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Goals
The goals of this course are to help you learn some of the basic ideas of waves and quantum mechanics and how they relate to modern applications. The approaches used to achieve these goals involve 1) lectures to interactively discuss and demonstrate the principles, 2) interaction with instructors in discussion sections to provide one-on-one help with concepts and problem solving, 3) laboratory experiments allowing you to actively explore these principles, and 4) computerized homework on the World Wide Web using the TYCHO system.
Background Needed
Credit for Physics 212 (and therefore Physics 211) and credit or concurrent registration in Math 242 are prerequisites for Physics 214. We expect you to have a good understanding of classical mechanics, electric potential, ray optics, to be able to differentiate and integrate simple functions, and to be familiar with partial derivatives and basic complex number algebra.
Lectures
Two 75 minute lectures will be given each week, on Mondays and Wednesdays (Wednesday and Friday the first week in Spring 2010). In addition to the traditional presentation of lecture and demonstration material, each lecture will involve a few interactive learning sessions (we call them ACTs). During these sessions students will work in groups on a specific assigned question and will discuss the results with other students and with the instructors. This will allow the instructor to pinpoint problems in understanding and deal with them before moving on. The purpose is to help you understand; your participation is necessary for this to occur.
In order to provide an environment more conducive to participation and interaction, each student should have an "I-clicker" with which to answer various questions during lecture. Some minor credit will be assigned for each lecture in which the clickers are used (but only one lecture per day per student)
Come to the lecture! We will go through examples and ACTs which are not available in the published lecture notes, and the lecture discussion will elaborate on the material published in the lecture notes.
Although we do not have Preflights in 214, we still want to retain the feature that you can ask questions or make comments on confusing issues from the previous lecture. This is now enabled via the "Ask the Professor" link off the course homepage. There are normally no 'points' for submitting a question (it's for your own benefit!); however, a bonus will be given for completing the survey due before the second lecture.
The Lecture notes will be available at TIS, Follett's and University Bookstores. Note that the lecture slides may be modified somewhat from the published notes due to the necessity for making corrections, correcting typographical errors, etc. The most updated version of the lectures (including answers to ACTs) will be available on the 214 syllabus after all lectures on a given day are given.
Do not let yourself get behind! This course covers a large amount of material. The understanding of new topics will frequently require knowledge of previous material.
Discussion Sessions
Each week you will attend a two-hour discussion section conducted by a TA. These sections will be active learning sessions in which you will work in small groups solving problems presented to you by your TA. Discussion problems are designed to aid and test you in the understanding of the course material; you should find them beneficial in preparation for the hour exams. The solutions to these problems will be posted online (see link off the course homepage) at the end of each week.
During each discussion session (except the first week), your TA will administer a short quiz (usually about 15-20 minutes in length) based on the material covered in the previous week's lectures and homeworks, including homework due at the beginning of the current week. The quiz will be graded and recorded in the gradebook.
If you cannot attend your regular discussion section on a particular week due to a conflict, contact your discussion TA at least a week before your conflict. It is usually possible to attend an alternate section on these occasions.
Lab Sessions
Each of the 2-hour laboratories will involve a series of activities, including (i) setting up simple experiments to study topics studied in class, (ii) making predictions about the outcome of your experiments, (iii) performing measurements of different phenomena you have studied, (iv) analyzing your results, and (v) answering questions concerning your results and predictions. In addition, at the beginning of each lab, you are expected to turn in your Prelab, a short set of questions designed to address the main topics of the lab. The Prelab will be graded and will count for 1/4 of your lab grade.
If you miss a lab experiment, consult your laboratory instructor as soon as possible. It may be possible to make up a laboratory experiment later in the week, if there is space and if the equipment has not yet been dismantled. Laboratory experiments are set up on Monday morning and are taken down after section L4Z on Thursday evening. For a listing of all of the sections, go here. If a make-up laboratory is not possible, an EX grade will be assigned for excused absences. Missed and unexcused labs will be assigned a grade of zero. This penalty can have severe consequences.
TYCHO (our WWW homework and gradebook system)
Each week you will be responsible for completing a computer-based homework assignment. These assigments are graded and are an important part of the course.
LOG-IN and LOG-OUT: Some of the on-line activities (homework, gradebook, etc.) for this course run on a secure server and must be logged into. Students enrolled in (and staff associated with) the course must log in using their UIUC NetID and their ph password (this is the same id and password used to access the U of I Direct registration system and the CCSO dial-up system). If you are enrolled in the course and are having trouble logging in, send email to dkane@uiuc.edu. If you are not enrolled, you can log into many of the secure activities using guest/phyug as your NetID and guest as your password. (Enrolled students should avoid using the guest login since credit is not recorded for guest.) You should always log out of the secure server at the end of your work session.
