Syllabus: PHYS121 Winter 2002

• Lecture Instructor: Asst.Prof. G.T. Seidler
• email: seidler@u.washington.edu
  Office: B448 in the Physics Astronomy Building
  WWW: http://www.phys.washington.edu/~seidler
• Tutorial Instructor: Prof. P. Shaffer
• Lab Instructor: Prof. J. Cramer.
• Course WWW: http://courses.washington.edu/phys121
• Office Hours: TBA. All office hours will be held in the Physics Study Center in the basement of the auditorium wing of the Physics and Astronomy Building.
• Lecture Hall: A118 in the auditorium wing of the Physics and Astronomy Building
• Lecture schedule: PHYS121A:MWF 1:30-2:20, PHYS121B:MWF 2:30-3:20
  Holidays: 21 January, 18 February
• Course Texts: Giancoli, "Physics for Scientists and Engineers", 3rd Ed.; McDermott and Shaffer "Tutorials in Introductory Physics", Lab Manual.
• Tentative Weekly Course Summary

Lecture Instructor's Comments

• Each quarter, the UW Office of Educational Assessment conducts surveys of undergraduate courses. For many years, the PHYS12x courses have been among the courses reportedly requiring the most hours of work per week outside of class. Over the last few years, students have (on average) reported 10 hours of work per week outside of class for the PHYS121 courses. A typical course will show a span from 5 hours per week to 20 hours of study per week outside of class. PHYS121 is a very class, which will take a disproportionate fraction and number of your study hours compared to most other courses in your UW career.
• PHYS12x focuses on showing you new skills, not only new facts. In particular, nearly all of PHYS12x revolves around two general features: (1) learning new ways to think quantitatively about nature ('concepts') and (2) learning to use these concepts to solve problems. Please be aware that merely reading the textbook is unlikely to provide satisfactory preparation for the course examinations solve. Full involvement in all aspects of the course (lecture, lecture HW, tutorial sections, tutorial HW, and lab) will provide the best preparation.
• Note that MATH124:Differential Calculus is a prerequisite/corequisite for this class. However, there is ongoing discussion as to whether MATH124 should be a strict prerequisite rather than a corequisite for PHYS121. It is the opinion of many instructors that students who have completed MATH124 are at a slight advantage in PHYS121, and further that students who have completed MATH125 are at a considerable advantage in PHYS122. Hence, although it is possible to take the PHYS121-3 and MATH124-6 as simple corequisites (i.e. 121 _with_ 124, etc.), students who have no prior experience with either calculus or physics should consider getting 'one quarter ahead' in the MATH124-6 sequence with respect to the PHYS121-3 sequence.
• Be aware that many technical majors have a minimum grade requirement for a core of lower-division technical classes including the PHYS120 sequence. Therefore, each student is strongly urged to discuss departmental entry requirements with their undergraduate or departmental advisors, and plan their course loads accordingly. The grading policy outlined below will be followed strictly.

Grading Policy

• Midterm exams: There will be three closed-book midterm exams. Each midterm will emphasize recent material, but may include questions dealing with topics from far earlier in the course. The exams will include both multiple choice and essay-style questions. Only the best two of three values for (student score - average score) will count toward the final course grade. Your lowest midterm score (relative to the mean) will be dropped. You are permitted to bring one 8.5"x11" page of notes (front and back) to any midterm. Calculators are permitted. Laptop computers are not permitted, and the use of the text-storage capability now available on many calculators is not permitted. The Physics department reserves the right to ask for valid identification from any student during examinations.
• Note that there will be no make-up exams in PHYS121. Students with outside professional, service, or career commitments (i.e. military service, ROTC, professional conference presentation, NCAA sports, etc.) conflicting exactly with the exam dates must contact the instructor early in the quarter to establish alternate examination procedures. Students who miss an exam due to illness will drop that exam score. Except for extreme circumstances, a grade of 0.0 will be assigned to any student who misses two midterm exams.
• Final Exam: A two-hour closed-book comprehensive final exam will be given. This examination will cover material from all ten weeks of the course. You are permitted to bring two 8.5"x11" pages of notes (front and back) to the final exam. Calculators are permitted. Laptop computers are not permitted, and the use of the text-storage capability now available on many calculators is not permitted. The Physics department reserves the right to ask for valid identification from any student during examinations. A grade of 0.0 will be assigned to any student who does not take the final exam.
• 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 write a brief note on the front page of the exam explaining the possible error in the grading. Do not make *any* changes or marks on the other pages of the examination. Portions of each examination are 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 decrease.
• Homework:
  1. Lecture homework will be assigned and collected weekly through the Tycho system. Optional non-electronic homework will also be assigned to guide you to extra practice on problem solving.
  2. Tutorial homework will be assigned and collected in each tutorial section. One problem from each assignment will be graded in detail.
  3. There may be computer projects assigned in the tutorial sections. Computers are available in the Physics Study Center from 8:30am-5:20pm on weekdays and are also available at various other locations around campus.

The Physics Study Center