Physics 123 - Analytical Physics I
Classical Mechanics - Fall 2011

Course Information

Students are responsible for all information contained on this page!!!
Co-requisite: CALC I (01:640:151)

return to P123 homepage

WEBSITE

The website for Physics 123 is http://www.physics.rutgers.edu/ugrad/123/ . All announcements will appear there, as well as in lecture.

STAFF

A listing of the course staff, including contact information, office hours, and minilabs, is available here HERE. Students of any section are welcome to attend the office hours of any instructor. HOWEVER. you must attend the minilab to which you are assigned.

The course supervisor is Prof. R.A. Bartynski (course design, lectures), the course administrator is Prof. H. Kojima, and the course assistant is TBA.

TEXTBOOK

REQUIRED:  Young and Freedman: "University Physics" Vol. 1, 13th Edition, Pearson/Addison Wesley.

I-CLICKER or MASTERING PHYSICS PROBLEMS

Students with i-clicker issues should send a clear and concise e-mail to Prof. Bartynski: bart@physics.rutgers.edu.
Students with Mastering Phyiscs issues should send a clear and concise e-mail to Prof. Kojima: Kojima@physics.rutgers.edu.
Be sure to include your full name and Rutgers ID number.

LECTURES

Lectures will be given in the Physics Lecture Hall.  Friday Period 4 (1:40 - 3:00PM) and Period 5 (3:20 - 4:40PM).

The two lectures presented each Friday are equivalent.  Information about the course will be announced in lecture, and will be posted on the course homepage.

Student iClickers units will be used to collect answers to questions posted during lecture.  Answers will be worth 5 points per lecture and will be added to the total term scores for each student.  Purchase an iClicker unit at the Rutgers Bookstore.  To allow for absences, the scores from ten lectures will be counted.

BE SURE YOU I-CLICKER BATTERIES ARE CHARGED BEFORE EACH LECTURE.

WORKSHOPS, HOMEWORK, MINILABS and QUIZZES

Your registration for this course includes assignment to an 80-minute workshop section that meets once per week (on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday [see list]).  Workshop meetings will begin Thursday, September 1 in Physics and Astronomy Building, Rm. 227 or as posted at the Western entrance of the Physics and Astronomy Building.

Each workshop meeting will consist of:

  • a brief review of relevant material for that week, including a discussion of homework questions and exercises
  • a short quiz
  • a minilab experiment (or exam review session)

HOMEWORK: The schedule of homework assignments shows a list of questions (Q) and exercises (Ex) for you to answer and understand thoroughly each week. Both will be discussed each week in workshop.  The questions (Q) are not graded, but should be answered on paper and brought to the workshop; they will be discussed in class and, like the exercises, may be the basis of a quiz. To work the exercises (Ex) you need to use the web application Mastering Physics .  The exercises and your grade are recorded automatically.  The assignments are due as shown in the homework schedule, at least one week after they become available. Note: it is impossible to work on the homework assignment after the due date has passed.

HOMEWORK MUST BE ENTERED BY 11:59PM (23:59 hrs) THURSDAYS!

It is very important that you WORK ALL THE HOMEWORK QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES and bring your solutions with you to the workshop. You are strongly encouraged to participate in the discussion of exercises and ask questions about aspects that you have not completely mastered. Note that the weekly quizzes and many questions on the exams will be closely based on the assigned questions and exercises.

In order to register for Mastering Physics, you must log in to the website (www.masteringphysics.com) and choose the correct textbook (Young/Freedman University Physics 13th ed) and then register as a new user. Use your FULL NAME AND RUID and register using the access code included with your textbook. Double check that you have correctly entered your student ID number. The course ID for this course is P123F11.

QUIZZES: A short quiz based on the week's homework assignment or lecture problems will be administered in each workshop. The quiz will be graded by your workshop instructor and returned at the next workshop meeting. The quiz will take 10-15 minutes and occur after the homework discussion and before the minilab. Each quiz will be worth 10 points maximum (15 points if no minilab is given).

MINILABS: Most weeks (see the syllabus ) a minilab will be done during part of the workshop session. The purpose of the minilab is to give you some familiarity with a relevant physics concept from the week's material. The minilab uses simple equipment and is not intended to teach laboratory techniques. The HANDOUT for each minilab is provided in the syllabus. You must print out your copy of lab report page of the handout before coming to the workshop. You are urged to study the minilab before coming to the workshop. You will work in groups and hand in a group lab report before you leave. The report will be graded, and it is important that you do not miss a minilab. Bring a calculator to your workshop session!  The minilab report will be worth a maximum of 5 points.

WORKSHOP ABSENCES: There will be no makeup opportunities for missed minilab and quiz grades, only the ten (10) best combined quiz+minilab scores will be counted.  This is to allow for illness, conflicts, religious holidays etc. If you have more than two absences, all for verifiable good reasons, you may attend another workshop section during the same week. HOWEVER you must obtain the permission of both workshop instructors, and you must arrange for the grade to be transferred to your regular instructor.

EXAMINATIONS

There will be two 80-minute common hour (CH) exams and one three-hour final exam in this course.  The CH exams will be conducted in several locations, and students are assigned to locations alphabetically. A label with your name on it will be pasted on one of the several versions of the exam and sent to the appropriate location. If you go to the wrong location, you will not find your exam. The times for the make up exams will be announced later.

