Main Page for Physics 5C
Instructor: Peter Young (office Kerr 217, phone 459-4151, e-mail: peter@bartok.ucsc.edu)
Place: Thimann Lecture Theatre 1
Time: Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, 8:00-9:10 a.m.
Offices Hours: Mondays and Wednesdays, 10:00-11:00 a.m. and other times by appointment.
Note: Course materials, such as homework assignments and handouts will be also be available at my web site http://bartok.ucsc.edu/peter/
This does not apply to homework solutions (which are handwritten), which will be available in the library.
Books
The required book for the course is
Other useful books are
Course Organization
The lectures will stress conceptual understanding and will try to
encourage more student involvement in the course. I will frequently
set a simple multiple choice conceptual question in class and, after giving a
you a minute or two to think about it by yourself, will encourage you to
discuss this with each other.
Your evaluation/grade will not depend on your performance in the conceptual
quizzes.
Their purpose is to
encourage to
think intuitively about the subject (rather than just memorizing formulae,
which is very boring). I will not attempt to cover
every derivation in class, which is also generally boring for you
to watch. You will be
expected to read the material in the book yourself
and go over the derivations.
I will also not emphasize very much problem solving in the lectures. Problem
solving expertise is gained by working out problems yourself. The discussion
sections will be largely devoted to problem solving. To get the most out of
them, you should have made an attempt to work out the problems yourself first.
For this approach to work, you must do the reading assignments, listed on the last page of this handout, before coming to class. At the start of some of the lectures, there will be a simple quiz on the reading assignment before I cover the material. This will test that you have read the material: it will not require that you have mastered it. Attendance at the lectures is required, and you will be expected to arrive on time. If you miss a quiz (e.g. by arriving late) you will not be able to make it up. These quizzes comprise 10% bonus points, which will be used to reduce the percentage that your final exam contributes towards your score. The final exam plus reading quizzes contributes 40% and if you get, say, half the reading quizzes correct, you will receive 5% (half of 10%) towards your final score from the quizzes, and the final will then only contribute 35% (i.e. (40-5)%. In other words, you can still, in principle, get 100% in the course if you score zero in the reading quizzes, but these quizzes give you marks ``under your belt'' before you take the final exam.
Discussion Sections:
You are strongly encouraged to attend the weekly discussion to
be led Miguel Morales.
These will be on Wednesdays 7:00-8:30 p.m. in Thimann 185.
Miguel is a graduate student
who has had considerable experience teaching physics at the
high school level and at UCSC.
His sections will concentrate on problem solving and will probably, therefore,
be useful to help you with homework assignments. He will not do the homework
for you but will work out similar examples, supply hints, answer your
questions, and so on.
Homework
A weekly homework assignment will be handed out on Fridays and be
due the following Friday. If you have a good excuse, late homework will be
accepted up to the afternoon of the same day if you bring it to my office.
Homework will not be accepted after that because the solutions will then be
available in the library.
It is very important to work hard on the homework problems. You don't
really understand a topic until you are able to solve problems in it.
The way to learn how to solve problems is through practice. You
are encouraged to discuss the homework problems with other
students. You are also encouraged to attend the discussion section and
office hours for additional help. For your own benefit though, you should always
struggle with a problem and make a sincere effort to find the solution before
seeking help.
Laboratory Sections
The lab course, 5N, must be taken along with this lecture course. There are
three
sections: Monday 7-10 pm., Tuesday 2-5 pm. and Tuesday 7-10 pm.
The labs take place in Thimann
127.
Seven
out of the eight labs must be attended and completed for a passing grade in the
lab course. Come to the first lab with the lab manual, available at the Copy
Center in the Communication Building, and a lab notebook, available at the
bookstore. Before each lab, to prepare yourself, you should read the relevant
section of the manual and answer the questions in the corresponding prelab.
The lab schedule is as follows:
Examinations
The midterms are in class, Wednesday October 28 and Monday November 23.
The final is on Friday
December 18, 4:00-7:00 pm.
You must take the
exams at these times. The only excuses accepted will be sickness (please let me
know in advance, if this is at all possible) and family emergency.
The midterms and final exams will be closed book but you will be allowed to
bring to them one sheet of hand written notes if you wish.
The exams will be designed to reflect the emphasis on conceptual understanding
so
about 40% of the points on the exams will stress concepts, while the rest will
be traditional problem solving.
Evaluations
Your performance in the class will be decided on the basis of the
midterms, final, homework assignments and reading quizzes as follows:
midterm 1 20%The maximum score from the reading quizzes is 10% of the total score. Your score on the reading quizzes will reduce, by the same percentage, the contribution from the final exam, as discussed above.midterm 2 20%
final + reading quizzes 40%
homework 20%
Course Syllabus
Main Page for Physics 5C