PHYSICS 1119

Principles of Modern Physics I

Note: This syllabus is available on the WWW at

http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~cls/courses/p1119

TERM (Fall 2004-2005)

• • Lecturer: Dr. Chandralekha Singh

  • Office: 218 A Allen Hall

  • Office hours: after class or stop by anytime you find me in the office

  • Phone: 624-9045

  • E-mail (BEST WAY TO CONTACT ME): clsingh@pitt.edu

  • Lectures: Mon, Wed, Fri 11-11.50 am, (Thaw 11)

  • Text: Modern Physics for Scientists and Engineers, Thornton and Rex, second edition, Thompson-Brookes/Cole

  • Grader: Jonathan Gaffney (TA office:5th floor TA office, Allen Hall, phone:624-1826, 624-1831)

  • Grader's email jog8+@pitt.edu

Goals and Objectives

The major goal of this Modern physics I course is to enable you to develop logical reasoning skills to explain or predict diverse phenomena in everyday experience, and to become good problem solvers and independent learners. I encourage you to participate fully in class discussions. Physics knowledge is hierarchical: new concepts rely heavily on solid understanding of prior material. I strongly encourage you to ask questions to clarify your doubts. Remember that all questions are good questions, and there is a good chance that if you are having trouble understanding a concept, others are also struggling with the same concept. "Plug-and-chug" approaches to physics are neither useful for developing problem solving, reasoning and higher order thinking skills that I hope you will develop nor likely to produce satisfactory results on examinations. I also want you to remember that struggling is a very natural part of learning. Do not get discouraged.

Course Description

We will cover the first seven chapters of the book this semester. The lecture material will follow the text fairly closely, and many of the assignments will be drawn from the text. Hence it is a good idea for you to purchase the text or have regular access to it. There will be a copy (or copies) on reserve in the Physics Library in OEH. There may be some assignments from outside the book once in a while. It is highly recommended that students read the relevant chapter ahead of time. There may also be material covered in the class and in some homework assignments that will not be from the book. It is your responsibility to come to the class and to have knowledge of the material covered from the book and out of book. You are expected to have a working knowledge of calculus.

Online Stuff using Courseweb

Useful information including assignments for this course are available at the Courseweb site for this course. You can log on to this site by going to http://courseweb.pitt.edu and typing your university unix user name and password. This site can also be used for discussion forums related to this course in which your instructor and fellow classmates can participate.

Homework

Homework is an integral part of learning the material of this course. The homework will be assigned every Monday and collected the following Monday. The solutions will be posted in the physics library the same week by Friday. You are strongly encouraged to work on the questions/problems yourself before you get help. It is strongly recommended that you discuss the course material and homework with your peers but you CANNOT copy others homework solutions. There will be unannounced quizzes in the class very often. Homework/quiz performance will count approximately 20% in determining the final grade.

Due to the importance of the homework in helping you learn and apply the conceptual matter under discussion, and to prepare for examinations, you are highly encouraged to try as many of the assigned problems/questions as possible before the solutions are posted in the physics library.

Peer Instruction

To ensure that you are understanding the underlying concepts covered during the lecture, I will interrupt the class several times during each lecture to pose a conceptual question. You will be asked first to think about the question by yourself, and later discuss it with your neighbor. Then, I will poll the class to see how many of you obtained the correct answer.

Study Resources

A Resource Room will be available for help in understanding physics concepts and completing homework assignments. Your TA will let you know more about the availablity of this room in 311/312 Thaw Hall.

Grading Policy

There will be three in-term exams and a cumulative final examination. The final examination time can be found from registrar's office. The in-term exams are expected to fall on:

• • Exam #1 Mon, Oct 11

  • Exam #2 Wed, Nov 10

  • Exam #3 Wed, Dec 1

The lowest performance of the three in-term exams will be dropped. The course grade is expected to be determined by two in-term exam grades (22.5% each), the final exam (35%), and the homework grade (20% for homework/quizzes). There will be absolutely no make-up midterm examinations. The midterm or final exam cannot be given ahead of time or later so please make sure you are present during the exams.

Physics 1619: Writing option

The following information is only relevant for those of you who are taking Physics 1619: Principles of modern physics with writing option. There will be a total of four papers throughout the semester. Each paper will count for 25% of the course grade. All of the four papers should be six double spaced pages (Please do not exceed the page limit!!). All of the four papers will require you to read journal articles on the content related to modern physics. The due dates for the paper are:

• • Paper #1 Fri, Oct 1

  • Paper #2 Fri, Oct 22

  • Paper #3 Fri, Nov 12

  • Paper #4 Fri, Dec 10

If the paper is turned in the week after it is due (for example on Monday Oct 4 rather than Friday Oct 1), only 50% maximum points will be awarded for it. Papers will not be accepted later than one week after it is actually due. For each of the papers, within the 6 page limit, you must have four sections addressing the following issues: 1) Summarize the main ideas of the journal article in four (of the six) pages in a clear language. This section should include discussions about why this line of research was considered worth pursuing. 2) Under the heading ``The most interesting result of the article" describe one result of the article that you consider most interesting and why. 3) If you were the professor who had to assign a homework problem to a class (which read this article) on the content of this article, what would that problem be and why? 4) What are the areas you are likely to pursue based upon this research (How would this paper generate new research)? Try to be innovative. Don't just repeat what is already mentioned in the paper. I will give you all the papers to read. The first three of the four journal articles you will be writing about will be common (same) for everybody. I will ask you to choose one article out of three I give you for the fourth paper. Please do not hesitate to ask me for help in any aspect of writing. It is ok for a group of students to discuss the content of an article with each other before writing. However, everybody should ultimately be doing their writing independently. Please feel free to contact me anytime you need help. I should be in my office most afternoons.