Physics 2020: General Physics II, Spring 2004
Lectures: Prof. Jerry Peterson: MWF 11:00-11:50p (section 100) or 1:00 - 1:50pm (section 200) Duane G1B20
Phone: 492 - 1686 10th Floor in the Gamow Tower
Email: Jerry.Peterson@Colorado.Edu (anytime)
Office Hours: Monday and Wednesday 2-3pm
Labs / Recitations: Prof. Noah Finkelstein
Phone: 735- 6082 10th Floor in the Gamow Tower
Email: Noah.Finkelstein@Colorado.Edu (anytime)
Office Hours: Tues and Thurs 3-4pm
Course Website :
http://www.colorado.edu/physics/phys2020
Lots of additional information and updates will be posted there. Please check
it regularly!
Physics 2020 is the second semester of an algebra-based sequence in college physics. We will cover topics in modern physics, including electricity, magnetism, light, optics, optical instruments, and properties of atoms including relativity and quantum mechanics. These topics are part of the foundations of our modern technological society. The intent is for you to continue to develop knowledge and intuition about how the world works, learn how to approach, solve, and understand a wide variety of physics problems on both qualitative and quantitative levels, and develop an appreciation of the scientific method.
"Physics" by Giancoli, 5th edition.
Physics 2020 Lab Manuals are available on the lab porton the course website.
Prerequisites: General Physics I, and some basic algebra, geometry and trigonometry.
Reading is an essential part of 2020! Reading the text before class is very important. I will assume you have done the required readings in advance. Reading assignments will be announced in class and appear on the web page for the upcoming class.
Homework will be administered via CAPA (Computer Assisted Personalized Approach). They are due every Friday by midnight . Each week you will receive a personalized assignment (everyone’s is slightly different). You should work on it just as you would in any other course, but you will log on to CAPA with any standard web browser and hand in your solutions online. You’ll be told immediately if your answers are right or wrong. If wrong, you may try again without penalty, up to some maximum number of tries. You will be allowed four (4) tries for each problem (though we may reduce this to 3 later in the term)!
Note that if you have not used your four tries, you can also log out and try again later, as long as you’re done before the deadline. Late homework’s will not be accepted by CAPA. Generic solutions will be posted on the class web page after the deadline. If you have problems of any kind, (including if you registered for Physics 2020 late, and haven't yet gotten onto the CAPA system) please check out the CAPA help page .
Most weeks, there will also be one additional "long answer" homework problem or "project" which you must write up and hand in. They must be turned in during lecture on Mondays. These will be announced in class and on the web.
Group study is fine (encouraged!) as long as you always generate your final solutions by yourself.
Labs: A (2-hour) lab or recitation is held every week in G-2B88 (Duane basement). There will be 6 labs. You must attend the section to which you are assigned! You’ll need a quadrille-ruled lab notebook (the kind with a square grid on each page) and the lab manuals. You’ll complete lab write-ups during the 2-hour lab section, and hand in your completed lab at the end of the session to your TA. Please record all lab data in pen in your lab notebook. You should carefully study the lab instructions before coming to lab; otherwise you may not have time to finish. There are pre-lab questions for each lab, the answers to which you must hand in on a separate sheet to your TA at the beginning of the lab period. This will be part of your lab grade. (TA’s will announce their policies for grading recitation hws, quizzes, and labs.)
A detailed discussion of the expectation, grading, and schedule of labs is located on the lab portion of the course website.
NOTE! To pass this course you must complete at least 5 labs, regardless of your performance on tests, hw, and quizzes. However, all 6 labs still count towards your grade.
For those with legitimate excuse, you may make up to TWO missed labs. One may be made up during the week the lab is offered (That is, if you know you will miss a lab later in the week, you should make up the lab in advance). The other may be completed during a make-up week for labs. You must coordinate your labs with your lab TA
Recitations: Roughly every other week is a lab section, you will still meet in G-2B88 with your TA for a recitation. Here, you will discuss physics, ask questions, learn methods for solving homework problems, and sometimes turn in extra hw problems or take quizzes, which count towards your grade. Recitations will begin Tuesday January 20th. (Monday sections are encouraged to attend a different section during week one.
Schedules for the labs and recitations are posted on the course website.
The Physics Help Room: All TA’s will have regular office hours in the help room. The help room (right behind your recitation/lab, Duane G2B87), is open almost any time from 9-5 Monday through Friday. The Help Room is very busy on Friday afternoons before CAPA is due, so try to get help earlier in the week. Times for specific TA's will be posted on the web site, but you can drop by anytime. If you need to see your TA privately, contact them directly.
Exams: Exams are scheduled for Tuesday evenings, 7:30-9:00 pm,
February 3, March 2, and April 6
in locations to be announced.
(There will not be any makeup exams.)
The final will be May 5 4:30pm - 7:00pm. (location TBA).
It is your responsibility to make sure you have no conflicts with these exams!
These exam dates were published in the gray course schedule last fall. If you have a conflict, you should retake Phys 2020 in a semester when you can make it to all the exams.Exams are closed book. No outside materials are allowed. A standard set of equations and constants will be provided with your exam booklet. There will not be any makeup exams. Persons absent for a serious medical reason, or with prior approval from Prof. Peterson, may be excused from 1 midterm exam. Excuses must be submitted in writting to and approved by Prof. Peterson no later than 1 week following the exam.
Students with disabilities, including non-visible disabilities, please let me know early in the semester (1st two weeks) so that your academic needs may be appropriately met. You will need to provide documentation of your disability to the Disability Services Office in Willard 322 (phone 303-492-8671)
Participation and Clickers: In this class we will use "clickers" (remote transmitters) to answer questions during lectures. You need to purchase a "clicker" from the bookstore ($29.00) and register it on the web at (register your clicker) before using it. Your clicker responses are recorded and contribute to your final grade. Questions correctly answered are worth 3 points, questions incorrectly answered are worth 2 points, and no answer is worth 0 points. The clicker responses will start counting towards your grade on January 14
Grading: The approximate total grade weighting will be as follows (though subject to change as deemed necessary through the term):
5% for participation (via clicker scores)
15% for CAPA HW's;
15% Long answer HW and recitation sections (including quizzes):
10% for each of the three midterm exams; (30% total)
20% for the final exam;
15% for the labs.
(Scores from lab reports, long answer hws, and quizzes graded by TA’s will be renormalized so that each TA has the same average score, to correct for differences in individual grading styles.)
Any information in this syllabus is as accurate as is possible at the time of writing. Announcements about changes of any kind will be made in class, and posted on the web, and will take precedence over this syllabus. You are responsible for what is said in class, whether or not you are in attendance.