Course Announcements

« PHYS306 Fall 2020

PHYS 306 Letter about Midterm Exam

Thu 29Oct2020 1:04AM

Dear 306 Class,

I am writing to congratulate you as a class on your overall performance on the midterm exam. I gave some of those questions years ago on a previous midterm and your performance was much better than theirs. Based on that, I expect to give out many high grades at the end of the semesters. This week, we are beginning the final segment on complex variables. This will be somewhat challenging, but I expect that the class as a whole will do very well. I also want to thank the TAs in the course for all their efforts. As always, if you have any questions feel free to contact any of the TAs or contact me personally.

Best wishes,

Ephraim Fischbach

Homework and Homework Due Dates

Sat 29Aug2020 10:41PM

Many students have asked about the assigned homework for this course. As of now (August 29, 2020), no homework has been assigned to you. When a homework is assigned, it will be posted as a separate document under “Course materials,” similar to how your lecture notes are published. Additionally, a due date will be located on the first page on the homework assignment. Please remember to turn in your homework to you assigned TAs by the given due date. If you do not know who your assigned TA is or if you have any questions, please contact Megan McDuffie (mmcduffi@purdue.edu).

PHYS 306 Syllabus

Thu 20Aug2020 4:51PM

PHYSICS 306 Fall 2020

Professor Ephraim Fischbach

Office: PHYS 286; office hours by appointment

Phone: 765-494-5506

e-mail: ephraim@purdue.edu

Teaching Assistants: Megan McDuffie (mmcduffi@purdue.edu), Ethan Zweig (ezweig@purdue.edu), Connor Petway (cpetway@purdue.edu)

Course Text: “Basic Training in Mathematics” by R. Shankar (Plenum, New York, 1995)

Grading: The course grade will be based on 400 points, distributed as follows:

homework (normalized) 100 points

midterm 100 points

final 200 points

Homework: Students are allowed, and even encouraged to work together on homework. However, by handing in a homework assignment a student will be assumed to be stating that he/she understands and can explain his/her submitted solutions. To ensure that students are actually doing the homework, some homework problems will be included in modified form on both the midterm and final. Homework must be submitted to the TA to whom you are assigned via email on the assigned due date before 11:59PM. Late homework will receive a 10% penalty. TA assignments are to be determined. Your TA will email the graded assignment to you.

For each homework submission, scan the written homework as a PDF (Genius Scan is a helpful app for this). Email the homework to your assigned TA with the subject “LastName_ FirstName_ HW#1” and the PDF attached and titled “LastName_FirstName_HW#1” as an example for the first homework assignment.

Midterm Exam: October 13, 2020. Time, format, locations, and instructions to be determined.

Make-up Policy: There are absolutely no make-up exams in this course: If you have a legitimate medical (or other) documented emergency you will be excused from the midterm, and your grade will be determined on the basis of 300 points.

TA Office Hours: Routine questions concerning the homework, grading, etc. should be addressed to Megan McDuffie, Ethan Zweig, and Connor Petway during their scheduled office hours in room 359 or online. Office hours are to be determined. If you are not available during the scheduled office hour, you can email your TA to schedule an appointment or you may also ask questions to fellow students and your TAs on the Discord. Discord invitation: https://discord.gg/JwUTZZJ

Lecture Notes: The class lectures will be delivered online at the assigned class hours which are Tuesday and Thursday at 10:30am local time. You may view the lectures asynchronously at your convenience. The link to each lecture will be posted on the course webpage during the Tuesday/Thursday lecture time. The lecture link will appear in a document with information regarding the title of the lecture video to watch, the topics included in the lecture, as well as the lecture length (in minutes) and the corresponding physical lecture note pages. In some cases, the lecture video will be over an hour; however, the lecture will be split up between multiple days– as described in the Lecture Homework Details document. As you can see in the document, most lecture homework for each day is under 40 minutes. For your convenience you may follow along with the lecture via the Lecture Notes which is also posted on the course webpage. If you have questions about this organization, please ask your fellow students or the course TAs for help.

