General
- Welcome to PHYS 110, the introductory conceptual physics course for liberal arts and other non-science majors. You will learn how nature works and how we find out how nature works. I hope that you find it interesting and enjoyable. Have a great quarter!
- The course consists of lecture, group exercise, and laboratory components. Each component provides a different way of learning the material.
- Never let anything go by if you do not understand. Generally, ask questions immediately. If it is inconvenient to interrupt, make a quick note to yourself and inquire later.
- Note that completing MATH 099 (Intensive Intermediate Algebra) with 2.0 or better grade point is a prerequisite for this class.
- You can take this course with a Pass/NC grading option.
- It is expected that you will attend all lectures, group exercises, and labs. Class participation is also expected.
- Please turn off cell phones and pagers during class. Students exhibiting disruptive behaviors will be asked to leave the classroom for that day. Should this occur more than once with a particular student, administrative action might be taken.
Course Text
- Hobson, "Physics Concepts & Connections," 4th Edition
- The following topics in the textbook will be covered.
The way of science Chapter 1 Atoms Chapter 2 How things move Chapter 3 Why things move as they do Chapter 4 Newton's universe Chapter 5 Conservation of energy Chapter 6 Second law of thermodynamics Chapter 7 Light and electromagnetism Chapter 8 Electromagnetic radiation and global climate change Chapter 9 The special theory of relativity Chapter 10 The quantum idea Chapter 13 The nucleus and radioactivity Chapter 15 (up to section 15.5)
Lecture Notes
- Lecture notes are posted before the lectures on BlackBoard under Course Documents, Lecture notes.
- You are encouraged to print out the lecture notes before coming to the class, and take additional notes as necessary during the lectures.
Schedule
- We will meet 11:30am to 12:20pm on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday for lectures, group excercises, or exams in room 2926.
- The approximate lecture, group exercise, and exam schedule are as follows, but they could be changed as necessary. L = Lecture, G = Group exercise, E = Exam.
- We will meet 11:30am to 1:20pm on Friday for section 1, and 12:30pm to 2:20pm on Monday for section 2 in room 2924 for laboratory experiments.
- The following dates are holidays. The school will be closed.
- January 18th, Monday, in week 3
- February 15th, Monday, in week 7
| Week | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday |
| Week 1 | L: Intro | L: ch. 1 | L: ch. 2 | L: ch. 2 |
| Week 2 | G: ch. 1 & 2 | E: ch. 1 & 2 | L: ch. 3 | L: ch. 3 |
| Week 3 | Holiday | G: ch. 3 | E: ch. 3 | L: ch. 4 |
| Week 4 | L: ch. 4 | G: ch. 4 | E: ch. 4 | L: ch. 5 |
| Week 5 | L: ch. 5 | G: ch. 5 | E: ch. 5 | L: ch. 6 |
| Week 6 | L: ch. 6 | G: ch. 6 | E: ch. 6 | L: ch. 7 |
| Week 7 | Holiday | L: ch. 7 | G: ch. 7 | E: ch. 7 |
| Week 8 | L: ch. 8 | L: ch. 8 | G: ch. 8 | E: ch. 8 |
| Week 9 | L: ch. 9 | L: ch. 9 | L: ch. 10 | G: ch. 9 & 10 |
| Week 10 | E: ch. 9 & 10 | L: ch. 13 | L: ch. 15 | G: ch. 13 & 15 |
| Week 11 | E: ch. 13 & 15 | No class | No class | No class |
| Week | Experiments |
| Week 1 | Probability |
| Week 2 | Density |
| Week 3 | No lab |
| Week 4 | Distance and time |
| Week 5 | Air resistance and terminal speed |
| Week 6 | Acceleration of gravity |
| Week 7 | No lab |
| Week 8 | Conservation of energy |
| Week 9 | Specific heat capacity |
| Week 10 | Static electricity |
| Week 11 | No lab |
Grading Policy
- The points earned in various components will be weighted according to the following percentages:
Weekly exams 30% Final exam 20% Labs 25% Group exercises 20% Quizzes 5%
- Note that there will be no make-up exams, but your lowest 3 weekly exam scores will be dropped.
- Note that there will be no make-up labs (experiments), but your lowest lab score will be dropped.
- The final course grade is based on the percentage of the possible points with the above weighting.
- The grade point is assigned based on the following formula:
- grade point = weighted percentage x 0.065 - 2
- If the above formula yields grade point greater than 4.0 (greater than ~92%), you will receive 4.0.
- If the above formula yields grade point less than 0.7 (less than ~40%), you will receive 0.0.
Make-up Policy
- If you are absent due to the result of an unavoidable serious accident, a death in the family, or a serious illness, etc, please contact me as soon as possible so arrangements may be made for missed work.
- These exceptional circumstances must be verified by an appropriate third party, e.g., a police report, a funeral notice, or a letter from the student’s doctor stating the patient’s inability to attend.
- If you provide sufficient evidence for your exceptional circumstances, the following can be applied.
- You can work through the group exercise questions yourself and submit late report.
- Quizzes may not be made up, but may be dropped.
- You can submit late lab report given that you performed the experiment.
- Labs (experiments) may not be made up, but everyone's worst lab score will be dropped. If you miss one of the labs due to an emergency, that lab will be dropped.
- Weekly exams may not be made up, but everyone's worst 3 exam scores will be dropped. If you miss one of the weekly exams due to an emergency, the missed exam will be dropped.
