Welcome to Physics! WOO HOO!!!

How Things Work

Sean Lally
seanplally@gmail.com
412.965.0805
M/W - 326 Smith - 7 PM
http://howthingsworkspring2014.blogspot.com/
How Things Work, 4th Ed., Louis A. Bloomfield

Good evening physics phriends!  Welcome to a new semester and "How Things Work," with your humble host, Sean Lally.

I am thrilled to be sharing some of the big ideas of physics with you this term.  We will start the course with me finding out what interests YOU in the wide world of physics.  The course will ideally meet as many of these topics as possible.

There will be 3 non-cumulative exams, equally weighted.  Exams are generally multiple choice, though it is possible that there *may* be short answer questions, mathematical problems or 1-2 paragraph essays asked as well.

IF YOU KNOW THAT YOU NEED TO MISS AN EXAM, YOU MUST TELL ME BEFOREHAND - NOTE THAT THE EXAM DATES ARE ALREADY PUBLISHED. 

Sadly, telling me you missed the exam after the exam has passed makes me rather suspicious that something is amiss - did you forget about it and skip it (which makes me rather unhappy and not very likely to give you a make-up test), or could you simply not be bothered to tell me that you had some unavoidable conflict.  Things do happen, but tell me beforehand when you know.  As for illnesses - if you're so sick that you need to miss an exam, make sure you do 2 things:

a.  Go to a health center.
b.  Get a note that explains why you weren't at the exam.

Do I sound a little suspicious?  Sorry about that - it's based on recent experience.

Now onto happier things!

I will assign problem and question sets regularly, but these will not be collected.  Primarily, they are used to help you study material and see what concepts I find to be most valuable (on exams, and in general).  I will give some text references as well, but in general, if it is important I will cover it in class.

I use this blog for my own (skeleton outline) notes and to get important information to you.  I tend to not write on the board, but rather use the document projector when needed.  If it's important stuff, I'll take an image and post it on the blog.  However, don't view this as a substitute for good note-taking.  Sometime notes will be up on the blog well in advance of class, and sometimes, well, they won't.

Also, I do a lot of demonstrations in class - when you miss a class, you're missing some important visual information.  I know it's late in the day, and I know it's physics.  Still, you've signed up the class - honor your intellectual commitment to learning.  OK?  OK!

Welcome to "How Things Work"!

Here's what to expect this semester:



1.27  Introduction; course philosophy
1.29  How things (don't) work
2.3  How things move, part 1: units and standards
2.5  How things move, part 2: velocity, acceleration and the math of motion
2.10  How things move, part 3: gravity
2.12  How things move, part 4: Newton (and some pre-history)
2.17  How things move in space, part 1: Newton and his laws
2.19  How things move in space, part 2: Newton again
2.24  How things move in space, part 3:  Kepler and his laws
2.26  How things move in space, part 4:  local gravity
3.3  Exam 1
3.5  How things balance:  center of mass
3.10  How things sound, part 1: energy and waves
3.12  How things sound, part 2: more music (SNOW CANCEL)
3.24  How things sound, part 3: octaves, harmonics and "looking" at sound
3.26  How things sound, part 4: making music
3.31  How things sound, part 5: Doppler effect
4.2  How things look, part 1: lenses and mirrors
4.7  How things look, part 2: optical devices
4.9  How things look, part 3: holograms and 3-d
4.14  Exam 2
4.16  How things tick, part 1: electrical charge
4.21  How things tick, part 2: charge revisited
4.23  How things tick, part 3: circuits
4.28  How things tick, part 4: circuits pt. 2
4.30  How things tick, part 5: magnetism
5.5  How things tick, part 6: electromagnetic induction
5.7  TBA
5.12  TBA
5.14  Final exam