Instructor: H. Nicholson
Office: 211 Kendade
Phone: x2234
email: hnichols@mtholyoke.edu
Director of Laboratories: Fawn Huisman
Office: 207 Kendade
Phone: x2029
email:fhuisman @mtholyoke.edu
*********************** Notices ************************
Textbook: Halliday, Resnick and Walker, 7th edition, "Fundamentals of Physics"
All quizzes (weekly, hour, final) will be open book, open notes.
There will be weekly Tuesday evening tutorials run by a physics major from 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm starting February 8, 2005.
All Tuesday evening tutorials after February 16 have been moved to Kendade Room 203.
A quick guide on how to use excel can be found here
A copy of the formal lab format guide can be found here
There will be an hour quiz during the week ending March 4. During this week there will be no new labs and no weekly quiz. The hour quiz will be self-scheduled and obtained by signing it out of the Physics Department office. Dates and times when it will be available will be announced in class.
April 10: I have removed the last four problems on Homework Assignment #10 and made them the first four problems on Homework Assignment #11 to better reflect the current coverage of this material in class. Homework Assignment #10 will be due Wednesday, April 13. Homework Assignment #11 will be due the following Wednesday.
April 23: I have removed the last problem on Homework Assignment #12 and made it the first problem on Homework Assignment #13 to again better reflect the coverage of the relevant material in class.
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Week Ending Date Reading Lab
1 1/28 Chapter 1 ---
2 2/04 Chapters 2&3 Triangulation
3 2/11 Chapter 4 Vectors
4 2/18 Chapter 5 Trajectories
5 2/25 Chapter 6 Pendulums
6 3/04 Chapter 7 Quiz #1
7 3/11 Chapter 8 g drop
Spring Vacation
8 3/25 Chapter 9 Atwood's Machine
9 4/01 Chapter 10 Cons. of Momentum
10 4/08 Chapter 11 Quiz #2
11 4/15 Chapter 12 Rolling Something
12 4/22 Chapter 13 Measurement of G
13 4/29 Chapter 15 Springs
14 5/03 Review ---
Homework is normally due on Wednesdays.
There are three available laboratory sections. They meet Monday afternoon, Monday evening, and Tuesday afternoon.
The fourth hours provide an opportunity to discuss the homework problems. Normally there will be a 10 minute quiz in each fourth hour. Out of the 8 or 9 quizzes during the semester, 4 or 5 of them with the highest grades will be counted as an hour quiz.
There will be two hour quizzes during the semester. During the week of an hour quiz, there will be no labs and the quiz will be available to be signed out on a self-scheduled basis for several days during that week.
Grading will be based on the final exam (~30%), hour quizzes (~12.5% each), sum of weekly quizzes (~12.5%), lab (~25%) and homework (~5-10%). Final grades are then assigned on a distributional basis. The mean class grade is based on how well the class does as a whole compared to classes I have taught previous years and is typically in the B range (between B+ and B-).
Math Diagnostic Scores Distribution
Hour Quiz 1 Grade Distribution
Hour Quiz 2 Grade Distribution
