General
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Welcome to PHYS 122A, the second of a three-quarter sequence of
introductory physics courses for science and engineering majors. You
should find this course challenging and stimulating, and I hope
that you also find it interesting and enjoyable. You should ask
questions if you do not understand something. If it is
inconvenient to interrupt, make a quick note to yourself and inquire
later.
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The course consists of lecture, tutorial, and laboratory
components. Each component provides a different way of learning
the material. The three elements are carefully coordinated, but
are not necessarily synchronized.
NOTE: Concurrent enrollment in 122 tutorial and lab is mandatory -
We will use the following textbooks for this class:
- Tipler, "Physics for Scientists and Engineers", special UW edition volume 2, or volume 2 of standard 6th edition
- McDermott and Shaffer "Tutorials in Introductory Physics"
- PHYS 122 Lab Manual.
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MATH 125 (Calculus II) is a prerequisite/co-requisite for this
class. It is the opinion of many instructors that students who
have already completed MATH 125 are at a considerable advantage in
PHYS 122. Hence, although it is possible to take the PHYS 121-3
and MATH 124-6 as simple co-requisites (i.e. P121 with M124, etc.),
students who have no prior experience with either calculus or
physics should seriously consider getting 'one quarter ahead' in
the MATH 124-6 sequence with respect to the PHYS 121-3 sequence.
- Be aware that many technical majors have a minimum grade requirement for a core of lower-division technical classes including the PHYS 121-2-3 sequence. Therefore, each student is strongly urged to discuss departmental entry requirements with their undergraduate or departmental advisors, and plan their course loads accordingly.
Administrative support
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The following website provides links to other 12x sites, exam
statistics, TA contacts, etc.
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If you need assistance with registration, please contact:
Susan Miller
Email: susanh82@phys.washington.edu
Office: Physics and Astronomy building C136
Phone: 206-543-4982 -
If you wish to talk with an academic counselor about becoming a
physics major or minor, or have general questions about the physics
program, please contact the physics department undergraduate advisor:
Margot Nims
Email: margot@phys.washington.edu
Office: Physics and Astronomy building C139
Phone: 206-543-2772
Grading Policy
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Concurrent enrollment in PHYS 122 lecture, tutorial and lab is
mandatory. Students will receive a combined grade for lecture,
tutorial and lab. The final course grade is based on the following
grade weighting:
Midterm exams (best 2 of 3) 35% Final exam 25% Lab section 15% Tutorial section 10% Lecture homework 10% Supplemental 5% -
A summary of the grading policy for this course is found in the 12X Grading Policy Statement.
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The supplemental section will consist of the higher of either the
score from in-class quizzes or from a
supplemental homework to be assigned in the last week of class.
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The individual exams and sections will be combined based on the
z-score [(your score - class average) / (std deviation)]. Your
midterm with the lowest z-score will be dropped.
- Lab and tutorial grading policies will be explained in your lab and tutorial sections.
Completion of most of the lab and tutorial work is required in order
to pass the course. If you complete fewer than six labs during the quarter, and do
not make up the work, your grade for the entire course will be 0.0! Only
completing seven or six of the eight labs will reduce your grade
significantly (about 0.6 or 1.2 grade points, respectively). Do not skip
these important activities!
- Your responsibility: Check your grades on the WebAssign system every week or two and report any problems to both the lecture instructor and the relevant TAs (and/or lab/tutorial faculty) immediately. Lab, tutorial and exam grades should be recorded for your review within one week from the date of completion of your work. WebAssign homework grades should be recorded within 24 hours of submission. In-class quiz grades shall be recorded at the instructor's discretion. Grading problems that are reported in a timely fashion will be investigated and, if action is warranted, corrected. The lecture, lab and tutorial instructors may choose to ignore grading complaints that are not reported in a timely fashion. The instructions for WebAssign can be found here.
Lectures
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I will be your lecture instructor for PHYS122A. You can find out a little about me at my
homepage. You will have different professors in charge
of the tutorial and laboratory components, but I will be in charge of
the overall class. My contact information is:
Name: Kazumi Tolich
Email: ktolich@u.washington.edu
Anonymous email (no reply possible)
Office: Physics and Astronomy building B454
Phone: 206-616-4775
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Lectures will be on MWF 8:30am-9:20am, in lecture hall A118 of the
Physics and Astronomy Building auditorium wing.
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The following is a tentative weekly course schedule. This will be followed as closely as possible, and changes will be announced as necessary.
