Updates (most recent first):

• 3/26/13   Grades posted on Gradebook. A final score of 41.2% or above was required for passing (this is lower than for 227, but I felt that this course was more challenging). At the high end, 88% or above gained a 4.0. I linearly interpolated (or extrapolated) from these numbers.

  Have a good break!

• 3/25/13   Solution to final exam moved to "quiz" link, along with statistics and histograms. Final exam scores now on Gradebook. Since the final exam turned out to be harder than I expected, I will treat the scores as being out of 90 (rather than 100).
  Also on Gradebook is your total score, obtained as follows:
  HW=Sum of HW scores-lowest HW/Max possible,
  Q=Sum of quiz scores-lowest quiz/Max possible,
  M1=midterm 1 score/50, M2=(midterm 2 score)/45, F=final score/90
  (I treat M2 as being out of 45, and the final as out of 90, since these tests were harder.)
  EXAM=Max(Qu+M1+M2+F, Qu+M1+2*F, Qu+M2+2*F, M1+M2+2*F)/4
  (i.e. dropping lowest exam score with final "counting double")
  Total Score=10*HW+90*EXAM
  Total Score comes out as a percentage (although it is possible, given the exam rescalings, to obtain a score greater than 100).
  I am presently using the "Total Score" to obtain the course grades, which will be posted tomorrow (Tuesday).
• 3/7/13   Just for fun, a link showing how the Higgs-like boson signal increased as the CERN experiment ATLAS (in which the UW participates) obtained more data. Click on one of the "Animations". I like the "4-leptons Fixed Scale" best.

Index

Office hours and contact information

• Prof. Steve Sharpe   srsharpe@uw.edu   B406 PAB  685-2395
• Office hours: Tuesday 1:30-2:30, either in my office (B406, PAB) or in the conference room across the corridor (B405).
• TAs: John Fuini (B418 PAB), Ermal Rrapaj (B427 PAB), and Akshay Ghalsasi (B427 PAB),
  • Office hours: M 12:30-2 and 2:15-3:30 in B405 PAB (except first week when office hours are on W at the same time and place).

Texts

• Our required text is the same as in 227 :
  "Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences," (3rd Edition, Wiley) by Mary L. Boas.

  We will roughly follow the ordering of material in this text, and draw most homework questions from it. Corrections to the text are available here. Note that solutions to some problems appear at the back of the book (and there is a companion volume to the previous edition which contains solutions to approximately 1/4 of the exercises, many of which are the unchanged in the current edition).

Course Organization

• This course is the continuation of PHYS 227 , and together these two courses aim to provide you with the mathematical tools needed to master physics at the UG level and, to a significant extent, at the first-year graduate level too. We will cover a lot of material, with some of which you may have some prior experience, but most of which is likely to be new (more true in 228 than 227). We will move quite fast, and it is imperative that you are organized and stay on top of the material. This means practice, practice and more practice. Weekly homeworks provide a minimal level of practice, and will include suggestions for additional problems not to be turned in. Weekly quizzes provide incentive to stay on track.

  Basic use of computer mathematics programs is an integral part of this course, including some parts of lectures and some homework questions. You may use Mathematica, Maple , Matlab or Python. Mathematica is available on all the PCs in PAB B101 and the study center AM018. In addition, students can now install Mathematica on their personally owned computers at no cost. See here or here for information about obtaining it. Brief instructions on getting started with Mathematica are here.

  I keep a log of what has been covered, together with my lecture notes, on the daily coverage page. This will also indicate any material not covered in lecture that you should read.

