Introduction to Modern Physics - Fall 2010
Instructors:
| Professor Noah Finkelstein Office: F1021 Gamow Tower E-mail: noah.finkelstein@colorado.edu For info on Noah and his research see http://spot.colorado.edu/~finkelsn |
| Charles Baily Office: F1017 Gamow Tower E-mail: charles.baily@colorado.edu For info on Charlie and his research see http://per.colorado.edu/baily |
| Undergraduate Learning Assistants: Danny Rehn and Sam Milton |
Course Materials: |
| Textbook: Knight, Physics for Scientists and Engineers. Volumes 3 and 5. |
| Four copies of the text are on reserve in the math/physics library. |
| Additional Readings will be posted on CU Learn |
| Follow this link for Supplemental Materials and Useful Links |
| Calculator: Bring this to class |
| A Clicker for use in class, available in the bookstore. (We use i>clicker) |
Important Times and Dates:
Lecture: Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 12:00-12:50p, Duane G1B20Problem Solving Sessions: Physics Help Room. Mondays, 2-5 PM; Tuesdays, 2-5 PM
Office Hours:
Noah Finkelstein: Mondays 2-3PM, Help Room; Thursdays 1:30-2:30PM, Office 1021 Gamow Tower
Charles Baily: Mondays 2-5PM Help Room, Tuesdays 2-5PM Help Room
Also by appointment or email.
Hour Exams: Sept 21 (Exam 1); Oct 19 (Exam 2); Nov 16 (Exam 3) -- all Tues 7:30-9:00 PM, location TBD
Final: Final Exam is Dec 15, 1:30-4p.
Useful websites:
http://phet.colorado.edu/ has many of the interactive applets used in classOverall Course Goals:
Reason for the course.The goal of this course is for you to understand the microscopic origin of the behavior of materials that you may encounter in the world around you or in technological applications. Engineers and scientists use simplified models to describe material properties, and most of the time these approximations work fine, but not always. This course will help you to understand why these models work and where they become unreliable and why. The latter issues become particularly important as one is working in the area of nanotechnology. A secondary goal is to increase your general knowledge through understanding the “new” (in past hundred years) way physicists have come to understand how the universe behaves, i.e. according to the laws of quantum physics.
General structure of the course:I. The key experimental results that gave rise to the ideas of quantum mechanics and how the ideas of quantum mechanics explains these experiments. In all three sections, the use and limitations of mathematics will be considered.
II. Deeper exploration of the ideas of QM and learning to apply these ideas in simple systems such as simple atoms and model situations.
III. Applying ideas to a number of real world situations.
IV. Understand how scientists think and work, as well as be able to make interpreations about physical experiments and models.
Guiding principles of the instruction:1. People understand concepts better by seeing them in action and thinking about them than by hearing them explained.
2. Understanding physics (and solving problems that test that understanding) is a learned skill, like cooking, or playing basketball or the violin. It takes time, effort, and practice.
3. People learn best by thinking about topics and discussing them with others.
4. Students learn most when they take the responsibility for what is learned.
In keeping with these principles, there will be a substantial number of homework problems each week. You will have considerable difficulty completing them if you follow non-expert problem solving approaches and/or you work alone. However, if you work with other students and develop an “expert” approach to problem solving, the homework problems should take you less time and effort, and you will learn a lot from doing them. Although you are encouraged to work out the solutions to problems together with other students, you are required to write up the answers in your own words. So, each student’s wording should be unique to the student. I will fail any student who submits work that is not his/her own or permits another student to do so. Typically you will need to spend between four and six hours outside of class to master the material. (Your homework will typically require 4+ hours and you should spend a couple hours each week reading and preparing for class.)
There will be several problem-solving sessions Monday and Tuesday where you will be able to conveniently get together with other students to work on homework. The instructors, Noah Finkelstein, Charles Baily, and the LAs will be present at these sessions to provide “coaching” on problem solving methods. You are encouraged to come to these to work with other students and get coaching in problem solving as necessary. The times and room numbers are listed above. The physics help room is also open 40 hours per week, and there are always students and TAs there, although they are not necessarily from 2130.
Students begin this class with a range of backgrounds in physics and math. As a result, it is impossible for each class to be perfectly matched to everyone’s background. The primary purpose of office hours is to provide individual help to students that need it. We are anxious to provide whatever help is necessary for every student, regardless of their background, to do well in the course and achieve all of the learning goals. However, it is your responsibility to recognize that you need that help, and to take advantage of its availability by asking to meet with us.
