Phys 4001.100
Analytical Mechanics - Syllabus
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Dan Cronin-Hennessy (email: hennessy @ physics.umn.edu)
| Course Overview |
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Posted Wednesday, August 27th 2008,
modified Friday, August 29th 2008,
by Dan Cronin-Hennessy
This course is a bridge between "introductory" and "advanced" physics. You will already have a familiarity with the concepts of force, momentum, energy, etc., from earlier mechanics courses. Even those students who will pursue research in areas well outside mechanics, experimental design and development often requires a strong foundation in Newtonian mechanics. In this course we will introduce sophisticated approaches and new techniques for problem solving. Problem solving is the most important aspect of the course, and the techniques that you learn here will be used throughout your future scientific career. TEXT: Analytical Mechanics, Fowles & Cassiday, 7th Edition Teaching Assistants: Daniel Sword (sword@physics.umn.edu) Justin Hietala (justinh@physics.umn.edu) Homework assignments and solutions to homework, discussion, and exams will be posted under the "links and downloads" pages. |
| Lecture, Discussion, Homework and Exams |
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Posted Friday, August 29th 2008,
modified Thursday, October 23rd 2008,
by Dan Cronin-Hennessy
Policy statements are below and subject to change in the next 24 hours. There are three lectures a week. We will follow closely the topics as listed in the text. Students are assigned to one of three discussion sections Participation in discussion will be counted in your final grade (see grading). The discussion sections will generally involve groups of three or four students solving one or two problems. The discussion section is led by a teaching assistant who will assign the groups and provide guidance on problem solving. Homework is assigned weekly and will be counted as part of your final grade. There will be 4 to 6 problems assigned per week. All problems will be graded for completion and effort. Two of these problems will be carefully graded. Your homework will be graded on a 15 point scale. Five points for each of the graded problems and 5 points for completion on the remaining problems. Homework assignments will be released on the WEB on Friday evening and due on the second Tuesday following (at the start of discussion). The exchange of ideas is a critical part of scientific progress. You are encouraged to discuss your thoughts and approaches to homework problems with your fellow students but each student must hand in their own solutions. I do not know if solutions of this text's problems are "out there". If so, avoid the temptation. Please make sure that you have read the IT statement on academic honesty: (http://www.it.umn.edu/students/policies/dishonest.html). Copying solutions to the homework will undermine your performance on the exams and will result in a 0 for the homework grade. There will be three exams during the semester and a final. The dates of the exams are September 29, October 27 and November 24. The final exam is Saturday, December 13 at 1:30 pm. Location is TBD. The final exam will cover all material with more recent material more heavily weighted. |
| Grading |
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Posted Friday, August 29th 2008,
by Dan Cronin-Hennessy
The components of the course will be weighted in your final grade as follows In order to allow for personal misfortunes (car problems, malfunctioing alarm clocks and aggressive dogs) the following will be dropped from your average: two discussion grades, one homework and one of the three in-semester exams. The cut-offs for the various letter grades are
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