Many homework pages use symbol font for mathematical equations. Without symbol font equations will be difficult to read, e.g. you will see "p" instead of "pi". Symbol font is usually available on Macs and PCs without any special effort. Unix systems must be correctly configured. The Engineering College workstations were reconfigured in January, 1998. Contact the HW Master, if you are having difficulty.
To start work on a homework assignment, click on "Homework Assignments" on the Physics 214 homepage. Then click on the assignment you wish to work on. To receive full credit, the homework must be completed by the date indicated on the assignments page (usually 8 am on the Tuesday, and sometimes Thursday -- look at the syllabus). Homework completed during the week immediately following the due date will be accepted but will earn only a maximum of 90% of the original grade. Homework submitted more than 7 days after the original due date (i.e., after 8AM on the next Tuesday) will not receive any credit. Although all of the homework problems appear on the Homework index page, homework problems for all but the current week are generally not available. The homework problems will be made available at least one week before they are due.
You may work a problem as many times as you like and only the highest grade is recorded in the gradebook. You can never lower your score by reworking a problem.
Exams
Exams are machine graded and consist of multiple-choice questions scored as follows:
Midterm Exam
The midterm is a 90 minute exam, given at 7 PM on the Monday after the fourth week of the course. See the syllabus for the exact date. You will be assigned a room for the exam based on your discussion section, and attendance will be taken by your discussion TA. Bring a calculator and pencils to the exams. In addition, bring your official university identification card to show upon request.
A conflict exam will be given at 5:15 PM on the same evening as the regular exam. We will announce procedures for signing up for the conflict exam.
A midterm exam review session will be held the day before the midterm. See the syllabus for time and place.
Final Exam
The final is a two-hour exam, given at 7 PM on the Monday after the completion of the course. See the syllabus for the exact date. It will cover material from the entire course. You will be assigned a room for the exam based on your discussion section, and attendance will be taken by your discussion TA. Bring a calculator and pencils to the exams. In addition, bring your official university identification card to show upon request. All questions about grading policy or any of your grades should be directed to the Exam Master.
Grading
Your final grade for Physics 214 will be based your total score on all the components of the course. The total score is the sum of your scores on the final exam (350 pts), the midterm exam (200 pts), four labs (145 pts total), six TYCHO homework sets (145 pts total), quizzes (150 pts total), and i-clicker participation (10 pts total). Rough guidelines for letter grade ranges are: A+(960), A(935), A-(910), B+(885), B(855), B-(830), C+(800), C(770), C-(740), D+(700), D(660), D-(620), and F(<620), where the number in parentheses is the lowest score for that grade.
There will be 6 Discussion quizzes; your quiz grade will be the sum of your 5 highest individual quiz scores, adjusted to compensate for grading differences among discussion section instructors.
All 4 lab scores will be used in calculating your lab total at the end of the semester. (No lab scores will be dropped.) Scores used in this calculation will be adjusted to compensate for grading differences among lab section instructors.
Since most students in this course work conscientiously, scores on TYCHO homework assignments will be very high. For example, last semester most Physics 214 students had homework-quiz and lab scores greater than 160 pts (80%). Consequently, high homework and lab grades will not compensate for low examination grades. On the other hand, you can seriously lower your grade if you have low homework and lab grades. The real payoff for struggling with and doing well on the homeworks and the labs is a better understanding of the physics and, consequently, higher examination scores.
To give you an indication of your standing during the semester, you will be given renormalized (curved) scores for the midterm exam. Recently, Physics 214 students who received final grades of (A, B, C, D) had average exam scores of (91%, 82%, 70%, 61%).
You will be able to view your grades on all components of the course using the course gradebook accessable from the homepage. During the semester, you should check that your lab and quiz grades are correctly entered in the gradebook; any problems here should be brought to the attention of your section instructor immediately.
Unexcused Absences, Excused Absences, and Course Credit
As discussed above, the course grade is determined by performance on several graded course components (lecture, homework, quiz, lab, midterm and final exams). Absence from a graded course component is defined to be the receipt of zero in the gradebook (due to non-attendance or non-participation, e.g., skipping a quiz).
Unexcused absences from any graded course component will be assigned an AB score (= 0), and the course grade will be computed using that score. An unexcused absence from the final exam will result in a course grade of AB, which will become an F without a Dean's intervention.
Excused absences from graded course components will receive an EX grade. Article 1, part 5 of the Student Code describes the University's policy on class attendance. There are two kinds of excuses:
Requests for excused absences will not be considered after Reading Day.
Course credit will only be given if the student completes enough of the course components to satisfy the course director that he/she has learned the material. In Physics 214 this means that if a student misses more than two quizzes or two labs for any reason, he/she must make up the deficiency before a satisfactory grade will be awarded.
If a student does not complete enough graded course components to earn course credit, we will assign a grade of F. Only the dean of students can authorize an extension of time for course completion (i.e., change the F to an INC). See Article 3, part 1 of the Student Code.
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