GRADES:
Grading philosophy: The amount you will learn depends on how much thought and practice you put in distributed sensibly over the term. Everyone who makes an honest attempt to do all the assigned work on time will pass, normally with a grade of A or B.
Grade components:In-class activities and Online Participation (10% of grade):
Participation points (not graded): 2 pts per class for participating in clicker questions.
Graded in-class points: 3 pts for each reading quiz (~once per week).
Drop lowest 3 participation days.
Homework (42.5% of grade):
Weekly homeworks, various numbers of points each.
Drop lowest homework grade.
Online Participation/Feedback: + 1 extra-credit point each week towards Homework grade
Exams (47.5% of grade):
3 x 1 -Hour Exams are 50pts each, Final Exam is 75 pts
Your Lowest Exam (of the 3 x 1 hour exams) will be dropped. This includes a 0 you will get for missing an exam.
Weekly online participation: You will get 1 extra-credit point per week towards total homework grade.
Letter grades will be assigned based on the total grade: A’s for 90% or higher; B’s for 80-90%; C’s for 70-80% = C; D’s for 60%-70%, less than 60% is an F. We reserve the right to lower these cutoffs, but we will not raise them.
With this grading system, the most important requirement for getting a good grade is to do all the homework assignments and participate in class! Missing several weeks of class and homework will likely put you in danger of failing, no matter how well you do on the exams! Your lowest weekly homework score and your 3 lowest in-class scores will be thrown out, so you can miss one week’s homework and one class or forget your clicker three times without penalty. In the even that you miss or have uncharacteristic troubles on one of the three mid terms, this grade will be dropped and your final score weighted more heavily (see above). There will be no make-up homeworks or exams. These “throw-outs” are made to cover illness, car trouble, forgotten clickers, participation in athletic events, etc. There will be no other corrections made to grades other than for major medical or personal catastrophes. Also, don’t waste your homework or class exemptions, because you may need them later if you get sick, forget your clicker, or other reasons.
Weekly checklist for best learning (and grade):
1) Was there reading due this week? Did I do it?2) Did I come to class and bring my clicker and calculator?
3) Did I submit my homework online by the deadline?
4) Is there an evening exam this week?
5) Did I turn in online participation by Tues night?
More details on how points are earned in the class:
Homework: New assignments will be posted on the course webpage every Friday by noon at the latest, but we hope to have them up by Thurs morning or earlier. They will cover material though that Friday's lecture. Homeworks will typically be due Tues midnight (11:59p Tues) on CU Learn & Long Answers due in the basement cabinet Wed by the beginning of class.
Homeworks are web based and accessed through the course homepage table of contents. They are availabe directly on CU Learn. Many weeks there will be one long answer write up where you will need to show your work that will be due in class on Wednesday.
We encourage you to work together on the homework problems, but you must write up the answers in your own words. There will be 2 Problem Solving Sessions each week: Mondays and Tuesdays. The location is at reserved tables near the rear of the Physics Help Room. This is a great opportunity to come work on the homework with your classmates!
Homework is a large part of your grade, so failing to turn in more than one assignment, and therefore getting a 0 will have a big impact on your grade. Talk to us, NOW, if you will have a scheduling problem during the term so that you will be unable to complete any of the assignments. Permission for exceptions from the normal class work schedule must be requested in advance.
Homework solutions may be accessed through the Physics 2130 Home Page. The answers and solutions to the previous weeks homework will normally be available at noon on the Wednesday they are due.
Grading of the homeworks will be done by the course graders. There will be essay questions on the homeworks. Each week, a sampling of the essays will be graded with the grading rubric. When answering the essays you should keep in mind the grading rubric:
Criteria for grading non-mathematical, short-essay questions: Many of the homework questions ask you to use physical principles discussed in class to analyze a situation and reason an outcome. For each of the questions or parts of questions, the answer will be graded for correctness on a scale of 0 to 7 based on the following rubric:
1. Identifies physical principle or principles that are relevant to answering the question. (2 if correct, 0 if irrelevant principle, 1 if have both some relevant and some irrelevant principles.)
