Welcome to PHY 101 - August 4th.
Welcome to PHY 101. This is a
first course in general physics. We will be covering kinematics,
Newtonian statics and dynamics, gravitation, fluids, kinetic
theory, waves, and thermodynamics. You are expected to have had
MAT 111 (Precalculus). Any other math that you will need we will
cover/review in class.
Class begins Thursday, August 20th
AM at 8:00 AM!. The class meets two days a week for 75 minutes
and you are expected to attend all classes. Labs meet one day
per week. The first labs meetings will be announced at a later
date. Labs meet for two hours and you are required to attend all
labs. More about that will be covered in the lab. There is a
link to the labs at the course web site.
Course materials are posted at the
web site
http://people.uncw.edu/hermanr/phy101/. There you will find
the syllabus, homework problems, a tentative schedule, links to
useful materials, etc. Keep an eye on this site as it will
change periodically as we move through the course. In
particular, you should look at the useful materials on how to
study physics on the materials page. For additional
explanations, or materials for any missed class, visit my PHY
101 physics lectures from my 2005 summer class.
As this class meets three hours a
week for lectures, you should plan to study 6-8 hours a week
outside of class to be successful in this course. That is at
least one hour a day and possibly more for some students. This
might be hard to do as we only meet two times a week. So, plan
to keep up with the work, stop by my office and ask questions,
send emails, etc.
The text we are using can be seen
at
http://he-cda.wiley.com/WileyCDA/HigherEdTitle/productCd-0470223553.html
There are several versions and you need to be careful in your
selection. Also, you should find a binder version at the
bookstore which might be appealing for its cost and that you can
carry portions of the text to class instead of a big heavy
textbook.We will be covering the first 17 chapters this
semester. That is more than one chapter per week! Note also that
graphing calculators are not
allowed during exams. So, you will need to pick up a
cheap scientific calculator
and learn how to use it.
Also, we will be using and
automated homework system. Problems from the text are answered
and graded online. The problems online will have different
numbers, but are otherwise the same. This system,
WileyPLUS, tracks your grades,
allows you to use several attempts to do a problem and offers an
online version of the text (as another option besides purchasing
the text). You will need to get a registration code. This will
either come with your purchase at the bookstore, or you will
need to purchase it online if you choose to buy the text
elsewhere. So, be careful in your purchase. You will need to get
the code and try out WileyPLUS
by the time classes begin. (Click on
WileyPLUS for more information.)
Feel free to wander the course
pages, look at my site to see who I am, and feel free to email
me whenever you have questions. Start reading your book and
working on the homework assignments that are posted!
Good luck, and I will see you
soon.
Snapshot
of bookstore pricing
