Syllabus

Physics 590A
Principles of Physics I
Course Syllabus - Spring 2007

Introduction
Physics 590A and 590B cover the basic principles of physics, exposing you to the material through videotapes, your textbook, and problem solving. This makes it possible for you to move through the materials at a convenient pace, at a convenient location, and to access a variety of modes of learning.

The videotapes are the focal point of the material, allowing you to tap into the most salient points and to become aware of the various pitfalls commonly encountered by you and/or your students when studying the concepts for the first time. It is not practical, nor pedagogically sound, to have the entire learning experience be based on the videotapes alone. Reading the text carefully and working through a variety of problems is essential to acquiring the skills necessary to complete the course successfully. Perhaps the most serious trap that you as a learner are likely to fall into is the false notion of having gained a full understanding of the concepts through viewing the tapes and reading the material in the text. This is equivalent to reading books on running and watching good runners run and then expecting to be able to duplicate these feats without disciplined practice. True understanding comes from confronting your previously held conceptions and working carefully through a process that will eventually replace these conceptions with those generally agreed upon by the scientific community.

Although working through a variety of text problems will greatly increase the probability of learning the material, one more step is essential. Each problem solution should be examined for reasonableness and tested against extremum conditions. This means, for example, thinking about what the solution should look like, say, if one of the masses tends toward zero, or if the angle approaches 90 degrees, and so forth. Developing the habit of constantly checking results against these criteria will pay dividends in the long run. It also allows you to see how a particular solution is related to solutions of other, similar problems.

The value of this course to you will depend primarily on the effort you put into it. The staff at Purdue stands ready to provide assistance in any way that we can, by phone, e-mail, or through the web page. Our goal is to help increase your understanding of the basic concepts of physics and to assist you in learning how to approach new concepts in a pedagogically efficient way. Enjoy the journey!

Course Logistics
This course has several different components, all designed to optimize your learning of the material. Viewing the videotapes and reading the text will help you to become familiar with the most important ideas. You will be asked to submit for evaluation a number of end-of-chapter problems that offer an opportunity for you to check your understanding of the concepts. These will be graded by the staff and after the submission deadline has passed, full solutions will be provided to you. Questions concerning both concepts and pedagogical issues can be addressed through email correspondence. About one week after the receipt of each homework set, you will be required to take an exam over the material covered in the assignment. All exams will be open book and you will have a limited time to complete it before submitting it to the staff for evaluation.

Please contact the staff by email as soon as you register for the course. We will need your name, student ID number, email address, mailing address, and phone number. Please send all course-related correspondence to the email address: disted@physics.purdue.edu

Materials
The videotapes will be mailed to you during the first week of the semester, so you should receive them before January 14th. (If you register late, the videos will be mailed as soon as possible, but the homework due dates will not be adjusted.)

The textbook for this course is: “Physics for Scientists and Engineers” by Serway and Beichner, 5th edition, 2000. It may be purchased through Barnes and Noble online, Amazon.com, or at some local bookstores. You may wish to purchase only Volume 1 (Chapters 1-15) ISBN 0-03-026944-X in paperback rather than the complete hardcover version. (Physics 590B uses the hardcover Volume 2 (Chapters 23-41), not the paperback version.)

The website can be located at:
http://www.physics.purdue.edu/outreach/distance_ed/

Homework
Throughout the semester, you will be asked to submit solutions to the end-of-chapter problems in your textbook. There are ten chapters that we will cover in this course, broken into three assignments. Each assignment covers three or four chapters and will be followed by an exam over the material.

The homework must be postmarked or faxed by the date indicated in the schedule. You may submit the assignments by mail, fax, or other reasonable means. Please use the following mailing address:
Physics 590A Instructor
Physics Department
Purdue University
West Lafayette, IN 47907-1396
Homework submitted by fax should be sent to 765-494-0706, attention Physics 590A Instructor. If you anticipate sending your homework by fax, please make efforts to keep your work legible, as faxes usually suffer in visual clarity.

The solutions that you submit should be complete enough that the grader will know exactly what you did and why. Include any assumptions that you made, questions that you asked yourself, or other thoughts. By writing more information down, your own thought process will become clear to you (and the grader), and you will see the hidden steps that you did – and be able to point them out to your students. All problems should be worked to a complete solution in algebraic form prior to inserting numbers. Also indicate how you assessed whether the solution is reasonable, i.e. do the extremum conditions make sense, has the quantity increased/decreased as expected, etc.

After the due date for each assignment, complete solutions will be posted on the course website. Early the following week, your graded homework will be returned to you with comments.

Exams
Three exams will be administered during the course. These exams will follow each of the homework due dates by approximately one week. Each exam will cover the material in the preceding homework set. The exams will be mailed to the person that you have designated to administer the exam. This person would commonly be your principal, librarian, or some other reasonable choice. Your suggestion of exam administrator must be submitted for our consideration at least two weeks prior to the first exam. You will have three days to complete the exam. Each of the three exams will cover the material for that period; i.e. there will be no comprehensive final exam.

The completed exams must be postmarked by the due date, or faxed to the number above.

Schedule
Shown below is the schedule for Spring Semester 2007.

Due Date	Assignment
Monday, February 5	Exam administrator contact information due
Friday, February 9	Homework #1: Ch. 2: 23, 25, 39, 40, 49, 51 Ch. 3: 11, 36 Ch. 4: 13, 16, 27, 33 Ch. 5: 27, 34, 44, 47, 67 Extra Problem 1 and 2 (below)
Monday, February 19	Test #1 due date (covers chapters 2-5)
Friday, March 16	Homework #2: Ch. 6: 11, 15, 20, 51, 53 Ch. 7: 6, 15, 36, 41, 46 Ch. 8: 11, 15, 21, 31, 33, 57
Monday, March 26	Test #2 due date (covers chapters 6-8)
Friday, April 27	Homework #3: Ch. 9: 6, 9, 11, 18, 41, 42 Ch. 10: 3, 9, 33, 43, 45, 71 Ch. 11: 1, 5, 33, 47 Ch. 12: 4, 37, 42, 47, 49, 51, 58
Monday, May 7	Test #3 due date (covers chapters 9-12)

The homework and exams must be postmarked or faxed by the date due.