Rutgers University Department of Physics and Astronomy

Physics 323/324 "Advanced General Physics" SPRING 2012

Contact Information

Instructors:

Larry Zamick, Physics and Astronomy 215W, Busch Campus, 732-445-5500 Ext. 3874, zamick@physics.rutgers.edu
Venkateshan Kannan, Allison Road Classroom Building 234, Busch Campus, kven@physics.rutgers.edu

Class Time and Location: T4Th4 (1:40 - 3:00PM) and T7Th7 (6:40-8:00 PM) in ARC333 , Busch Campus. Your schedule may list only two of these four periods but you may in fact attend any or all at your convenience. The first day of class will be Tuesday January 17 and the last day of class will be Thursday April 26. To get an A in the course you must complete 10 units by a week before the last day of class, i.e. on or before Thursday April 19 and pass an oral exam on or before Thursday April 26..

The website for this course, with links to the syllabus, units, and additional information, can be found at http://www.physics.rutgers.edu/ugrad/323/ . You should check this website frequently for new messages and announcements of changes. This website can also be accessed via the departmental website at http://www.physics.rutgers.edu/ by clicking on "Undergraduate Courses" and then "323/324" in the list of couse websites. The departmental website contains links to other information, including colloquium and seminar announcements.

Introduction and Philosophy

Advanced General Physics is a two semester course covering topics in elementary mechanics, electromagnetism, thermodynamics, special relativity, and quantum mechanics. It assumes a knowledge of integral and differential calculus and a familiarity with vectors and vector calculus, but the relevant concepts can be learned fairly quickly if one has not studied them before. The philosophy of this course is a little different than that of the usual physics course. There are no formal lectures and no scheduled exams or homework. It is the student's responsibility to chart a course through the material and take appropriate quizzes when he or she is ready to do so. The course is not completely unstructured, however: each subject is broken up into a number of units. Suggested reading and homework problems for each unit will prepare the student for a short (about an hour) quiz on the unit consisting of three problems. Successful completion of the quiz (details in the course outline below) allow the student to move on to another unit.

Last updated Aug 17 2011.