Ph 121 Syllabus

PH 121 SYLLABUS, SPRING 1998 http://www.physics.sfsu.edu/~bland/courses/121/121.html (Course Schedule |Problem Sets |Office and Help Hours |Back to Ph 121 page )

Phys 121: General Physics II Sec. 02 (31824); TTh 12:35-13:50, SCI 101. This is the second semester of a one-year survey course in physics, covering electricity and magnetism, optics, and modern physics.

Prerequisites: Ph 111; concurrent registration in the lab (Ph 122) is required.

Instructor: Roger Bland - office Th 316, phone 338-2433; lab Th 208, phone 338-1969; home phone 664-3982; office and recitation hours TBA; email bland@quark.sfsu.edu

Text: Physics, 3rd edition, by John D. Cutnell and Kenneth W. Johnson (Wiley, 1995), study guide included.

Lab Texts: General Physics II Laboratory (required), manual sold in the lab; Excel Spreadsheet Basics (optional), by J. Orenberg, available in the bookstore.

Supplementary Materials: There will be three (duplicate) loose-leaf binders available in the reserve book room of the library. They will include problem and exam solutions and sample exams.

Topics to be Covered
Electricity and Magnetism	Ch. 18-23
Light and Optics	Ch. 24-27
Modern Physics	Ch. 28-32

Homework: There will be homework assigned each week. The homework is very important. It counts as part of the grade, and it will be hard to do well on the tests without having done the homework. Here are a few suggestions for doing homework.

Always start the problem by drawing a diagram, if possible. The grader will take points off for not drawing a diagram.
Explain your solution to the problem in words. This is just as important as the calculations.
Try to find someone to work with on the homework. Whether you end up getting help or giving help to some one else, you will be better off.

Recitation: There will be several one-hour problem-working sessions scheduled for this course. The recitation schedule will be posted outside the Department office when it is finalized.

Exams: There will be five 10-minute quizzes, two midterms, and a final exam. (See the course schedule for dates.) Please note that during exams each student must work completely independently. Students are not expected to help each other on exams or to look at other people's papers. All instances of cheating on exams will be reported to the Dean of Students, and a zero grade will be given on the test.

Lab: The lab must be taken concurrently with the lecture course. Be sure and go to the first meeting of your section. For the first meeting of the lab you should bring:

A hard-bound quad-ruled lab book to write in; Roaring Springs #77475 ($2.95 at the bookstore) is fine.
The lab manual, sold by the Physics and Astronomy Club in room Th 115; you can buy the lab manual during the first meeting of the lab. Please be prepared to pay in cash (about $7.00).
You will also need a calculator with statistical functions. Bring the calculator's instruction manual to the first lab meeting.

Grading: The grade for the lecture course (Ph 111) will be based on the homework and exam grades as indicated below.

	Final Exam		30%
	Midterms		35%
	Quizzes (best 4 of 5)	20%
	Homework (drop 2)	15%

The grade for the lab (Ph 122) is separate from the lecture-course grade. The instructor(s) of the Ph 121 lecture section(s) will determine the letter grades given for the lab course, based on the numerical scores given by the lab instructors. All lab sections will be given the same distribution of grades, with an average grade of about 3.0 (B).

Comprehensive Final Exam: Tuesday May 26, 10:45-1:15

On-Line Information Service: All information for this course is posted on the World Wide Web. The address is http://www.physics.sfsu.edu/~bland/courses/121/121.html. To get your account on the University system, apply in ADM 104.