Phys 1001W.100

Syllabus Physics 1001 Spring 2012

PRELIMINARY (meaning it will change, so check back later)

Instructor:

T. Walsh
331 Physics, 624-1371
tfwalsh@umn.edu

Professor and TA Office Hours:

Please see the web link on this site.

Text and other materials:

"America 2100", Course Packet
Physics 1001 Lab Manual, Course Packet
Lab Notebook (2077s, $3.75)
3x5 Cards (about 30 will be needed)

Calculator:

You should use a TI-30XA calculator on quizzes and the final. It is $10 at the bookstore and is a good buy for a simple scientific calculator. You do not need a fancy graphing calculator and should avoid using one; I may even prohibit them.

Quizzes:

There are four quizzes and the lowest score will be dropped. This means that you can miss one quiz for any reason. Do not miss a second one, you will be penalized. There are no late or makeup quizzes. The dates are Fridays. The present schedule is

Friday, February 10; Friday, March 9; Friday, March 30; Friday April 20

You can use a 3x5 card of notes on quizzes, writing implements, a simple scientific calculator on the quizzes and final, nothing else.

Final Exam:

Saturday, May 12, 8:30 a.m.

Lab:

Our lab room is 234, second floor, mall side of the building. (NOTICE; Due to the unavailability of my TAs, there will be no labs the first week.)

There will be approximately 10-11 written lab reports. In addition you will be expected to have written some preliminary material in your lab notebook before you start a lab. Details will be provided by your TA at an early lab meeting, but maybe not the first.

Homework:

There will be homework assignments to be turned in to the laboratory TA's slot on the second floor on Friday of the week they are assigned. (Ask your TA where the mail slots on the second floor are located.) Late homework will not be graded. Homework is graded as follows: a check means that there is serious effort on the problem, it is nearly or entirely correct, and you get 2 points. A "o" means that some serious effort was put in but the answer is not right and you get 1 point, an "x" means the effort is not serious or there is no solution attempted and you get 0 points. I may modify this grading schema later.

In Class Questions:

Twice a week, pretty much at random, there will be an in-class question to be answered on a 3x5 card and passed into a box with your TA's name. These will be graded as homework. I may change this to having the TAs just assign 1 or 0 points for the in-class questions.

Penalties:

Please read this, it is important

You must get at least 50% of the points available on homework or you loose 1/2 grade (e.g. B+ to B) at the end of the course. If you get 35% or less you loose 1 full grade. Similarly, you must get at least 50% of the points available on the in-class questions or you loose 1/2 grade and if you get less than 35% you loose 1 full grade. The lowest lab report grade will be dropped; this means you can miss one lab report for any reason. If you fail to pass in on time more than the one you are allowed to drop, you loose 1/2 grade per additional missing report. Lab report grading is not generous, but grading on in-class problems and homework is deliberately generous. Yes, I have penalized a few students several grades despite this generous grading. You have to be really lazy to have this happen.

Cheating:

You can and should work together on labs and homework and the in-class quizzes. Nevertheless, lab reports are your own personal effort and copying someone else's report is cheating and will be penalized. Exams are purely your own personal effort. There will be a presumption of exam cheating if you: talk to anyone but the exam proctor; pass paper during an exam; make your exam visible to another student; transfer information in any other way. The penalty is an 'F' grade in the course and a report to the officials.

Final Grade:

Your grade will be made up from the best 3 of four quizzes (40%), the final exam (30%) and the laboratory (30%). Expressed as a percentage of the total possible score, your grade will be at least

>83% --> A- or better
>67% --> B- or better
>50% --> C- or better
>33% --> D or better

After the grade is assigned from this table, the penalties will be applied. This is not a hard course, and past grades have been good. (But pay attention if your grade on the first exam is poor.)

Topics:

We will roughly cover topics as follows:

Rationale for this course--the End of Fossil Carbon
Number, Units and the Scale of Things
Estimates and Numerical Understanding
Physics Tools--Mechanics
Physics Tools--Thermodynamics
Physic Tools--Electricity and Magnetism
Exponential Growth and Finite Resources
Oil, Gas and Coal Resources
Carbon for Heat and Energy
Solar Energy
Wind and Waves
Pie in the Sky Energy
Alternative Energy for 2100
Where to Now?

There will be weekly readings in the text to accompany the course, posted in the web "News" section. Lectures will not duplicate the text reading. Homework will be either from the text or lectures. In-class problems will be based on material in the lectures.

Although I will post weekly news items on this web site, you are also responsible for announcements in class.