** Under Construction **
Physics 265 Syllabus
Winter 2013
Instructor: Kenneth (KC) Walsh Office:
WNGR 141 email:
walshke@onid.oregonstate.edu
Class time: M,W,F: 3 –
3:50 pm Classroom: WNGR 412
Office Hours: M,W,F 12 – 2 pm,
else by appointment
TA: Jeff Shulte - schuljef@onid.orst.edu
Tech Support: Jason Vielma - vielmaj@onid.orst.edu
Schedule
|
Week |
Date |
Topic |
|
Homework: from class notes, (* denotes challenge) |
|
01 |
Jan 07 Jan 09 Jan 11 |
Introduction
to course, Linux basics(1),
accounts Introduction
to Python (1) |
Ch. 1 |
HW1: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.6*, 1.7* (due 1/16) |
|
02 |
Jan 14 Jan 16 Jan 18 |
Vectors |
Ch. 2 |
HW2: 1.5, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4* (due 1/23) |
|
03 |
Jan 21 Jan 23 Jan 25 |
MLK
Holiday No Class Derivatives |
Ch.3 |
HW3: 3.1 (you must include exploration of the difference
between the methods for other points along the sin function), 3.2, 3.3, 3.4*,
3.5* (due 2/1) |
|
04 |
Jan 28 Jan 30 Feb 01 |
Integrating
velocity Integrating
forces |
Ch. 4 |
HW4: 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5*, 4.6* (due 2/8) |
|
05 |
Feb 04 Feb 06 Feb 08 |
|
Ch. 5 |
HW5: 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5*, 5.6*, 5.7* (due 2/15) |
|
06 |
Feb 11 Feb 13 Feb 15 |
Friction,
drag More midterm
prep Midterm (part B code), solutions |
|
|
|
07 |
Feb 18 Feb 20 Feb 22 |
Energy, Verlet method Exact chaos
(not talked about in class but fun) |
Ch. 6 |
HW6: 6.1, 6.3, 6.4, 6.2* (due 2/22) |
|
08 |
Feb 25 Feb 27 Mar 01 |
Hooke’s law - harmonic
oscillators Friction, energy |
Ch. 7 |
HW7: 7.1, 7.3, 7.2* (due 3/4) |
|
09 |
Mar 04 Mar 06 Mar 08 |
Newton’s 3rd law,
momentum conservation |
Ch. 8 |
HW8: 8.1, 8.4, 8.3*, 8.5* (due 3/11) |
|
10 |
Mar 11 Mar 13 Mar 15 |
Inverse square law - gravity |
Ch. 9 |
HW9: 8.6, 9.1*, 9.2*, 9.3* (due 3/15) To be “handed” into
the instructor via email (not Jeff) |
**
Final Exam: Written - Tuesday, March 19th, noon - 2 pm, in WNGR 412.
Take
Home - Tuesday, March 19th at noon until Thursday, March 21st
at noon
GENERAL INFORMATION FOR PH 265
Prerequisites,
Co-requisites and Enforced Prerequisites
MTH 112
Course content
This is an unusual course in that it spans the
subjects of computer science, mathematics, and physics. You may expect to learn
some programming, some physics, and some mathematics. Some of you will have
considerable programming experience, and others will be programming for the
first time. We will start with the use of programming language python, and its
powerful visualization tool vpython. We will use it
to manipulate vectors. The rest of the course involves the numerical
calculation of motion and the visualization of that motion. The basic physical
principles needed for this are Newton's laws of motion. We will include
friction and see how conservation of energy can be used to improve the
numerical results.
Measurable Student
Learning Outcomes
Evaluation of
Student Performance
Homework will be due each week in class on Friday.
There will be one midterm exam. Grades will be computed based on 60%
classwork/homework, 15% midterm exam and 25% final exam. This is a lab course
and therefore class attendance is required. Please notify the instructor in
advance if you are unable to attend due to personal or health reasons.
Homework will consist of required problems
and challenge problems. The latter may be turned in for extra
credit valued less than the required problems. It is possible to get an A in
the course without doing any extra credit, provided you do well on the exams.
Homework submission will be done via a personal
website (example) you create on your onid account (for instructions on how to do this go here).
Each assignment should be linked from the main submission page. Each solution
should have an explanation of the problem and the solution along with the code
you’ve created to solve the problem. The level of explanation should be such
that you could direct one of your peers to your solution page and they could
read through it and understand exactly what you did and how you did it. Each
problem will be worth 0 or 1 points (credit or no credit). You are able to
correct up to four insufficient solutions after their due date but before
Monday of finals week. My suggestion is that you check with either the TA or
the instructor in class, before the due date, if you feel your program may not
be sufficient. Not accounting for all cases (i.e. what your program does with a
negative number when asked to calculate a factorial) is a common problem that
must be tested for.
Grade Scale
This course will be graded on a curve and I reserve the right to
determine the grade scale at the end of the term based mostly on where the
natural breaks in the scores occur. This is not to say that everyone can’t get
an A, it just means that I’ll adjust the grade scale dependent on the grade
distribution. I’ll start with an approximation that roughly 85-100% for A’s,
70-85% for B’s, 60-70% for C’s, and below that not passing.
Learning resources
There will be no required text for the course. Class
notes will be available online or can also be purchased here.
Here
is also a good text to reference for a more formal approach to scientific
programming with Python.
Statement Regarding
Students with Disabilities
"Accommodations are collaborative efforts
between students, faculty and Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD).
Students with accommodations approved through SSD are responsible for
contacting the faculty member in charge of the course prior to or during the
first week of the term to discuss accommodations. Students who believe they are
eligible for accommodations but who have not yet obtained approval through SSD
should contact SSD immediately at 737-4098."
Honesty
For this course it is allowed to work together on
homework, but each student should submit his or her own written solution or
program. We will follow the university guide lines,
see OSU Student Conduct & Community Standards.