2.Explains how the principle(s) apply to the situation described in the problem. (1 if correct, 0 if not)
3. Employs proper reasoning to explain the logic in going from how principle applies to the situation to the answer to the question. (2, 1, 0 according to level of correctness. If #1 or #2 are 0, this should automatically be 0.)
4. Clarity of writing. (2 if good, 1 if difficult but can be figured out, 0 if incomprehensible. If 0 here, all the others will be 0.)
So if your answer is scored as 5/7 and the question (part) is worth 1 pt, you will receive 0.71 pts for that part.In-class questions, activities, and quizzes on reading:
Clickers: You will need to buy transmitters (usually referred to as “clickers”) from the bookstore for answering questions in class.
Reading Quizzes: After each reading assignment there will be a very short quiz covering the material in class worth 2 to 3 points
In-class clicker questions: During class there will be many questions on which you enter your response using clickers. Your answers will be recorded and you will receive 2 points towards your in-class grade per class for submitting any answer to all of the questions, whether or not your answers are correct. There will be a few questions, typically 0 to 2 per classes, for which you will receive one point if you have the correct answer, and 0 if incorrect. Graded questions will usually be late in the class and ones that nearly all students get correct if they have been paying attention.
Online Participation due Tues at midnight: Each week you will be asked to fill out an online participation form to give us feedback on various aspects of the course, what you are learning, how you are thinking about the ideas, etc. You are not graded on your response, but we value this feedback and thoughts as it helps us better understand how to teach the class effectively. You will receive 1 point of extra-credit towards homework for submitting the form.
Be sure to bring formula card(s) and calculator.All exams will be closed book. You may make up a single 3 x 5 formula card for each exam and bring your previous cards with you to subsequent exams so you will have one card for first exam, two for the second and four for the final. You can write anything you want on your formula card, but you must write it by hand - no photocopying or printing allowed. You should bring a calculator to class and exam. Sharing of calculators during exams and quizzes will not be allowed.
Important: To accomodate travel, illness, etc, 1-hour exam score can be dropped. You should not need to be excused for a second. Only in the rare instance of a servere medical or family emergency will an excuse for a second absence be considered. To be excused you must notify Noah Finkelstein by email or telephone before the exam, and you must provide a physician's note or other documentation to one of us within two weeks of the exam. If you failed to call before the exam, you must provide documentation why a medical condition made this impossible. For an excused absence, you will be given the class average on that exam.
Extra Credit Points: Approximately once per week there will be an online participation question - one point per week of extra credit towards your homework grade
General rules:
The rules in this list may seem rather harsh and arbitrary, but they are essential to maintaining the integrity of the course. There is a painful story behind every one of them. Although most of you will never come up against any of the rules, there are a handful of students each semester that just cannot seem to avoid them. These rules are primarily to prevent these students from obtaining an unfair advantage over the others in the class. If these rules are going to cramp your style, then this class is probably not for you.
1. No students will fail who makes a serious effort at all the assigned work. If you miss a homework assignment or do not take an exam, it becomes possible for you to fail the course.2. Although you are encouraged to work together with other students, you must hand in your own work and put the explanation in your own words. Handing in a copy of another student’s work is considered cheating. We will fail any student who submits for a grade work that is not their own or permits another student to do so.
Honor Code: The purpose of an Honor Code at the Universityof Colorado at Boulder is to secure an environment where academic integrity, and the resulting behavior, can flourish. The Honor Code recognizes the importance of honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility and wishes these principles to be a defining part of the CU-Boulder campus. All students of the University of Colorado at Boulder are responsible for knowing and adhering to the academic integrity policy of this institution. Violations of this policy may include: cheating, plagiarism, aid of academic dishonesty, fabrication, lying, bribery, and threatening behavior. All incidents of academic misconduct shall be reported to the Honor Code Council. Students who are found to be in violation of the academic integrity policy will be subject to both academic sanctions from the faculty member and non-academic sanctions (including but not limited to university probation, suspension, or expulsion). Bringing someone else's clicker to class to give them credit is a direct and serious violation of the CU honor code - please don't do it, nor tolerate other people doing it. I know this is a big class, but I really want to establish an atmosphere of trust and respect. Please feel free to talk to me if anything is going on you're not comfortable with! (In keeping with this, I will immediately fail any student who: submits for a grade work that is not their own or permits another student to do so/ submits for a re-grade any work that was modified after it was graded/ lies in an effort to improve their grade or to obtain any special consideration or exception from the normal class work schedule.)