Teacher (lectures): Dan Styer, Wright 215, 775-8183,
Dan.Styer@oberlin.edu
home telephone 775-0959 (2:30 pm to 9:00 pm only).
Teacher (Wednesday laboratories): Melinda Keller, Wright 206, 775-8339, Melinda Keller@oberlin.edu.
Teacher (Thursday laboratories): Dan Stinebring, Wright 211, 775-8331, Dan.Stinebring@oberlin.edu.
Office hours for Mr. Styer: Please feel free to drop in between 8:30 am and 2:30 pm. (I am often in my office later, depending on my son's high school schedule.)
Prerequisites: Physics 111 (Electricity, Magnetism, and Thermodynamics) and Mathematics 231 (Multivariable Calculus). Concurrent or prior enrollment in Mathematics 234 (Differential Equations) is highly recommended for physics majors.
Meeting times: Class: MWF at 11:00 am. Conference: M at 1:30 pm and 3:30 pm.
Wright Laboratory 201.
Lab: W or Th at 1:30 pm.
Course web site: http://www.oberlin.edu/physics/dstyer/Modern. I will post handouts, problem assignments, and model solutions here.
Topics:
Textbooks:
Laboratories: Your laboratory work is an important part of this course, and accounts for one-quarter of your final grade.
Problem assignments: Posted on the course web site every Wednesday, due at the beginning of class the following Wednesday unless there is an exam. My model solutions will be posted at the end of this lecture, so late assignments cannot usually be accepted (I may make an exception in the case of a medical or family emergency). In writing your solutions, do not just write down the final answer. Show your reasoning and your intermediate steps. Describe (in words) the thought that went into your work as well as describing (in equations) the mathematical manipulations involved.
I encourage you to collaborate or to seek printed help in working the problems, but the final write-up must be entirely your own: you may not copy word for word or equation for equation. When you do obtain outside help you must acknowledge it. (E.g. "By integrating Moore equation (Q10.12) I find that. . ." or "Employing the substitution u = sin(x) (suggested by Carol Hall). . ." or even "In working these problems I benefited from discussions with Mike Fisher and John Silsbee.") Such an acknowledgement will never lower your grade; it is required as a simple matter of intellectual fairness. Each assignment will be graded by a student grader working under my close supervision.
Exams: There will be three in-semester exams and a final. All will be take-home exams, limited in time to two hours. The three in-semester exams are due at 11:00 a.m. (class time) on the Wednesdays of 24 September, 5 November, and 26 November. The final will be due at 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday, 16 December (the time set by the registrar). In determining your grade the final exam will have twice the weight of the in-semester exams, and I will drop the lowest in-semester exam's worth of score (i.e. either the score of one hour exam or half the score of the final). No collaboration is permitted in working the exams. You may consult the texts listed above and your own notes that fit on both sides of one 8 1/2 by 11 inch page of paper, but no other material. Calculators are permitted. Before each exam I will distribute a sample exam.
Grading: Your final numerical grade will be compounded of 25% lab, 37.5% problem assignments, and 37.5% exams. On a 40-point scale, those with 40-32 points earn the grade "A", 31-26 points earn the grade "B", 25-20 points earn the grade "C", 19 or fewer points do not pass.
Thomas A. Moore,
Six Ideas that Shaped Physics
[QC125.2.M66 2003; QC793.3.C58 M66 2003; QC665.E4 M67 2003;
QC318.17.M66 2003; QC173.65.M657 2003; QC476.W38 M66 2003]
(A six volume series, Unit Q of which is our textbook.)
Raymond A. Serway, Clement J. Moses, and Curt A. Moyer, Modern Physics [QC21.2.S38 2005]
James William Rohlf, Modern Physics from &alpha to Z0 [QC21.2.R62 1994]
David Halliday, Robert Resnick, and Jearl Walker, Fundamentals of Physics [QC21.3.H35 2005]
George Greenstein and Arthur G. Zajonc, The Quantum Challenge: Modern Research on the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics [QC174.12.G73 1997]
A.P. French, Special Relativity [530.11F887S]
Edwin F. Taylor and John Archibald Wheeler, Spacetime Physics, second edition [QC173.65.T37 1992]
Robert Resnick, Introduction to Special Relativity [530.11R312I]
John B. Kogut, Introduction to Relativity [QC173.55.K64 2001]