Syllabus!

Physics 100
Understanding Physics
with your host, Sean Lally!

T/Th: 5:30 - 6:45, SM0326
seanplally@gmail.com
slally@towson.edu
412-965-0805

Greeting physics phriends! Welcome to Physics, your new favorite class. We are here to have a look at the broad and beautiful world of physics - the science that seeks to explain the tiniest of the tiny and the hugest of the huge. Physics is a magnificent way of explaining the strangest things imaginable, as well as the most ordinary and mundane. It's a philosophical approach to physical problems - an experimentally oriented way for seeking "truth" in the universe, or at least a close model of the truth.

This semester, I will introduce you to some of Physics' greatest hits - those things in physics that (I hope) capture the imagination, explain everyday things around us, or surprise us with their inner beauty. And really, is there a better way to spend 2.5 hours a week than that? Clearly not.

Some of the ideas will be new to you. Some may seem scary - physics has a bad reputation, I fear, as a vicious unforgiving science, destroying students in its wake. Fret not, physics phriends - we are all here together to learn about our universe. Some of the ideas will be easy to you; some will be quite challenging - honestly, I wouldn't be doing my job as teacher if I didn't challenge you once in a while. Stick with me, ask questions, seek help when you need it, do homework and invest time in the class outside of the normal lecture - these are the keys to success. Above all, don't be afraid to ask questions - in class, before class, after class, by email or by a casual note left expressing something you'd like further clarification about. Got it? Awesome!

My plan is to look at ideas from the following topics: motion, gravitation (Newton, Kepler, Einstein), relativity, sound, light and optics, forces, and more. I'm open to your ideas, so don't be afraid to ask if there are topics you'd like to explore. If I can make it happen, I will.


Stuff:

Text - Paul Hewitt's Conceptual Physics

Tests - 3, equally-weighted and non-cumulative (other than the extent to which physics is naturally cumulative)

My course blog:
http://towsonphysics.blogspot.com/

Also useful, especially if you aren't fond of textbooks:
http://www.physicsclassroom.com/

And just worth watching (though I didn't quite check all the facts):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmTxr7OsPj0

So, are we ready for Physics? Yeah!!!


Tentative outline:

9/1 Intro; SI units 1
9/6 SI units 2; Pseudoscience
9/8 Motion 1 - velocity
9/13 Motion 2 - acceleration
9/15 Gravitation
9/20 Force and Newton's Laws
9/22 Newton again
9/27 Gravitation again - Kepler's Laws, universal gravitation
9/29 Center of mass
10/4 Energy
10/6 Exam 1
10/11 Simple harmonic motion
10/13 Waves
10/18 Sound
10/20 More Sound
10/25 Doppler Effect
10/27 Light
11/1 Optics
11/3 More Optics
11/8 Exam 2
11/10 Interference, Diffraction and Holography
11/15 Electrical charge
11/17 Electrical circuits
11/22 Electricity and magnetism
11/29 Magnetism 2
12/1 Magnetism 3
12/6 Einstein!
12/8 Special theory of relativity
12/13 More relativity!

All topics subject to change.