• Holidays.
  • There will be no classes on Martin Luther King day (Monday, Jan. 21st), or Presidents' day (Monday, Feb. 18th).
• Homework.
  • There will be weekly homework sets, due on Tuesdays by the end of lecture (except the first HW which is due on Thursday of the first week). I will bring a box to class; they can also be placed in my mailbox in the physics office (but only until 12) or under my office door (until 12:30).
  • Each HW set will cover the material discussed in class the previous week, as well as any extra assigned reading. The exception is HW1 which covers material discussed in the last week of 227 and the first day or so of 228.
  • You are encouraged to discuss the assignments with classmates, but the solutions you turn in must be your own work.
  • Working on assignments in a timely fashion is a crucial part of the learning process. Late assignments will only be accepted by prearrangement, and only under exceptional circumstances.
  • Solutions will be posted on the HW link after class on Tuesdays.
  • Selected problems from each HW will be graded---the grading scheme will also be posted along with the solutions.
  • Regrade requests must be made by the end of the class session following that in which the HWs are returned, and must be made in writing on separate sheet of paper which is attached to the HW. There should be no additional writing on the HW itself.
• Quizzes.
  • There will be weekly quizzes in class on Wednesdays (when we have the large room, A102) except in weeks in which there is a midterm.
  • There will be a quiz in the first week, covered material discussed in the last week of PHYS 227 (Fourier Series) and that discussed on the first day of classes (Fourier Transforms).
  • Starting in the second week, quizzes will concern the material discussed in class the previous week (as well as any extra assigned reading), and thus will be based on the same material as the HWs turned in the previous day.
  • I expect the quizzes to take about 20 minutes.
  • Regrade requests for quizzes follow the same procedure as for HWs.

Exams

• There will be two midterms and a final exam.
• The midterms are scheduled for Wednesdays Feb. 6th (week 5) and March 6th (week 9) at the usual lecture time, in the large room A102 (which is our regular Wednesday room).
• The final exam is on Wednesday, March 20th from 4:30-6:20pm, also in the large room A102.
• If you have to miss an exam due to a UW sponsored activity (e.g. travelling for a sports team) please contact me ASAP.
• Exam rules will be discussed in class and posted on this web page closer to the exams.
• I will organize extra office hours for review prior to each exam.

Course Grade

• First note that to pass the course, you must take at least one of the midterms and the final .

  The course grade will be determined by scores on quizzes, homeworks and exams as follows. The homeworks will count for ~10% (the "~" indicating that, since this is the first time I have taught this class, I may make some minor adjustments to the weight given to the homeworks). I will drop the lowest homework score in determining the overall sum, so that you can miss one homework without penalty. The remaining ~90% will be determined in equal part by the quizzes (with the lowest quiz score dropped), the two midterms and the final, except that the final will count double and that the lowest score will dropped. If the final is the lowest score then only half of its score will be dropped.

  This policy means that you are not penalized if, e.g. for personal reasons, you miss a midterm. This allows me to enforce the policy that there are no makeup exams.

Useful links

• Professor Steve Ellis's notes and worked problems for PHYS 228.
• Particle Theory at the UW , and my web page .
• Here is a note from Khayah Brookes, CLUE physics lead tutor:
  Please alert your students that CLUE has expanded its offerings of physics tutoring even further this quarter. In addition to our Sunday-Thursday evening sessions in Mary Gates, we are also available in the HUB Commuter Commons two mornings a week, and in McCarty and Poplar Halls in the evenings! Now your students can access the help they need in more places and at more times, fitting an even broader range of schedules. And of course, all of our locations continue to offer free candy. Our drop-in tutoring schedules are as follows:
  
  • In Mary Gates Hall: Sunday-Thursday 7pm-midnight Note that we are closed the night before any UW holiday, namely, the Sunday evenings before MLK Day and Presidents' Day.
    
  • In the HUB: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11am-1:15pm
  • In the residence halls: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 7pm-10pm CLUE tutors will be ready to answer questions in Poplar 105 and McCarty 334.
  In addition, CLUE tutors will lead 90-minute exam review sessions for the physics courses listed below. The dates and times of these review sessions will be available on the CLUE website within the next week or so, as exam dates are verified. 114, 115, 116 121, 122, 123 225, 228 322, 325, 334
  For the most current exam review information, your students should always check here.