Course Syllabus
College Physics - PHY 121 - Section 2
Cal Poly Pomona Physics Department
Dr. Mireles - Spring 2005 - CRN 31844
Course Description:
A study of vectors, motion, forces, gravity, work and energy, momentum, angular motion and mechanical properties of matter. Not for students majoring in physics or engineering.
Class Meeting: Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:15-am - 10:30 am. Room 8-241
Prerequisites: MAT 106 or equivalent.
Corequisite: PHY 121L
Instructor:
Dr. Hector Cordova Mireles
Office: Building 8, Room 228
Phone: (909) 869-6730
http://www.csupomona.edu/~hcmireles/
Course Webpage:
http://www.csupomona.edu/~hcmireles/Courses/Phy121/Phy121Spring2005.html
Office Hours:
Tuesday: 2:30 - 3:30 pm
Wednesdays: 2:30 - 3:30 pm (In tutoring center 3-213)
Thursdays: 10:30 - 11:30 am
Fridays: 10:30 - 11:30 am AND 2:30 - 3:30 pm
Textbook: Physics, 6th Edition, Cutnell and Johnson: Chapters 1-9,11
E-Grade Homework:
• Homework will be administered online via the E-Grade server. A complete description is available at http://media.wiley.com/assets/189/78/egrade_plus_slg.pdf .
<> • In order to register for the homework service, you must retain the registration code that comes with your new textbook. This registration code will be your key to accessing the homework page.
Homework Journal:
You will be required to keep a homework journal, in which you record the calculations that you make to complete your online homework problems.
• The journal will serve as a valuable study tool for yourself.
• The journal will record the way that you performed each homework assignment.
• The journal will be collected occasionally and graded on the basis of legibility and effort in making it useful.
Midterm Exams:
Midterms will cover specific chapters, but in this course the material very often has to be accumulative. In these exams you will be permitted to use one of the official class formula sheets, so you should print these out now and get familiar with what’s on them. The exams fall on the following dates.
Midterm #1: Thursday, April 28
Midterm #2: Tuesday, May 24
Final Exam:
A comprehensive final exam will be on Tuesday, June 7, from 9:10 to 11:10 am in room 8-241.
Grading:
The final numeric grade will be determined using the following weights.
Homework: 15% Homework Journal: 15%
Midterm #1: 20% Midterm #2: 20% Final Exam: 20%
Worksheets: 10%
Teaching Philosophy:
I’m honored to work with you this quarter. Not everyone would choose to take this class and
many of you are only here because you have no choice. But if you are here, it’s because you are
a bright individual who has the capacity to read, speak and think critically. I would like to think that my teaching style will guide you in your struggle to come to grips with this difficult material. But ultimately, the struggle and its rewards are uniquely yours. My objective at the chalkboard is to help you along with the most difficult stuff and to put all of this material
in a context which is more interesting to you...a human being.
I cannot cover all of the material in these chapters, but that’s why you’ve bought this excellent
book. You must read it. I will cover some topics/examples on the board more than others.
Sometimes, you will find yourself solving homework problems completely different than those
that I do for you on the board. But that’s because you CAN do them. You don’t necessarily
need me to do them correctly. But if you do you will find me quite approachable.
In fact, most of the physics that you learn this quarter will come from your own individual work
and the work that you conduct with peers, both in and out of the class.
Out of class you will complete written homework assignments and compare your work with
solutions that will be made online. That work is quantitative, and physics is based on
calculations like that. In class, you will complete worksheets on the basis of short discussions with your peers. That work is conceptual. I believe that your true understanding of physics will be demonstrated here. The two exams and the final will test both levels of understanding. That is how I will teach this course.
Tentative Course Schedule
|
WK |
Tuesday |
Thursday |
|
1 |
March 29 - Ch 1: Units, Dimensions |
March 31 - CESAR CHAVEZ DAY!! |
|
2 |
April 5- Ch 2: Vectors, Displacement |
April 7 - Ch 2 Speed, Velocity, Acceleration |
|
3 |
April 12 -Ch 3: Free-fall, Kinematic Equations |
April 14 -Ch 3: Two Dimensional Kinematics, Projectile Motion |
|
4 |
April 19 -Ch 4: Forces |
April 21 - Ch 4 Newton’s Laws |
|
5 |
April 26 -Ch 4: Newton’s Laws |
April 28 -MIDTERM #1 |
|
6 |
May 3 - Ch 5: Uniform Circular Motion, |
May 5 -Ch 5: Centripetal motion, Satellites |
|
7 |
May 10 - Ch 6: Work and Energy, Kinetic Energy, Potential Energy |
May 12 -Ch 6: Conservation of Energy |
|
8 |
May 17 - Ch 7: Impulse and Momentum |
May 19 -Ch7: Collisions |
|
9 |
May 24 - MIDTERM #2 |
May 26 - Ch8: Rotational Kinematics |
|
10 |
May 31 - Ch 9: Rotational Dynamics |
June 2 - Ch 11: Fluids |
|
Finals Week |
June 7 - Exam #4 (Final Exam) 9:10 am-11:10 am in class meeting room. |
June 9 |
This schedule is tentative and approximate. You should make every effort to attend every lecture. Attending every lecture and keeping yourself engaged in the class will improve your chances for success. Good luck!
Cheating:
The 2001- 2003 university catalog defines four general forms of academic dishonesty (page 54) and describes the university procedures for handling cheating. These will be observed in this course. Furthermore a student in this class would be considered cheating if he or she were to pass information to and from other students during an exam.
Students are strongly encouraged to work together on the homework. Indeed finding a good group to work with may give you valuable insight in the problem sets. But blatantly copying solutions from another individual or published source without working through the problems is cheating and is easily detected.