PHYS College Physics II. Summer 2011

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1 PHYS 1302 College Physics II Summer 2011 Last changes July 2, 2011 Course Description: (3 hours credit; in long terms 3 lecture hours weekly) A continuation of College Physics I. Topics include periodic motion, sound, electric force, electric current, resistance, electric circuits, magnetism, electromagnetic induction, AC circuits, light, and optics. Prerequisite: PHYS 1301 and Concurrent enrollment in PHYS 1102 is recommended. This course qualifies toward the TAMUK General Education requirements in the area of Natural Sciences, provided the corresponding lab course, PHYS 1102, is also taken. Together with their prerequisites PHYS 1301/1101, they will complete that requirement. Meetings: Sec. 001: Lecture 8:00-10:00 AM, MTWR, Hill 119 Due to University holiday scheduling, we will ALSO MEET on FRIDAY July 8. Faculty: Dr. Paul H. Cox, Professor Office: Hill 211 Phone: 2623; or department phone phcox at tamuk.edu Department fax number: (361) webpage: (Note no www on the front.) Office hours: Scheduled office hours (subject to change): MTWR 10:00-1:00 Note: I may be elsewhere in the building during these times, but what I'm doing can usually be interrupted. Unscheduled Office Hours by appointment Informal office hours when in Student Learner Outcomes: Students who should pass this course will: I. demonstrate understanding of the key principles taught in an introductory course. Specifically, the succesful student will correctly respond to qualitative questions, and provide valid physics-based descriptions of everyday phenomena, both those commonly recognized as physics-related and also related biological or agricultural examples; and will show intelligent, informed steps in problem solving, and obtain valid answers to problem situations, whether order-of-magnitude results or accurate values are called for. II. recognize scientific and quantitative methods and the differences between these approaches and other methods. III. demonstrate the ability to recognize the contributions of science and technology in daily life, including issues that touch on ethics, values, and public policies. In more detail, the successful student should be able to: (1) Work correctly with physical quantities. This includes correct and complete treatment of appropriate units, which includes mathematically correct combining of units and correct conversion of different units (whether within metric, i.e., using prefixes, or between "British" and metric). This also includes correct treatment of accuracy in data.

2 (2) Work correctly with vector quantities, especially when information does not group direction and size data; work both with size-and-direction forms and with component forms of vector data, and convert between them. (3) Analyze situations to recognize all the information which is present and all the influences which must be acting; identify all the forces; and group those forces which are on a relevant object. (4) Solve new problems, using general principles and techniques, in the areas discussed in the course: electricity, magnetism, oscillations and waves, and optics. Text: Newman, Physics of the Life Sciences, ISBN We will use mostly the second half; PHYS 1301 covered roughly the first half. (The material can be learned from any text at this level if you just study by topic, not by chapter number. There are several such texts in Jernigan Library.) Evaluation: 30% (over one quarter) of your semester point score will come from the final exam. It will take place on Thursday August 4, 8:00-10:00 AM, the time indicated in the published schedules. The final will be comprehensive, though not uniformly or completely so. 50% of your semester point score will come from quizzes. Each quiz will be scored as twenty-five to fifty points, at usually 10 or 15 points per problem depending on length, importance, and difficulty. Each such point will be worth about a tenth of a percent of your course grade; the exact value will depend on the number of quizzes, which may vary due to unforeseen circumstances. Quizzes will be generally on alternate class days, usually at chapter ends, sometimes over single chapters, sometimes over two or more if one or more of those chapters are less central to the course. 20% of your semester point score will come from my handout assignments. These will generally be distributed on alternate days, due at the start of the next class period; you will thus usually have either a homework handout to do or a quiz to prepare for, but not usually both, before each class. Most questions I compose (homework, quiz, and final exam) will be short problems. Multiple-choice or other short-answer question forms may be used occasionally, generally graded all-or-nothing. (The final exam may be about 1/4 to 1/3 [by total value] multiple choice.) Otherwise, partial credit will be possible when earned by legible, comprehensible work, but such credit may be lost due to accompanying incorrect steps; correct answers accompanied by incorrect steps or incorrect usages will not receive full credit. Certain significant errors will receive substantial penalties whether relevant to work or not (and can cancel partial credit; however, negative scores will not be given). This includes incorrect use of units, vector notation, and equal signs. Point values awarded in my grading will be determined generally by penalizing steps not reached and mistakes made (not according to an A-quality = 90%, etc., scale). Hence total points scored will be curved at term end before assigning letter grades, unless that would produce downward revisions. Attendance, etc.: Prompt regular attendance is important to success in every scheduled endeavor, including classes. However, attendance carries no direct weight in this course. If you can complete the assignments and score high (honestly) on all the quizzes and the final, you can receive an A without sitting through any other part of the course. (However, that is extremely implausible unless you are registered for this course only in order to validate knowledge acquired elsewhere.) You should recognize that, in accordance with Murphy's Law, the time you miss will probably be the only time that some concept will be covered that will mean ten or twenty points on a quiz and/or the final. Actions such as coming late, leaving early, being interrupted by cell phones, etc., unless they are substantially disruptive, are matters of infractions of courtesy to your classmates, and I leave

