This is the second of two one-semester courses on advanced general physics. The primary purpose of these courses is to give you an understanding of classical mechanics and classical electromagnetism at a greater depth than that covered in introductory physics. In Physics 324, we will focus on classical electrodynamics building on Physics 323 which focussed on classical mechanics. The format of the course will consist of both lectures and active learning sessions.
There will be weekly lectures on Wednesdays from noon to 1:20 pm in SEC-203. Students from both sections should attend these lectures. The first lecture is Wednesday, Jan. 20.
I will post lecture notes before each Wednesday lecture. Please read these notes and come to class prepared to ask questions. If there aren't sufficient questions, then I will ask questions of randomly chosen students.
I will take attendance both at the beginning and at the end of lecture. In order to receive full credit for attending you must be there at both the beginning and the end. If you are only there for one , you will receive half credit. Since being in attendance means mentally as well as physically, use of laptops and cell phones during lecture is not allowed. If you are seen using one, your attendance credit for that lecture will be reduced by half.
In most lectures, there will be a brief quiz at the start of class on material covered in the previous week. See below for more information about the quizzes.
The recitation meetings are on Fridays. Section 1 will meet from 8:40 am to 10:00 am while Section 2 will meet from 3:20 pm to 4:40 pm. Both are currently scheduled for the active learning classroom, RWH-208.
During the recitations, you will work on the homework problems assigned for that week in groups of three students. The recitations will begin with a 15 minute introduction to the problems for that week. You will then work on these problems with your group for 45 minutes. A graduate teaching assistant, an undergraduate Learning Assistant and myself will be available to answer questions and to assist with problems. We will them spend the remaining 20 minutes discussing the problems. During that time, selected groups will be asked to go over a particular problem and lead the discussion on it. Active participation by the students in these recitations is essential and will count toward 20% of your course grade.
I'm working on the course syllabus. When it is ready I will post it here. This syllabus is meant to be flexible and will be modified as appropriate as the course proceeds.
My lectures will closely follow the book The Theoretical Minimum: Special Relativity and Classical Field Theory by Leonard Susskind and Art Friedman. Another highly recommended book is A Student's Guide to Maxwell's Equations by Daniel Fleisch.
During the first week of class, I will conduct a survey to decide what would be the best times to hold regular office hour(s) but please don't hesitate to come to see me about any questions you might have concerning the course material or related physics. If you would like to meet with me outside of office hours, simply email me at physics.rutgers.323@gmail.com listing three times that you are available. I will get back to you within 24 hours letting you know which of those times would be good for me.
My office is Serin 328 W. If you would like to contact me, please email me at physics.rutgers.324@gmail.com. This is a special email account that I've set up for this course. Please use this email for all communications having to do with this course. Please do NOT use my physics.rutgers.edu email.
I will post weekly homework problems. The problems will not be graded but are meant to help you to learn the material and to prepare for the quizzes and exams. We will, however, collect the homework to check that you have made a good faith effort to solve the problems. You can find solutions to the homework problems here. It is to your advantage to try to solve the homework problems before looking at the solutions. The homework will in general consist of a range of problems from straight forward to challenging. Making an attempt at the homework problems is very important. The homework will count for 10% of the course grade.
There will be ten in-class quizzes during the semester. They will be given at the start of the Wednesday lectures. Mid-semester you will be allowed to retake the first five quizzes and at the end of the semester you will be allowed to retake the last five quizzes. The final grade for each quiz will then be best of the two grades. I will drop the lowest of the first five quiz grades and the lowest of the second five quiz grades. The quiz grades in total will count for 50% of the course grade.
There will be a 3-hour, final exam. The date for the final exam will be announced later. The final exam will count for 20% of the course grade.
The course grade will be based on the following criteria:
| Class attendance and participation: | 20% |
| Inclass quizzes: | 50% |
| Homework: | 10% |
| Final exam: | 20% |
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This page is maintained by Prof. Steve Schnetzer.