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- Final exam locations posted in student gradebook Thurs April 25, 2013
- Homework 9 updated Mon 4am, Mar 25, 2013
- Thanks to feedback from the hardy souls who braved the snow to make it to office hours today, I've made one simplification and added three hints to homework 9. The new version is posted on the homework page with notes about what changed. If you load the new version and don’t see the changes, you’ve got the old version in cache → hit RELOAD in your browser.
- Midterm Week Office Hours Sat, Mar 9, 2013
- The midterm exam is this coming Tuesday, March 12, during lecture period (4 pm in Loomis 151). To give you plenty of time to study, there is no homework due this Thursday and we are movng the Tuesday & Wednesday office hours so that they precede the exam:
Sunday Mar 10 2:00 - 5:00 pm Loomis 464 Naomi Makins (same as usual) Monday Mar 11 5:00 - 7:00 pm Loomis 464 Alfredo Sanchez Tuesday Mar 12 2:00 - 4:00 pm Loomis 464 Doug Packard - Office Hour Change Mon, Feb 4, 2013
- To optimize our office hour schedule based on your feedback, we have moved the Wednesday 3 - 5 pm time to Tuesday 5 - 7 pm. The Office Hour Schedule below has been updated accordingly.
- Website is up Sat, Jan 19, 2013
- Please take two minutes to read through the general course information on this page.
Some specific points:
- Homework 1 is posted on the Homework & Exams page. Homework is due every Thursday at 11 am and must be dropped off in the Phys 225 homework box on the second floor of Loomis. (It's on the north side, in the corridor between Loomis and MRL).
- Please look at the office hours posted below. Important: if you cannot make any of these times due to your class schedule, please send me an email right away and include all the times on Mondays through Wednesdays that you are free. (We will add on more office hours if we have to in order to accomodate everyone.)
- I also encourage everyone to make use of the Sunday office hours: working on homework before the lectures will enhance their value, as you will already have wrestled with the material. (This is the concept behind the Phys 21X preflights, we're just not enforcing it.) Sunday is also a relaxed office hour period since it's early in the week; most people who come on Sunday get their homework finished and checked before they leave -- great way to start the week!
- Office hours
- Please do make use of office hours. Homework is not a quiz, it's training, we want and expect you to get it all correct, and we'll be happy to check your homework at office hours to make sure you understand everything before you leave. Also bring any questions you have about the units, lectures, or anything else to office hours and we'll make sure your questions are answered.
If room 464 is full, overflow seating will be available in Loomis 430A: coming out of the elevator, take two right turns immediately and you'll find yourself behind the 464 divider wall. That's 430A. :-) We will do our best to oscillate back and forth between the two rooms!
Sunday afternoon 2:00 - 5:00 pm Loomis 464 Naomi Makins Tuesday after lecture 4:50 - 5:30 pm Loomis 151 Naomi Makins Tuesday evening 5:00 - 7:00 pm Loomis 464 Doug Packard Wednesday evening 5:00 - 7:00 pm Loomis 464 Alfredo Sanchez - Class Times and Locations
Lectures Loomis 151, Mondays from 4:00 - 4:50 pm Discussion Sections Loomis 234, Thursdays and Fridays - Instructors
- Prof. Naomi C.R. Makins, Loomis 463 → makins at illinois.edu with "225" in the subject line
or much better, call / txt me at 333-7291
- Alfredo Sanchez → axsanche at illinois.edu
- Doug Packard → dpackar2 at illinois.edu
- Graders
- Atma Chan, Ye Zhuang, and Ran Bi → Email All with grading questions
- Recommended Text Books (all on reserve at Grainger)
- There is no required book for this course, but a textbook is often very helpful to provide a different point of view and additional detail. Here are my recommendations:
- "Special Relativity" by A. P. French
This book is excellent for its historical presentation of Special Relativity. The development of this theory is a fascinating story; we won't talk about history in 225 so do pick up this book if you are interested. Note that the Copyright is 1968 so there will be used copies available, possibly at considerably lower prices than new books.
- "Spacetime Physics" by Taylor and Wheeler.
Every book written by Taylor and Wheeler is filled with physical insight. The presentation is very ``talky'', with vastly more words than math. The style is not to everyone's taste but you will find extended discussions of the physical consequences of Special Relativity and its apparent paradoxes. The book also contains many worked examples.
- "Basic Training in Mathematics: A Fitness Program for Science Students", (Paperback) by R. Shankar.
I'm not crazy about this book but it definitely has some great content. More to the point, it's the only text on mathematical physics I could find that meets these two criteria: it's at a freshman / sophomore level, and it's recent enough that it uses modern notation.
- Course Grading
- Your grade in this course will be based on successful completion of the weekly homework assignments (35%), participation in the discussion sessions (10%), performance on a mid-term exam (15%), and performance on the final exam (40%).
- Homework due dates and time
- Homework is due at 11 am on Thursdays. Your solutions are to be deposited in the course homework box that is located on the second floor of Loomis Lab, at the entrance to the overpass to the Materials Research Lab (MRL) on the north side. The homework boxes are painted bright yellow; you can't miss them unless you are totally absorbed with texting or Angry Birds.
- Late Policy for Homework
- If you don't make the deadline, you lose 15% of your grade for each weekday that your homework is late. The graders check the homework box each day at 11 am; anything turned in after that time will belong to the following day's submissions. You cannot get any credit for homework that is more than six days late.
- Late Policy for Attendance at Discussion Sessions
- If you're 8 minutes or more late, you will receive only half credit for that week; if you are 15 minutes or more late you get zero credit.
- Conflict Exam Rules
- Physics 225 does not schedule conflict exam sittings. For final exams, the rules concerning conflicts are outlined in points (5) and (6) of the Student Code - Final Exam section. Point (5) describes the important max-2-in-24hr rule: no student can be required to take three exams in a 24 hour period. Please read this important rule so you know your rights! There is a strict order of precedence that determines which courses have to offer you a conflict exam if you have a scheduling collision (including the 2-in-24 rule). As Phys 225 runs a "non-combined" final and has a relatively small number of students compared with many other 1st or 2nd year classes, it is first in this order, i.e. you will take the conflict exam for your larger classes. If you have a final exam scheduling collision which is not resolved by these rules (e.g. two smaller / "non-combined" courses that collide), email the instructors from all of the courses involved at the same time so that they can work out among themselves who will give you a conflict sitting.