Week Date Day Lecture Topic Text reading 1 29-Sep W Charge 21-1 to 21-2 1-Oct F Coulomb's Law & Electric Field vectors 21-3 to 21-4 2 4-Oct M Electric field lines & Electric Fields Act on Charges 21-5 to 21-6 6-Oct W E for Continuous Charge Distributions 22-1 to 22-2 8-Oct F Flux & Gauss's Law 22-2 to 22-3 3 11-Oct M Gauss's Law Applied 22-4 to 22-6 13-Oct W Electric Potential & Potential Energy 23-1 to 23-2 14-Oct Th EXAM 1 from ~5:30pm to ~6:20pm at Kane Hall - 15-Oct F No Class - 4 18-Oct M E from V & V for Charge Distributions 23-3 to 23-4 20-Oct W Equipotentials & Potential Energy 23-5 to 23-6 22-Oct F Capacitance & Energy 24-1 to 24-2 5 25-Oct M Dielectrics & Combined Capacitors 24-3 to 24-5 27-Oct W Current, Voltage, Resistance & energy 25-1 to 25-3 29-Oct F Combined Resistors, Kirchhoff's Rules & Multi-loop Circuits 25-4 to 25-5 6 1-Nov M RC Circuits 25-6 3-Nov W Review & Extensions - 4-Nov Th EXAM 2 from ~5:30pm to ~6:20pm at Kane Hall - 5-Nov F No Class - 7 8-Nov M Magnetic Fields & Forces 26-1 to 26-2 10-Nov W Charges & Currents in B Fields 26-2 to 26-4 12-Nov F B for Moving Charges & Biot-Savart Law 27-1 to 27-2 8 15-Nov M Biot-Savart Law, Gauss' Law for B & Ampere's Law 27-2 & 27-4 17-Nov W Faraday's Law, Lenz' Law & motional emf 28-1 to 28-4 19-Nov F Eddy Currents & inductance 28-5 to 28-6 9 22-Nov M Manetic energy, RL Circuits & AC Circuits I 28-7 to 28-8 & 29-1 24-Nov W Cancelled - 26-Nov F HOLIDAY - 10 29-Nov M AC Circuits II 29-2 to 29-4 1-Dec W AC Circuits III 29-5 to 29-6 2-Dec Th EXAM 3 from ~5:30pm to ~6:20pm at Kane Hall - 3-Dec F No Class - 11 6-Dec M Displacement Current, Maxwell's Equations & EM Waves 30-1 to 30-4 8-Dec W Maxwell's EM Waves 30-4 10-Dec F Review & Extensions - 12 14-Dec T FINAL EXAM from 8:30am to 10:20am in PAA118 -
Homework
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Lecture Homework will be assigned and collected weekly through the
WebAssign system.
- The instructions for WebAssign can be found here.
In-Class Quizzes
- I will ask a few questions per lecture where you can
respond using an TX3100 RF transceiver (Clicker), which are available
from the University Bookstore. The infrared system that was used
in previous years will not work.
- Your clicker's channel should be configured to channel
02. Instructions to configure your clicker can be found in section
III in this link; this link has a lot of information
that is irrelevant to you, so you should ignore other
sections.
- For the in-class quiz component of the supplemental part
of your grade, two thirds will come from attempting to answer, and the other
third will come from having the correct answer.
- You are encouraged to discuss your answers with your
classmates.
- You are required to register your clicker here for your responses to be counted toward
your grade.
- If your clicker is not working during an in-class quiz, you
can submit a piece of paper with your name, student ID, and your
answer written on it during the in-class quiz to get
credit for it. You cannot turn in the paper after the class.
- The in-class quizzes and their answers will be posted on the discussion board.
Tutorials
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The following website gives more information on the tutorial
section. If you have any questions on the tutorial section, you
should contact the instructor in charge of that section:
Prof. Peter Shaffer
Email: shaffer@phys.washington.edu
Office: Physics and Astronomy building C218
Phone: 206-543-6705
- Tutorial homework will be assigned and collected
in each tutorial section.
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There will also be weekly tutorial pretests.
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The following table is a list of the tutorials to be completed each
week.
