I had the understanding that this class was supposed to be quite heavily based on the calculus. However, during lecture (on wednesday Jan7) you seem to move away from using it. So, I was wondering if we will be using the calculus later on in the quarter, or are you going to almost totally take it out of the course?
We will use calculus with gradually increasing complexity as the quarter progresses. As the course catalog 'officailly' states that the first quarter of calculus (MATH124) is only a corequisite for PHYS121, I don't think that it is ethical to jump right in with both feet. Also, since 'officially' only MATH124 is required, I must assume that the students are not familiar with integral calculus (even though many of them are) and gradually build the formalism of integral calculus in the lectures and homework as the quarter proceeds.
Hence, I believe that I am following the offical university designation for this course. I certainly won't be taking the calculus out of the class -- it will just take a few weeks before I can safely assume a common level of calculus background for all of the students in the class.
Thank you for your question -- it is a very good one.