WELCOME

Office Hours and Contact Information 

• Prof. Marjorie Olmstead    olmstd@uw.edu    Office: B433    685-3031
• Office Hours:  Monday and Wednesday After Class (10:25 - 11:15) or By Appointment in PAB B433.
• Prof. Olmstead will generally be in her office before class (MWF 8:30 - 9:15), and will be available for quick questions at that time.  She will also usually be in her office 1:45 - 2:20 on Thursdays for last-minute HW questions.
  

Course Announcements

• 11/2  Midterm grades are now posted on Catalyst Gradebook, as are grades for the first 3 HW sets.  Various statistical distributions are posted on GoPost in the Solutions section.  There is a strong correlation between turning in HW and doing well on the midterm -- students who received more than half the points on 2 out of the 3 HWs graded so far (and covered on MT1) had an average score 12 points higher than those who did not.
  
• 10/2  You are invited to weekly Lunchbox Seminars every Monday at 12:30 pm in the Society of Physics Students lounge (PAB B135, by the central door to the plaza).  These are informal meetings at which the students hear from the colloquium speaker and get to ask questions of them. It is a good time for student interaction with the speaker as well as to get to know other physics students.  Pizza is available at $1 a slice.  The colloquium (usually aimed more at the level of graduate students) is in A102 at 4 pm on Mondays.  A schedule of speakers and their topics is available here.
  
• 9/30  Notes from the first lecture, including some charts from the class enrollment survey, are now posted on GoPost.
  
• 9/30  Thermal Physics is key to understanding the energy future of our planet.  If you are interested in these larger contexts, I recommend the a new UW lecture series ("Energy Future") hosted by the Physics Department this year addressing energy production, consumption, policy, and their social and environmental impacts.  Lectures will be held Thursdays at 12:30 in PAA A118.  The target audience for each lecture is academic nonexperts in the field of the speaker, meaning advanced students and faculty from departments other than that of the speaker.  The first lecture is October 1, "The 2010 Environmental Innovation Challenge: Energy" by Prof. Dooley in the Business School.
  Further details are available at the lecture series website, http://tinyurl.com/uwenergy
  
• 9/28  The first 3 HW sets have been posted on the Homework page.  Please note that some problems may shift on later sets, depending on whether the class keeps to the projected lecture schedule.
  
• 9/20 Welcome to Thermal Physics.  Please take this short WebQ Survey to help Prof. Olmstead tailor the class to your needs. 
  
• 9/20 Course policies and other information may be found on the Syllabus.  The reading and lecture schedule may be found on the Daily Schedule.
  
• 
  
• Older announcements.

Links to Physics Career/Major Information

• If you wish to talk with an academic counselor about becoming a physics major or minor, or have general questions about the physics program, please contact Margot Nims [margot@phys.washington.edu, C139 PAB, 543-2772].

• Americal Physical Society "Focus" -- Current, hot research results described at the undergraduate level.
  
• Information on Majoring in Physics at UW.
• CLUE (Center for Learning and Undergraduate Enrichment).  Has a 224 review session before exams.
  
• UW Women in Science and Engineering
Provides networking, mentoring, tutoring, Study Center (for Credit!)
• UW Chapter of the Society of Physics Students
• American Physical Society Reports on Physics Employment, including
• The Early Careers of Physics Bachelors (pdf file)
• State-by-State listing of Companies Hiring Physics Bachelors (html)

Old Announcements