The lectures, class notes, and homework will be posted on the course website: http://www.physics.purdue.edu/academic-programs/courses/course_detail.php?c=phys306

To access the course webpage via your web browser: first search “Purdue Physics Courses Fall 2020” in google -> click on “Current Semester Courses” under Course Listings -> find “PHYS 306” under the current semester -> click on “Lectures” or “Homework” for a list of the respective course material. The Lecture Homework Details (which contains the link to the lecture video) is located alongside the physical Lecture Notes under the “Lecture” section. Your homework will be posted in the “Homework” section.

Welcome to PHYS306 students!

Thu 20Aug2020 4:50PM

Dear PHYS 306 Students, Aug 19, 2020

Welcome to the Fall 2020 semester of PHYS 306, Mathematical Methods of Physics 1. This announcement provides information regarding the course structure, course textbook, and course resources, as well as a survey which you will need to fill out before the first day of class. Attached with this email is also the course syllabus which provides more detailed information.

SURVEY

In order to best fit the schedules of the students taking this course, the TAs have created a survey for students to suggest when office hours would be most accommodating. Please fill out the survey before the first day of class (Tuesday August 25^th, 2020). The link can be found here: https://doodle.com/poll/y6q7as98iu46h7i2

After Aug 25^th, the TAs will have a single office hour during Week One to introduce themselves and answer any initial questions you may have about the course. Normal office hours will be posted by the end of Week One so students can attend office hours in room 359 and online starting on Week Two.

GETTING STARTED!

The video lectures, lecture notes, and homework will be posted on the course website:

http://www.physics.purdue.edu/academic-programs/courses/course_detail.php?c=phys306

These notes will be updated in the next few days before the semester begins and periodically throughout the semester. So please keep checking.

LECTURE

Due to the Covid-19 crisis, this course will be taught completely online. All lectures will be posted online on the course webpage. You can find detailed instructions about how to access the lectures on the course webpage in the syllabus. The lectures will be posted during the scheduled lecture time as seen in your course schedule; however, you may view the lectures asynchronously at a time convenient for you.

TEXTBOOK

The course textbook is “Basic Training in Mathematics” by R. Shankar (Plenum, New York, 1995). There will be homework problems taken directly from the textbook and it is very likely that you will use this textbook in PHYS 307 as well.

OFFICE HOURS

There are three teaching assistants (TAs) for this course. Each student will be assigned a TA who will grade your homework and exams. Each TA will have office hours throughout the week, one online and one in person (as Covid-19 safety guidelines permit). To limit the number of students in the office at once, we will require students to RSVP to in-person office hours. Due to Covid-19, the max capacity of the TA office is 5 students. If the number of students seeking in-person help exceeds the allowed max capacity to abide by Protect Purdue guidelines, students will have to RSVP to a different TA office hour or take advantage of online office hours. Online and in-person TA office hours will not be recorded or posted. If you have conflicts during in-person and online office hours, you may email your TA to request an appointment.

There will also be Professor office hours online and review sessions before the midterm and final. More information to come.

HOMEWORK

Homework will be posted online with the respective due dates. It is unlikely that you will have a homework assignment for each week, so you should keep on top of assignments and due dates. An email will be sent out when a new HW assignment has been posted to the course webpage so that all students are notified. Submit each homework to your assigned TA via email with the format given in the course syllabus for the correct subject of the email and the correct title of the submitted PDF (PLEASE FOLLOW THE CORRECT FORMAT). Your TA will email the graded homework back to you and you may meet with the TA during their office hours if there are any further questions about the homework.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

In order to try to simulate a course environment for students to interact with others in the course and create a sense of community, the TAs have created a Discord server for sophomore physics courses (PHYS 306 and PHYS 344). You may ask questions to fellow students and your TAs on the Discord app which you can download on your computer and your phone using the app store or by using the following download link: https://discord.com/new/download

PHYS 306/PHYS 344 Discord invitation: https://discord.gg/JwUTZZJ

Again, please see the course syllabus (attached) for further detailed information regarding the midterm exam, TA information, and Professor information, as well as the grading schema for this course.

Again, let me extend a warm welcome to all of you, and I look forward to meeting all of you in person subject to appropriate social distancing guidelines.

Last Updated: May 9, 2023 8:31 AM