Winter Term, 2000
Lecture: 11:10-12:20 MWF, Youngchild 161
Instructor: Matthew.R.Stoneking
Office hours: Tues. 2 - 3 PM, Thurs. 10 - 11 AM, or by appointment
Laboratory: 1:10-4:00 W or Th, Youngchild 91
Instructor: Paul Fontana
Office hours: Tues./Thurs. 9:00 - 10:30 AM, Fri. 1:00 - 2:30 PM, or by appointment
A continuation of Physics 10. Physics 11 is divided between classical and modern topics, including electricity and magnetism, circuits, special relativity, quantum aspects of nature, atomic and nuclear structure, and elementary particles.
Physics, Principles with Applications, 5th Edition, by Douglas C. Giancoli, Prentice Hall (Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, 1998).
Final grades will be based on the following weighted components:
There will be two midterm exams and one final, comprehensive exam. Each exam will be closed book. Required formulae will be provided on the exam, but you will need to be able to recognize the meaning of the symbols in each formula and how to use them to solve problems such as those encountered in homework and lecture examples. Exam problems will be a mixture of quantitative problems like those encountered in homework sets and conceptual problems (multiple choice and short answer) like those encountered on weekly quizzes.
A list of laboratory topics for each week is given below. Mr. Fontana will provide details on the operation of the laboratory portion of the course, including grading policies for labs.
Every Wednesday, homework sets will be collected for grading. No late submissions will be accepted. Homework assignments will focus on quantitative problems. You are strongly urged to work additional problems on your own, beyond those that are required.
Every Friday (expect on midterm exam days, winter break and the last class of the term) there will be a short (10 minute) quiz. Weekly quizzes will focus on conceptual problems, will generally be multiple choice, short answer and/or true-false questions that test your understanding of the concepts covered in the lectures and reading assignments for that week (or since the previous quiz).
Help sessions will be every Tues. and Thurs. evening (8-10 pm) in Youngchild Hall, Room 90 (beginning Thurs. 6 Jan.). A student assistant will run most of these sessions.
Most important chapters for the MCAT exam: 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 28, 30.
Chapter 29 on Molecules and Solids and Chapter 33 on Astrophysics and Cosmology will not be covered in this course, but I recommend you read these chapters sometime during the term.
M 1/3: Giancoli Chapter 16 The Laws of Electrostatics
Overview of the course, electric charge, Coulomb's Law, electric properties of materials, conservation of charge, the principle of superposition.
W 1/5: Giancoli Chapter 16 The Electric Field
Definition of the electric field, rules for drawing electric field lines, examples of electric field line maps.
F 1/7: Giancoli Chapter 17 The Electric Potential QUIZ #1
Electric potential energy versus electric potential, the parallel plate capacitor, capcitance, dielectric materials.
M 1/10: Giancoli Chapter 17 - 18 Ohm's Law
Equipotential contours, the ECG, electric current, Ohm's Law, resistance and resistivity.
W 1/12: Giancoli Chapter 18 - 19 D.C. Electric Circuits
Electric power, D.C. circuits, combining resistors and capacitor in parallel and series, exponential decay in a RC circuit.
F 1/14: Giancoli Chapter 20 The Laws of Magnetism QUIZ #2
Permanent magnets, magnetic poles, compass needles, the geomagnet, Oersted's observation, the magnetic force on a current-carrying wire.
M 1/17: Giancoli Chapter 20 The Magnetic Force
Magnetic forces between straight, parallel, current-carrying wires, definition of the magnetic field and the unit of the Ampere, the Lorentz force law.
W 1/19: Giancoli Chapter 20 The Magnetic Field
Rules for drawing magnetic field lines, examples of magnetic field line maps, solenoids, electromagnets, torque on a magnetic dipole in a magnetic field.
F 1/21: Giancoli Chapter 20 Electromagnetic Induction QUIZ #3
Electromagnetic induction, Lenz's Law, Faraday's Law, generators, tranformers.
W 1/26: Giancoli Chapter 22 Electromagnetic Waves
Changing electric fields produce magnetic fields, Maxwell's Equations, electromagnetic waves, radiating antennae.
F 1/28: HOUR EXAM #1 (covers Giancoli chapters 16 - 22)
M 1/31: Giancoli Chapter 26 The Principle of Relativity
Galilean relativity, Einstein's postulates for special relativity, synchronization of clocks, simultaneity.
W 2/2: Giancoli Chapter 26 The Twin Paradox
Time dilation, the twin paradox, length contraction, four dimensional spacetime.
F 2/4: Giancoli Chapter 26 E=mc^2 QUIZ #4
Velocity addition, relativistic momentum and energy, rest mass energy.
M 2/7: Giancoli Chapter 27 The Electron
A brief history of atomic theory, the cathode ray tube, the electron, Millikan's oil drop experiment.
W 2/9: Giancoli Chapter 27 The Photon
The photoelectric effect, Compton scattering, the photon, Rutherford's scattering experiment, the plum-pudding model and the planetary model of the atom.
F 2/11: Midterm Reading Period, no class.
M 2/14: Midterm Reading Period, no class.
W 2/16: Giancoli Chapter 27 The Bohr Model of the Hydrogen Atom
Spectroscopy, atomic spectra, the Bohr model of the hydrogen atom.
F 2/18: Giancoli Chapter 27 Matter Waves QUIZ #5
The wave nature of matter, de Broglie wavelengths, X-ray and electron diffraction compared.
W 2/23: Giancoli Chapter 28 The Hydrogen Atom revisited and the Periodic Table of the Elements
Quantum mechanical wave functions, quantum numbers, the hydrogen atom, the Pauli exclusion principle, and the periodic table of elements.
F 2/25: HOUR EXAM #2 (covers Giancoli chapters 26 - 28)
W 3/1: Giancoli Chapter 31 Radioactivity
Radioactivity and radioactive decay.
F 3/3: Giancoli Chapter 31 Nuclear Medicine QUIZ #6
Radiation dosimetry, radiology.
M 3/6: Giancoli Chapter 31 Nuclear Energy
Nuclear binding energy, nuclear fission, nuclear fusion.
W 3/8: Giancoli Chapter 32 The Neutrino and the Positron
Fundamental forces, mediating (or messenger) particles, Yukawa's hypothesis, the neutrino, the positron.
F 3/10: Giancoli Chapter 32 Quarks
Two-body versus three-body decay, muons, mesons, conservation of lepton numbers, strange particles, Gell-Mann's periodic table of elementary particles, the quark model.