Exam Date and Time
CH1 Monday, Oct. 3,  9:40 PM - 11:00 PM
CH2 Monday, Nov. 7, 9:40 PM - 11:00 PM
Final Tuesday, Dec. 20, 4 PM - 7 PM
Make-up Exams To be determined

BE SURE TO HAVE FRESH BATTERIES IN YOUR CALCULATOR FOR ALL EXAMS.

Make-up Exams:  Exam locations and dates will be announced later.  A written explanation of why you must miss the exam, with supporting written evidence such as a note from health services, written evidence of a conflicting exam, is required.  You are advised to resolve conflicts by changing your conflicting engagement, rather than rely on the make-up exam(s) in this course.

All exams will be multiple choice and closed-book. For each Common Hour Exam, you may bring with you a single "cheat sheet", one and only one 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of paper (OK to use both sides, but no photocopies) on which you may write any formulae or notes that might be helpful to you during the exam. On the final exam you may bring two sheets. The numerical values of relevant constants will be provided to you. You should certainly bring a calculator to the exams (with no stored course information), as well as pencils for the computer forms. Communicating devices of any kind will not be allowed. In particular, cell phones must be turned off and placed in a bag (or similar) so that they can not be seen by you or by anyone else. Failure to obey this rule will be considered as cheating.

GRADING

The contribution of the various components of this course to your final grade is summarized in the table below.

Course Component Weight Notes
CH I 16%  
CH II 16%  
Final Exam 32%  
Workshops 16% Best 10 Workshop scores
Lecture Participation 4% iClickers (10 Lectures)
Homework 16% Mastering Physics

Factors such as class participation in workshops contribute towards your final grade.

OTHER INFORMATION

HOW TO STUDY FOR THIS COURSE: From experience we know that, in order to be successful in this class, consistent weekly effort is required on your part.  You need to "socialize" the material, to turn it around in your own mind, to get acquainted with it in several ways. Try also to study with friends. Through discussions with others, you will understand the material in a deeper way. Do not hesitate to contact your instructors, but do this as early as possible. Most things we can help you with, if we know about them early, but there is often little we can do if you wait until a few days before the common hour exams or the final. Above all, solve the assigned exercises, and when you have done all those, do some more!

STUDY GROUPS: Organized study groups will form near the beginning of the semester. These groups will be guided by advanced undergraduates and will meet weekly either at the Math and Science Learning Center (MSLC) in the Allison Road Classroom Building (ARC) on Busch Campus or in the engineering residence halls. A webpage to sign-up for these groups will be posted shortly.

You are also strongly encouraged to form your own informal study groups. The best way is to form a group of 3-4 people and get together at a regular time once a week to thrash out your difficulties with homework exercises, reading, etc. It should be clearly understood, however, that the submitted homework should be, in the end, done by yourself. It is also the best preparation for the exams.

ADDITIONAL MATERIALS: Each week after section meetings have concluded, on Thursdays, we will post homework solutions on the course web site, here. The Math and Science Learning Centers (MSLC) (http://mslc.rutgers.edu/) on Busch and on Douglass and the various campus computer hubs have computer workstations that can access WWW. Students who need help in our course are strongly encouraged to see our recitation instructors. Their office hours are listed in the Instructors link in our course web page. In addition, free tutoring is available form Rutgers University Learning Centers. For more details, consult the MSLC web page, or visit the MSLC (Busch Campus, ARC building, 3rd floor) in person.

E-MAILING INSTRUCTORS:  E-mailing is often the most efficient and effective means of communication in the course. The usual rules of punctuation, spelling, grammar, style and courtesy apply to electronic mail. If you expect your Instructor to pay attention to your message, we offer the following advice:

  • e-mail your workshop instructor first.  She or he is your first point of contact with the course personnel
  • use:  "P123: subject" in the subject line so that the e-mails are easy to sort (we will do the same). 
  • construct concise e-mails with well-defined questions.  Avoid rambling stream-of-consciousness messages.
  • sign your full name,
  • write in clear, whole sentences with proper punctuation,
  • do not use chat room shorthand - use "you" instead of "u" etc,
  • check your spelling, and
  • be courteous.

We will make a good faith effort to reply on the same day to e-mails received by 6PM. Replies to e-mails received after 6PM may not come until the following day.

Please use your eden email account, not "hotmail" or "aol" or the like that have storage limits and often bounce email. We will communicate with you exclusively through your Rutgers e-mail account. Failure on your part to check that account is not an acceptable excuse.

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: Please review the Rutgers Policy on Academic Integrity for Undergraduate and Graduate Students. As this document makes clear, cheating can take many forms, none of which are acceptable. This includes (but is not limited to):

  • using an iClickers unit not your own on behalf of someone else, or asking someone to do so,
  • communicating or copying the contents of a recitation quiz to anyone else,
  • communicating with anyone else by any means during an exam or quiz,
  • making use of unauthorized materials such as solutions manuals or published solutions from prior years,
  • logging on to Mastering Physics as someone else, or having someone else log in as you.

However, we do encourage certain activities, such as:

  • working together on homework and exam review,
  • studying together and critiquing each other's cheat sheets.

Ultimately, cheating in any form will not work in your favor: you will not learn the material for yourself. This can  have only a deleterious effect on your own performance in classes and in the world at large.  Don't do it!

STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES: If you have a disability, you are urged to speak to Professor Bartynski early in the semester to make the necessary arrangements to support a successful learning experience. Also, you must arrange for Professor Bartynski to receive a letter from your College's Disabilities Coordinator verifying that you have a disability. Please follow this link which contains more information for students with disabilities.

return to P123 homepage