3 responding to such disruptions to their discretion. Make-up quizzes will not be given. If absences on a quiz date are foreseeable, an early quiz may be arranged. Otherwise, if the circumstances causing the absence warrant, a substitute credit based on other quiz results may be allowed (it will be calculated near the end of the term, when I have enough information to estimate your performance relative to your peers). The amount of allowable substitute credit will depend on the circumstances, and will also be a decreasing function of the time when I receive information about the circumstances. If there are degree candidates needing an early final in the class, they should notify me early in the term, and remind me a week before finals. If so, an early final will be given to meet their requirements. Once it is scheduled, if it is, any other student who prefers to finish the course early may also take the final at that time. Reminder: If you are taking PHYS 1302 because of a program requirement, you will normally be required to register for 1102 at some time. If you are repeating and/or you are not clear on your requirements, see me after lecture. I do not drop students for excessive absences, normally; if you simply stop coming, you may expect to receive an F. Further, under government regulations you may face financial penalties. Multiple Absences: A student with multiple absences will have difficulty in completing this course. If there are extenuating circumstances, the possibility of an Incomplete grade may be discussed with the supervisor. DROPS: The following provision (new in Fall 2007) does not apply to students with Texas public college or university credits prior to Fall The Texas legislature has enacted a limit to the number of course drops allowed to a student. Under earlier policy, dropping a course after the official census date but before midterm meant that a grade of Q appeared on your record, and the course did not count toward academic progress, but it also did not count in your GPA. Under the new policy, you are allowed six drops in your college career which have that effect, but represented by a QI grade; after six, the grade will be QF which counts as an F in your GPA. (Some exceptions qualify for a QE instead.) Content, schedule: This text is divided into chapters. Some texts group related chapters into "Parts"; this text does not use such a label but does have a similar grouping. This course will cover most of the material on Electricity and Magnetism, Oscillations and Waves, and Optics: Chapters 10-11, 14-23; if time permits also some of the later chapters (Ch ). The expected order is to begin with Electricity and continue through Magnetism, then pick up Oscillations and Waves, then finish with Optics. Some material covered in 1102 will receive minimal lecture treatment; you are still responsible for the theory (this will include most material on circuits). Handouts or webpage references may be provided for some material. Besides the assigned homework, a recommended problem list may be developed; in its absence, you may consider all odd-numbered problems in the text to be suggested. Such problems will not be graded, but like the homework may be examples for lecture discussion. Test questions should generally be comparable. The pace should be close to a chapter a day; students are expected to read ahead so as to be prepared with questions on any confusing points. Each quiz problem will involve at least some material since the preceding quiz, but may be cumulative as well. The final will be comprehensive, though with somewhat more than proportional coverage of material not tested earlier.

