PHY171 Syllabus - PHY 171 General Physics I Syllabus Fall...

PHY 171 – General Physics I – Syllabus Fall 2013
Instructor: Dr. Mario Freamat, Culler Hall 219
[email protected]
[phone]
Class Meeting: Culler Hall 046,
Section A: MWF 8:30-9:45am
Section B: MWF 10:00-10:55am
Office hours: MW 11:15 – 12:15 pm, or by appointment or chance
Course webpage: http://www.users.miamioh.edu/freamamv/Secondary/PHY171.html
I shall use this page for various announcements, test solutions, lecture slides, current grades and other materials (so you may
want to bookmark and check it out regularly).
I. Course Description: A survey of classical mechanics, waves and quantum mechanics. The course provides an
elementary perspective on how motion can be analyzed in its causal emergence. In a historical context, for most of
the following semester, the students taking PHY 171 should sketchily retrace the intellectual steps of the European
gentry in the epoch of Enlightment who were ruminating upon Newtonian mechanics not because they were really
interested or proficient in the actual technicalities of the trendy science, but because the new natural philosophy
marked a paradigmatic change in the methods of natural sciences from intuitive rummage to rationalism – an event
with profound repercussions which shaped up our actual civilization as well as your own personal cultural traits.
Prerequisite : Minimum mathematical preparation requires students to have had courses that include a modicum
of trigonometry and algebra. MTH 151, 153, or equivalent are strongly encouraged.
Corequisite : PHY 173 labs (begin in the second week of classes).
II. Required Textbook: R. A. Serway, J. S. Faughn, C. Vuille, College Physics , 9
th
Edition (Brooks/Cole). The text
can be procured in e-book format via the WebAssign system.
III. Course Objectives and Outcomes: PHY 171 offers scientific knowledge sine qua non for a self-respecting
college graduate. It weaves concepts, explanations and logical patterns into a framework designed to enhance your
ability to look at the physical world in a more elaborate manner, deal with technological challenges, and even tackle
more advanced topics of Physics. Thus, by the end of this course, the diligent student should be able to explain the
principles of classical mechanics and apply them to simple physical situations in an organized manner using
symbolical algebraic manipulations and the language of vectors. PHY 171 is now part of the Miami Plan:
Student Learning Outcomes for Global Miami Plan Principles of Liberal Education:
Thinking Critically
 Students will be able to apply the basic concepts of introductory mechanical, wave, and quantum physics to solve problems.
 Students will be able to create various representations of problems – word descriptions, diagrammatic descriptions, graphical
representations and equations. Given one of these the student will be able to construct the others.