January 23:

• Regarding labs and snow days: Since 3 out of 4 labs were cancelled the week of 16-20 Jan due to snow, we'll "slide" labs back one week. This means: On Tuesday Jan 24 there's no lab since these students had lab #2 the week before. Labs on 25, 26 & 27 Jan are lab #2. All of the labs the week of 30 Jan to 3 Feb are lab #3, and so on. The last course week 5-9 March is lab #8. The new make-up lab day is Monday 5 March from 9am to 5pm. Unchanged is that you can make up one and only one lab the last course week, and there no labs during finals week. The "Course Information" has been modified to reflect this.

January 19:

• Snow and ice: The University again cancelled classes today. Do not try to brave the snowy & icy roads. Homework #2: You can turn in your homework #2 this coming Tuesday January 24 without late penalty. We'll schedule make-up labs for this week's cancelled labs.

January 17:

• Snow: If weather prevents you from turning in your homework #2 today, you can turn it in this Thursday without late penalty. Similarly, if you can't get in to the 334 lab today or Wednesday, then we'll schedule a make-up lab for you later. Do not try to brave the snowy & icy roads.

January 2:

• Right now, the class enrollment is full. However, it's very likely spaces will open up near the beginning of the quarter. At the first lab period, please show up to the lab and fill out a lab-entry form. We'll do a head-count at the lab then attempt to fit everyone in. There's no guarantee, but we've had good luck so far. Summary: right now we're full up, but show up at the first lab and we'll see if there's room

December 30:

• Lecture starts the first day of scheduled class (Tuesday January 3, 2012)
• There's no lab the first week. Labs begin the second week of the quarter -- i.e. beginning Tuesday January 9 2012 based on lab section assignment. If you don't show up at your first lab, you're subject to being dropped from the course.
• See Course Information at upper left for important information on grading & the course policies.
• BE SURE you're registered for both LAB and LECTURE -  See Margot Nims, Physics Undergrad Advisor for details.

Lectures:
Physics & Astronomy Building room A118
Tuesdays and Thusdays 9:30 - 10:20 am

Labs:
Physics & Astronomy Building, Room B280
Section AA -- Tues 1:30 - 4:20, TA C. Zeng
Section AB -- Wed 1:30 - 4:20, TA C. Boutan
Section AC -- Thrs 1:30 - 4:20, TA C. Boutan
Section AD -- Fri 1:30 - 4:20, TA C. Zeng

Teaching Assistants

TA Section assignments.

Christian Boutan, office PAA B155, boutan@uw.edu

Chengeng Zeng, office PAA B231, genguni@uw.edu

Technical Support

Jason Alferness
Program Operations Specialist
Office: B256, Physics & Astronomy Building
alf@uw.edu
206 221-2974

Lab notes are to be used along with the Student manual for the labs. The notes contain important information to help make the exercises easier and clearer. They also tell you about changes in the exercises that you need to know for your reports. The lab notes will explain differences between our lab equipment and the equipment described in the text, for example. Lab notes will also provide clarifying comments to hopefully help you through confusing parts of the lab material, tell you what sections to work through in the student manual, provide an additional exercises not found in the student manual.

You should read through both the lab notes and assigned lab sections in the book prior to coming to each lab period. Then, work through the lab with both the lab notes and lab manual in front of you, flipping back and forth between them as need be. This preliminary work will make the difference between understanding what's going on and just going through the motions.

Many thanks to the contributions of Profs. Blayne Heckel, Prof. Oscar Vilches, Leslie Rosenberg, Jason Alferness, David Pengra, Andrew Wagner and John Stoltenberg for these materials. And many thanks to the University of Washington, Physics Education Group for continuing help in developing this course.

You should have a lab notebook or other source of graph paper, but here's some graph paper anyway in case it's of use.

Linear Graph Paper

Semilog Graph Paper

Log Log Graph Paper

There will be two exams. Exam 1 is Thursday February 2, exam 2 is Thursday March 8. All exams are closed book. The material covered in the exam will cover everything and lecture, lab and homework are all fair game. Smart phones, laptops, iPads, or other wireless devices are strictly prohibited.

EXAM 1, Feb 2: The exam is closed-book. An equation sheet is provided. You may use a scientific or graphing calculator but smart phones, laptops, and iPads are forbidden. The material covers everything (lecture, lab, homework) up through the week of the exam (including band-pass and notch filters, and diodes and rectifiers).

Practice exam 1 with equation sheet and solutions. The practice exam has a problem involving bipolar transistors, your Exam 1 will not.

Homework problems are assigned most weeks. Although homework isn't weighted very strongly for your grade, let me caution you: We've found that in general if you take the time to understand the homework, you'll do well on exams and labs. Conversely, those that don't do the homework or do it poorly tend to do much worse on exams and labs and their class grades are poor. So, do take the homework seriously, turn in work you're proud of, and if there's something on the homework that you don't understand, please talk to me. LATE HOMEWORK IS ASSIGNED ZERO POINTS.

Homework 1 * Due Tuesday January 10, 2012 *
Homework 1 Solutions
Homework 2 * Due Tuesday January 17, 2012 *
Homework 2 Solutions
Homework 3 * Due Tuesday January 31, 2012 *