4 Probable schedule: Quiz # Chapters covered Estimated date 1 14: Electric Charge, Electric Field W July : Electric Potential, Electric Energy F July : Electric Current, etc. T July : Magnetism R July : Magnetism, continued T July : Induction, AC Circuits R July ,11: Oscillations, Waves T July ,20,21 E-M Waves, Geometric Optics R July ,23: Wave Optics T August 2 Students with Disabilities, including learning disabilities, may have reasonable accommodations made if appropriate notice is given. (The student must ask; if a faculty member asks first, that is unacceptably singling out the student.) In accordance with federal law, this normally requires registration, including appropriate documentation, with the Services for Students with Disabilities office. Misconduct: See the Student Handbook. Students should be knowledgeable about the Student Handbook's provisions concerning misconduct. Students who engage in any form of misconduct are subject to disciplinary procedures. This includes academic misconduct which specifically includes plagiarism and all other forms of cheating. The faculty reserves the right to check submitted work for plagiarism, including by the use of appropriate software. Sexual Harassment: Sexual harassment of anyone at Texas A&M University-Kingsville is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. Any member of the university community violating this policy will be subject to disciplinary action. Some additional remarks: My quiz/test problems will be story problems and will require thinking; knowing formulas will not be enough. It will sometimes not be obvious where to start in order to arrive at the required answer, while in many cases information will be provided that seems related but is not actually required. If you don't see how to get the final answer but do see how to get some addtional values, do that and then look at the overall problem again with the new information. On quizzes, each problem will relate substantially to a current topic but will often require additional steps based on previous material; on the final the same applies except that the topic and the extra steps can be from any part of the course. A special warning: a problem being in a multiple-choice format does not necessarily mean it is a quick-answer problem; it principally means that applying the correct concept, rather than the details or accuracy of the calculation, is being assessed. The purpose of tests is to see if you have learned at least some of what you were supposed to. In a physics course that learning does not involve straight memorization, it involves understanding of basic principles and of how to apply them. The reason physics is required by most curricula that

5 require it, is that people in that field believe it is important for you to understand these principles and be able to use them in new situations - the situations that were not covered in your courses. The only way to test if you have some degree of that ability is to give you test problems that call for you to apply your knowledge in a new situation, or at least one that is at least somewhat different from those that were previously discussed. Unfortunately this calls for a skill which may not be teachable; the only way I know to acquire it is practice, on as varied a problem set as needed. A recommended problem list is only a minimum, intended to be extensive enough to include problems covering all the major topics, without being very repetitive. If you have trouble, repetition with variations may be an answer, and is the reason that physics textbooks have long lists of problems. Countering the necessity of a possibly unteachable skill as a requirement for mastery of physics, is the fact that mastery of that skill is not required for progress in physics; since I curve grades, as low as 40% of possible points has been known to be a passing grade. Physics is not a subject one can learn by only listening and reading; it requires practice. A few students in this course have had sufficient correct practice before starting this course; most students should expect to have to allocate substantial amounts of time - not on the night before the final - to this material. "If you don't ask questions, you stay stuck wherever you are." - Madeleine L'Engle I think the approach to learning this material that seems to work for the most students is: read, then work problems, then ASK QUESTIONS. First, read the text, seeing if it seems to make sense. If so, try some problems. If a single problem gives you some difficulty, try another before spending a lot of time on one: just a change of context might be enough to let you recognize what you missed on the first try. As a rule of thumb, if you have spent half an hour on a single problem without making progress, it's time to look at a different one. (A long problem may require more than half an hour simply to work out the details; that's wht I indicate 'half an hour without progress'.) At whatever point you encounter significant difficulty, you have identified something to ask about in class. Continue reading and noting questions through the chapter; you may even find that some later application of the concept answers your early questions. Now attend the lecture, and ask your questions. After lecture continue with reading and problems. When no one asks questions, the lecture may go smoothly but not as much learning may occur. IF YOU DON'T ASK YOUR QUESTION, IT PROBABLY WON'T GET ASKED. And in that case you won't have the knowledge you need come test time. Don't wait, thinking to ask someone else; they are likely to have an inadequate answer, if not a wrong one, if they have an answer at all. As college students, you are becoming adults, expected to act responsibly on your requirements; you are also expected to be learning how to acquire knowledge on your own initiative, not waiting for it to be handed to you. Even if I recognize what your difficulty may be, I won't come to you to resolve it. In most cases I won't even recognize what your problem is until you can put it into some specific question. Return to PHYS 1302 course homepage.

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