Week Date Tutorial 1 29-Sep to 30-Sep No tutorials 1st week 2 5-Oct to 7-Oct Charge 3 12-Oct to 14-Oct E-Field & Flux 4 19-Oct to 21-Oct Gauss's Law 5 26-Oct to 28-Oct Capacitance 6 2-Nov to 4-Nov Circuits III 7 9-Nov to 11-Nov No tutorials 7th week 8 16-Nov to 18-Nov Magnetic Interactions 9 23-Nov to 25-Nov No tutorials 9th week 10 30-Nov to 2-Dec Lenz' Law 11 7-Dec to 9-Dec Faraday's Law
Labs
- The following website gives more information on the laboratory
section. If you have any questions on the laboratory section, you
should contact the instructor in charge of that section:
Prof. Jens Gundlach
Email: gundlach@npl.washington.edu
Office: Physics and Astronomy building B033, North Physics Laboratory 176 NPL, or Physics and Astronomy building C529
Phone: 206-543-8774, 206-616-3012, or 206-616-2960
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The following table is a list of the labs to be completed each week.
Week Date Lab 1 29-Sep to 1-Oct No labs 1st week 2 5-Oct to 8-Oct Electrostatics 3 12-Oct to 15-Oct Electric Fields 4 19-Oct to 22-Oct DC Circuits I 5 26-Oct to 29-Oct DC Circuits II 6 2-Nov to 5-Nov Capacitors & RC Circuits 7 9-Nov to 12-Nov Electronic Devices 8 16-Nov to 19-Nov Magnetic Fields and Forces 9 23-Nov to 26-Nov Make-up Labs? 10 30-Nov to 3-Dec EM Induction 11 7-Dec to 10-Dec Make-up Labs
Exams
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Note that there will be no make-up exams in PHYS 122A. Students with outside professional,
service, or career commitments (i.e. military service, ROTC, professional
conference presentation, NCAA sports, etc.) conflicting exactly with the
exam dates must contact the instructor early
in the quarter to establish alternate examination procedures. Students
who miss an exam without making prior arrangements with the lecture
instructor will drop that exam score.
- Exam procedure:
- The exam room at Kane Hall will be unlocked until 5:15 pm.
- Once the doors are unlocked, students will enter the room and pick up the exam from their designated TA.
- An announcement to begin the exam will be made no later than 5:25pm.
- Students with questions during the exam should raise their hands. Should access by an instructor prove not feasible, students must come to the end of their row.
- The exam period shall be 50 minutes.
- When time expires, students will move toward the exit and deposit their exams. The exam sheets and bubble sheets will be collected separately.
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Exam Re-grades: If you
believe that the points on the examination were incorrectly totaled, or if
there is a gross error in the grading, you may return an exam for regrading.
To do so, you must resubmit the examination
no later than at the beginning of the lecture following the one in which
the exams are returned. You must use this form and
attach it to the front page of the exam explaining the possible error in
the grading. You must return it to Susan Hong in the physics and astronomy building room C136. Do not make any changes or marks on the other pages of
the examination. Note that each examination is scanned before
being returned. You should be aware that any request for a regrade
may result in your total score increasing or decreasing.
Getting help
- Study Center:
- Students are encouraged to gather and work cooperatively in small groups in the Physics Study Center located in room AM018 of Physics and Astronomy building.
- To reach the Physics Study Center, go down the stairs that circle behind the Foucault pendulum and proceed toward the end of the hall.
- Teaching assistants will be available for consultation during many portions of the day if your study group needs assistance, but staffing levels will not support much individual attention.
- The Study Center is staffed from approximately 9:30am to 4:30pm on weekdays. A schedule of who is staffing the physics study center can be found here: Study Center Hours.
- Office hours:
- You are strongly encouraged to visit me regularly during office hours, which I will hold in the study center on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 9:20am to 9:40am and Tuesdays from 4:00pm to 5:00pm.
- You can also arrange a meeting with me.
- I will attempt to answer questions by email in a timely manner.
- Discussion forum:
- There will be a discussion board for PHYS122A.
- You are encouraged to ask your fellow students for help with homework, or to organize study groups, etc.
UW SafeCampus
- Preventing violence is everyone's responsibility. If you're concerned, tell someone.
- Always call 911 if you or others may be in danger.
- Call 206-685-SAFE (7233) to report non-urgent threats of
violence and for referrals to UW counseling and/or safety resources. TTY or VP callers, please call through your preferred relay service.
- Don't walk alone. Campus safety guards can walk with you on campus after dark. Call Husky NightWalk 206-685-WALK (9255).
- Stay connected in an emergency with UW Alert. Register your mobile
number to receive instant notification of campus emergencies via text
and voice messaging. Sign up online here
- For more information visit the SafeCampus website.