Preflight assignment 12
Closed. Preflights are due at 10 AM on Tuesdays.
)
We'd like to learn about your "homework habits". Please feel free to answer honestly!
How much of the upcoming homework set (due this Thursday) have you looked at/done already?
The above options won't necessarily capture what you have done - please elaborate in the space below if you want to help us understand where you are at this point. (Also, if this week is particularly unusual for some reason, in either direction, you might let us know) (Note that the preflight script tells us the date you submit this, so we have that info.)
The reason we asked the above is that some of you commented (on the homework before the exam where you were supposed to fix up an older homework problem) that the
reason
you got the old problem wrong was that you didn't have time to finish. If it's Monday evening or Tuesday morning and you checked 1 or 2 (or maybe even 3 or 4) above, you may not be giving yourself the time you need for middle-division physics homework! It is helpful to carefully read over the problems right away (Friday afternoon!) and just let them mull. It will help you judge which ones to start on a little earlier and which you can safely put off. And then, just spending ~5 minutes on each problem (by this point in time) will give you an even better sense of which ones will take a lot of effort, and which may require you to get some help. (Just a constructive observation :-)
_______________________________________________________
Have you ever studied Fourier series before in another class? If so, which class(es)?
Stare at Equation 5.82 of Taylor. This is the basic Fourier formula.
First:
For what kinds of functions f(x) can you write such a formula? (Are there any restrictions?)
Second:
what exactly does omega refer to in that formula, what does it tell you?
Puzzler: look at the function drawn in Fig 5.20a of Taylor. Some of the Fourier coefficients (i.e. some of the a_n's and/or b_n's) will definitely vanish for this function. Which ones, and why? (Hint: think about symmetry, or "even-ness/odd-ness" of functions)
Please submit a question you have about the reading assigned for the upcoming class. What seemed hard, was something confusing, what would you like us to spend class time on? If you can't come up with any question, how about a comment - (did anything strike you as interesting? )
Reminder
: the reading assignments are on
our course calendar
Thanks
for your time.