Physics 124, Spring 2008

COURSE INFORMATION

Students are responsible for all information contained on this page!

Corequisite
Math 152 (01:640:152)

Web Site

The web site for Physics 124 is http://www.physics.rutgers.edu/ugrad/124/. All announcements will appear there as well as in a lecture.
 
 

Staff

For the list of teaching staff, with office, telephone, email, picture information, click here . Students from any section are welcome at the office hour of any instructor. The course supervisor is Prof. C. Glashausser (course design, lectures), the course administrator is Prof. R. Gilman (minilabs, exams, and Mastering Physics) and the course assistant is M. Calhoun (online gradebook).
 
 

Textbook

Required: Young and Freedman: "University Physics", Volume I, 12th edition, Pearson/AddisonWesly
 

Registration Problems

Students with registration questions or problems should consult Ms. Sotory in Serin Lab, Room 201W, or call her at (732) 445-2511, or write an e-mail letter to jsotory@physics.rutgers.edu.
 

Lectures

Two equivalent lectures will be given in the Physics Lecture Hall,

• Friday 1:40-3:00, and
• Friday 3:20-4:40.

Information about the course will be announced in lectures, and will be posted on the top level course web page.

Part of each lecture period will be devoted to the solving of problems not assigned in Mastering Physics, based on the material just discussed in lecture.  These problems may be on the common hour and final exams, and on workshop quizzes.

Student iClickers units will be used to collect answers to questions posed during lecture.  The total term score for each student will come 5% from the iClickers answers throughout the term.  Each student needs to purchase an iClickers unit at Rutgers Bookstore - if you have one from last term you should be able to reuse it.  To allow for absences, the top ten scores will be used in determining the final grade.
 

Workshops, Homework, and Quizzes

Your registration for this course includes an assignment to an 80-min. workshop section that meets once a week (on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, see list ) starting Tuesday, 29 January (no meetings in the first week of term), in Serin 227 or as posted at the Western entrance to Serin, nearest Allison Road.

Each workshop meeting will consist of:

• a brief review of the relevant material; a discussion of homework questions and problems,

• a short quiz, and

• a mini-lab experiment (or a review session).

HOMEWORK: The schedule of homework assignments shows a list of questions (Q) and an assignment number. The questions Q are not graded, but should be answered on paper and brought to the workshop. They may be discussed in class and, like the problems, be the basis of a quiz. To find the actual problems (P) in the assignment, you must log on to Mastering Physics, and click on "assignment list" in the left hand column. The tutorial (practice) problems generally found at the beginning of the assignment may be helpful in completing the assignment; they are not graded. The regular problems in the assignment generally have numerical values for the various variables that are different from the corresponding problem in the text; these numbers vary from student to student. The problems and your grade are recorded automatically.  The assignments are due as shown in the homework schedule, at least one week after they become available (except for the first assigment). Note: it is impossible to work on the homework assignment after the due date has passed.

It is very important that you WORK ALL THE HOMEWORK QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS and bring your solutions with you to the workshop. You are strongly encouraged to participate in the discussion of problems 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 problems.

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 12e) and then register as a new user. Use your eden email name and register using the access code included with your textbook. The course ID for this course is MPGLASHAUSSER26216.

ICLICKERS: You must register your iClicker before the first lecture. To do so, once you have your iClicker unit, please follow the instructions on the course website at the iClickers web page.

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 mins 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 schedule ) a minilab will be done during part of the 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 schedule. 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.

ABSENCES: There will be no makeup opportunities for missed minilab and quiz grades, but the lowest two combined quiz+minilab scores will be dropped.  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 with the permission of the course administrator, Ron Gilman. You must tell your regular instructor and ask for the grade to be transferred to him or her.

GRADING STANDARDS: At the end of the semester we will use the average exam performance of each instructor's students to adjust for instructor differences in grading standards.

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 final. Above all, solve the assigned problems, and when you have done all those, do some more!

STUDY GROUPS: You are 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 problems, 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 from Rutgers University Learning Centers. For more details, consult the MSLC web page, or visit the MSLC (Busch Campus, ARC building, 3rd floor) in person.
 

Examinations

The table below gives times for the two common hour (CH) examinations and the three-hour final examination 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.

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.

To help you in studying for exams, this Physics 124 web site contains a practice exam, with solutions, for each of the CH and final exams.  In addition, you can consult any of the course instructors either during their office hours or by appointment or by email.

Makeup Exams

Exam locations and dates will be announced later. Professor Glashausser needs a written note explaining your reason for missing the exam, along with written supporting evidence like a note from the health service, or the name of the conflicting course, the instructor's name, and the time of the conflicting class/exam. At the beginning of the semester, check the exam and class schedules of your other courses for conflicts with Physics 124 exams. If you have a conflict with one or more of our exams, contact Prof. Glashausser or Prof. Gilman right away.
 

Grade Computation

Note that your final grade will be based substantially on participation in workshops. Failure to do homework regularly and attend workshops can result in a lowering of your grade, and can make the difference between pass and fail. Your workshop instructor will assign your final grade, and may take into account factors like your class participation and your improvement (or deterioration) during the term. Please NOTE that we do not allow you to improve your grade by doing extra work, during the semester or after the Final. It is therefore important for you to prepare well for the exams.
 

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 soneone 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!
 

Email to Instructors

The usual rules of punctuation, spelling, grammar, style and courtesy apply to electronic mail.

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.
 

Students with Disabilities

If you have a disability, you are urged to speak to Professor Glashausser early in the semester to make the necessary arrangements to support a successful learning experience. Also, you must arrange for Professor Glashausser to receive a Letter of Accommodation from the Office of Disability Services. For more information, see here.

Updated January, 2008