29:006 - The Physics of Everyday Experience: How Things Work
In the fall of 2004, I introduced
a new 3 credit hour course, The Physics of Everyday Experience: How Things Work. This course
is part of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences General Education Program
which can be taken to satisfy part of the Natural Science requirement. However,
the course has also attracted student from outside CLAS, and has been taken, for
example by a number of students in the College of Business.
This course is open to First
Year Students and does not require that you have taken any physics in high
school. You do not need a strong math background to take this course. All you
need to be able to do simple arithmetic and handle simple formulas. On
exams, I provide all the formulas that you need, it is not necessary to
memorize formulas or constants.
The philosophy of the course is
to expose students, mostly non-science majors, to the basic principles by
using examples taken from everyday experience. The material covers the entire
range of physics concepts from mechanics to modern physics. Some of the topics
explored in this course include Galileo's principle of inertia (why we wear seatbelts),
Archimedes's principle (how can a steel boat float), Bernoulli's principle (how
does an airplane fly), the laws of thermodynamics (how can we get water to boil
using ice), and Coulomb's law (why do I find a sock stuck to my shirt when it
comes out of the clothes dryer.
The lectures consist of
PowerPoint presentations (which are available for downloading on the class web
page) and many demonstrations so that you can actually see what we are talking
about.
The course content is divided into seven units.
|
UNIT |
TOPIC |
|
I |
Mechanics |
|
II |
Fluids |
|
III |
Thermodynamics |
|
IV |
Vibrations and Waves |
|
V |
Electricity and Magnetism |
|
VI |
Light and Optics |
|
VII |
Atomic and Nuclear Physics |
There are 2, 25 question
multiple-choice midterm exams and a 50 question multiple-choice final
exam. About one-third of the exam questions require you
to calculate a number and the remaining two-thirds are conceptual questions
that are based on the lecture material. Problems are assigned from the
textbook which are meant to give you problem-solving practice.
The course is offered in the Fall term on MWF 10:30 and in the Spring term on MWF 11:30