |
|
10 10/26 |
34.7, 36.1-3 |
36.4 |
|
Lab |
Spherical mirrors |
Thin lenses |
|
11 11/2 |
36.7,8,10 |
37.1-3,5 |
|
Lab |
Compound lenses |
Diffraction |
|
12 11/9 |
37.6, 38.1-4 |
38.6, 39.1-2 |
|
Lab |
Malus' law |
Test #3 Review |
|
13 11/16 |
39.5-9 |
Test #3 |
|
Lab |
Atomic spectra |
Test #3 |
|
14 11/23 |
40.1-3 |
Thanksgiving Holiday |
|
Lab |
AS cont. |
Thanksgiving Holiday |
|
15 11/30 |
40.4-6, 41.1-2 |
41.3-5 |
|
Lab |
Photoelectric effect |
PE cont. |
|
16 12/7 |
Review |
Final |
|
Lab |
Lab Final |
Final |
Time: An important part of learning physics is homework. I believe whole-heartedly in homework. Physics requires a different type of thinking than other classes and this thought process needs to be developed through practice. I will assign a large number of problems weekly, which I consider a minimum amount of work to learn the material. It is my fervent belief that unless a student is a physics prodigy, he/she will not do well in this class without keeping up with the homework.
Class Discussion: I will begin each class day with a limited discussion of questions on homework. I have found in the past that a fair amount of time is lost waiting for students to dig out their homework questions. Consequently, I expect students to have their questions ready to be asked before class begines.
Grading: Homework will be picked up each Tuesday. I will spot check each assignment, assigning a grade from 0-10 depending on effort, correctness, and completeness.
Review: I have found that students retain material better if they review frequently, and so each homework assignment will contain a significant number of review problems.
Due Date: Homework is due on my desk without my asking for it at the end of the class period every Tuesday, unless otherwise directed.
Organization: Please keep your homework assignments so that any possible errors in my grading records can be rectified. It is a good idea to keep your homework in a loose leaf binder for reference.
Late Homework: I realize that it is not always possible to complete assignments on time. In order to allow for unusual circumstances, I will accept up to three late homeworks without penalty from each student. Homework will not be accepted more than one week late. Any additional late assignments will not be accepted. Also no assignments will be accepted after Tuesday of the last week of class.
Write-ups (20 %): A major component of this course is the laboratory. You will perform approximately twelve to fourteen laboratory exercises in this course. Each will require a brief write up which will be described in the laboratory assignment. The write ups may be either typed or neatly hand written. They should always include your raw data and relevant graphs and calculations.
Attendance: All students must complete every lab assignment. If you miss a laboratory, you must make it up. Arrangements can be made with me for makeups. Typically makeups can be conducted on lab days where we don't perform an experiment or Friday afternoons.
Due Date: Lab write-ups will typically be due one week after the finish of the experiment. The write ups are due during class on the due date without my asking for them.
Notebook: The purpose of keeping a lab notebook is to develop good professional work habits. For instance it is required to keep a detailed lab notebook in order to patent any invention, and the organization of your notebook will be along the lines of a patent type notebook. Your lab book will be separate from your lab write ups and will be checked each lab period. The contents of the lab book should include, appropriately labeled, the following.
1. Procedure: A brief description of your experiment and the procedure should be put in the notebook. Excessive detail isn't necessary: you should just put in enough so that someone else could verify that you actually performed the work that you did. Stapling the handout for the lab into your notebook will be adequate. If your handout doesn't have a sketch of your apparatus, you should put a quick sketch into your notebook.
2. Measurements: Any measurements you need to do your analysis, for instance lengths of air tracks, the grid spacing on the air table, etc.
3. Any settings on instruments that you made.
4. Raw data. If your raw data is obtained from some instrument other than by hand, you should staple a copy into the notebook.
5. Observations. You should keep an eye pealed when performing your experiments. Things will go wrong. Balls won't drop when they are supposed to, carts will drag on air tracks, strings will stick, etc. It is important to observe these things in order to interpret your results. If you do observe anything during your experiment record it.
6. Calculations. If you perform calculations by hand, they should go in your notebook. If you use a spread sheet or computer package staple a copy of the printout into the notebook.
Lab Final (5%): This class will have a lab practical test. An important objective in this class is to learn the basics of the operations of several fundamental instruments, the oscilloscope and the digital multi-meter. The lab final, which will occur on the Tuesday of the last week, will test proficiency in the operation of those instruments.