GENERAL PHYSICS 116 (CALCULUS-BASED)

Instructor: Dr. Tom Michalik

Textbook: Fundamentals of Physics, 8th ed., Halliday & Resnick & Walker, Wiley, 2008

Course Goals: The course goals are to practice and develop quantitative problem solving skills, to apply mathematics and quantitative reasoning to the physical world, and to learn selected topics in elementary physics in the detail and depth appropriate for students interested in the natural sciences or mathematics.

Attendance: Class attendance is expected. Attendance will be taken each day. An absence does not relieve you from the responsibility for work required when you are absent. Absences, no matter what the cause, will be resolved individually case-by-case. Talk to me!

Homework: Homework is usually assigned each class meeting. Homework assignments are pledged. Homework assignments are due at the beginning of the class period immediately following the period in which the assignment was made. I do not accept late work or give partial credit for late work. (I make an exception, of course, for illness. Please notify me when you are ill.)

Tests: There will be two take-home tests during the semester and a final three hour exam. All tests and exams are open book, open notes, and open homework. You will have the entire weekend to complete the take-home tests. There are no set dates for the take-home tests. The class will decide which weekends are best. The first test is usually given at the end of the sixth week and the second test is usually given at the end of the eleventh week.

Grading: The course grade is computed from three contributions. Homework contributes 40%. The final exam contributes 30%. The best score from the two take-home tests contributes the remaining 30%. (Yes, I drop the lower grade of the two take-home tests.)

Course Content: The following topics will be covered in order: Torque & Rigid Body Rotation, Angular Momentum Conservation, Rigid Body Equilibrium, Gravity, Simple Harmonic Motion, Elementary Electrostatics, Coulomb's Law, Gauss' Law, Electric Field and Electric Potential, Electrical Conductivity and Resistance, Ohm's Law & Simple DC Circuits, Capacitance, Magnetism and Magnetic Field, Magnetic Force, Magnetic Fields from Wires, The Biot-Savart Law, Ampere's Law, Faraday's Law, and AC Circuits. Other topics will be included along with experiments in the laboratory that accompanies this course. These additional topics include: Wave Motion, Archimedes' Principle, and Optics.