Recommendation: The different components of the class (reading, meeting times, and homework) work together best when mixed. Take note of what problems will be assigned, do the reading with the problems in mind and even do some preliminary work on them, and then come to class. That way you’re attuned to exactly what you need. If I’m demonstrating something that’ll be useful on a problem, you’ll recognize it and take note. If the reading raised questions, you’ll be able to ask them. The alternative – coming to lecture, then reading, and then looking at the problems is apt to be much less efficient and repeatedly leave you in a lurch. Regarding the text itself, Dr. Griffiths’ text is generally considered the best of what’s around. That said, by the nature of its being an upper-level text, it’s not going to devote much time to reviewing things you learned in Phys 232. I encourage you to look back at your Phys 232 text to review any rusty topics that come up.
Homework: 50% of your grade. The homework is intended to give you practice working with the material introduced in class and in the reading, and to extend beyond lecture’s coverage. There are two components to the homework: Problems, and Discussion Prep.
Problems: 40% of your grade. More difficult problems will be worth more points (ê = 10, êê = 15, êêê = 20). The score for each problem on a 5-point scale will be multiplied by 2, 3, or 4. Some problems will be difficult or require the use of a computer, so don’t wait until the last minute to start the assignments.
Weekly homework will usually be due on Thursday or Monday evening (see schedule). Each problem will be graded on something like the following 5-point scale (multiply by number of stars):
5. excellent effort – clear solution, appropriate notation, and correct results
4. good effort with only a few minor errors and a good explanation
3. good effort with modest errors
2. fair effort or good effort involving serious errors
1. poor effort
0. no effort
In order to get a score greater than 3, an answer must include at least a few words of explanation or the use of diagrams in addition to calculations. To get full credit, you must include units in any calculations that have values, not just at the end. You should be careful to use vector notation correctly because it is impossible for me to distinguish a lack of understanding from sloppy notation.
A bit about
notation: While it’s easy for the text to denote vectors in bold face (E),
that doesn’t work with pencil (or pen or chalk), so you should use the usual
“arrow notation” (
),
and I’ll do the same. Components of vectors should be labeled with
subscripts (
,
,
).
Unit vectors should also be used correctly (
).
Scalars (including magnitudes of vectors, like
)
should not be labeled as vectors. Note that the del operator (
)
is a vector operator.
A bit about computation: In addition to analytical / pencil-and-paper problems there will also be computational / keyboard-and-CPU problems. It’s important to practice computational methods since they help you to attack non-analytical problems or simply visualize the solutions to analytical ones. There will be tutorials on how to use the Python programming language to visualize solutions and to perform computations (they draw heavily from the pylab library which is based on MatLab – so it wouldn’t be too hard to use MatLab instead if you’re familiar with it and have copy.) Most weeks, there will be at least one homework problem that requires the use of a computer. For computer problems, you should email your program in addition to turning in any background calculations (you will usually have to do some work with pencil and paper before using the computer) and results with your homework. If you haven’t updated your Python package since you’d installed VPython for Phys 231, you’ll need to do so. I suggest you go to Vpython.org, select the ‘download’ page for your operating system, and then follow the “Installing for Anaconda” instructions (including clicking on the “Anaconda Python distribution” link and installing Anaconda first.) You’ll find a collection of useful tutorials at (http://bulldog2.redlands.edu/facultyfolder/deweerd/tutorials/.