Exams
- Exams will be given almost weekly. Each exam will cover the material that has just covered in one or two chapters.
- All the exams are open-book; you are allowed to refer to your textbook and lecture note print-outs, and hand-written notes that you take during the lectures (no other reference is allowed). However, if there are essay style questions on the exam, you are not allowed to simply copy from the textbook. Everything must be in your own words.
- Bring a scantron sheet for each exam.
- Calculators are permitted, but text storage and graphics functionality must not be used. Cell phones, computers or any other devices that enable you to communicate with others are not permitted.
- You will be shown a statement of what is and is not allowed on exams, and you will be asked to sign an agreement to abide by these principles. Basically the agreement is that you shall not cheat on exams.
- Exam Re-grades: If you believe that the points on the examination were incorrectly totaled, or if there is a gross error in the grading, you may return an exam for regrading. To do so, you must resubmit the examination no later than at the beginning of the lecture following the one in which the exams are returned. You must use this form and attach it to the front page of the exam explaining the possible error in the grading and return it to me. Do not make *any* changes or marks on the other pages of the examination. Each examination is scanned or photocopied. You should be aware that any request for a regrade may result in a regrading of the entire exam. Therefore your total score may increase or decrease.
- Final exam will be on March 19th from 11am to 1pm.
Labs
- We will perform an experiment every Monday (sec 2) or Friday (sec 1).
- I will assign groups of 3 or 4 students. You will work with your lab partners to conduct experiments.
- You must be on time! If you were more than 15 minutes late, you cannot participate in the experiment.
- I will provide you with a handout describing the experimental goals and procedure.
- Some labs require you to graph your data. You can do so by using graph papers (available at a site such as this one), or a computer program such as Microsoft Excel.
- Take responsibility of your lab partner's measurements. You should confirm his/her methods of measurements. If measurements were not carefully taken, resulting in erroneous experimental result, points may be taken off.
- You will be expected to complete each experiment and get a signature from me. My signature will serve as a proof of you completing the experiment.
- You are expected to clean up after you finish your experiment. One point will be subtracted from your lab report score if you left a mess!
- If you break any equipment in the lab, you will be billed 50% of the replacement cost.
- A missed experiment may not be made up, but everyone's lowest lab report score will be dropped.
- After each experiment, you will write a lab report, which are due at the beginning of the following lab. Late lab reports are not accepted unless you are under unforeseeable exceptional circumstances.
- Lab reports must be written in such a way that a person who did not do the experiment can follow what you did and reproduce your result.
- Lab reports must have the following sections.
- Objective of the experiment
- Apparatus used
- Procedure
- Data and observationss
- Calculations and analysis
- Conclusions
- Lab reports will be scored out of 5 points based on the following standard.
- After receiving the graded lab report, you can improve the report and resubmit it to improve the score by up to 1 point. The deadline for resubmission will be announced when the graded lab reports are returned.
| 5: | Assigned experiment is completed, and the lab report is without errors. |
|---|---|
| 4: | Assigned experiment is completed, and the lab report needs a few improvements. |
| 3: | Assigned experiment is completed, and the lab report needs significant improvements. |
| 2: | Assigned experiment is completed, and lab report is not completed. |
| 1: | Assigned experiment is only partially performed, and lab report is not completed. |
| 0: | Assigned experiment is not performed. No report is submitted. |
Group Exercises
- We will have a group exercise for every one or two chapters that we cover. I will assign groups of 3 or 4 students. You will work on problems together.
- You must be on time! If you were more than 10 minutes late, you will receive 0 points for that group exercise.
- You are allowed to refer to the textbook, lecture notes, and hand-written notes that you take during the lectures, but nothing else.
- I will collect your report at the end of the exercise, and you will receive a grade as a group.
Quizzes
- I will give you pop quizzes at random times during lectures. The quizzes are on the material that I just covered in the lecture.
- For each quiz, you will receive 1 point for attempting, and another point if your answer is correct.
- You are encouraged to help each other. However, just telling answers to your classmates without giving explanations is not allowed.
- All the quizzes given to date are posted on BlackBoard under Course Documents.
Getting Help
- You are encouraged to post questions and answer questions on the disscussion board.
- You are strongly encouraged to visit me regularly during office hours from 10:20am to 11:20am on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays in the physics learning center (room 2923).
- You can also visit me by appointment in my office, room 2810.
- I will attempt to answer questions by email in a timely manner.
Academic Integrity
- You are not allowed to present something that you did not do as your own work. You are not allowed to help someone else to cheat.
- If students are suspected of cheating on exams, etc, they will be asked to discuss the situation with me. If they failed to explain the situation, they will receive a zero for the exam/assignment.
- If cheating has occurred, the student(s) will receive a zero for the exam/assignment.
- If a student cheats twice in one quarter, they will receive a zero for the course.
Inclement Weather
- In the case of extremely inclement weather, students should check the school’s website for closure information.
- You may also get school closure information from local radio and television stations, but be sure to remember that SCC is NOT a part of the Shoreline public school district.
- Every attempt will be made to keep campus roads and walkways open, and students can expect that classes will start at their scheduled start times when/if the school does open.
- If school is closed because of snow or another emergency, we will pick up where we left off when class resumes.
- For more information, please refer to this website.
Students with disabilities
- Students with physical and/or learning disabilities need to be registered with Service for Students with Disabilities. For more details please refer to this website.