Monday's lab

Monday, we'll verify Boyle's law. The lab is relatively short, which will leave us time to do the post-assessment test (and still probably finish early).

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Last HW set

Your last homework set (#7) is now out, due Tuesday at midnight. It is a mix of harmonic motion, fluids, and thermodynamics/ideal gas problems. Most of it has been covered already, some of it we will just get to tomorrow. Monday we'll go over some of the harder problems in class.

Thursday's lab

Thursday, for our second-to-last lab, we'll investigate simple harmonic motion. Specifically, we will let little masses bounce on springs and measure bouncing as a function of time. If all goes well, the motion will match the theory we discussed earlier this week.

HW 6 SNAFU

I accidentally made the HW due at noon today instead of midnight ... stupid am and pm. As a result, I have just extended the deadline until noon tomorrow in case you need some more time.

Monday's lab

We'll investigate torque & angular acceleration, or 'rotational dynamics.'

HW6 is out

Due Wednesday before midnight. We will do a number of them in class tomorrow.

There will be two more homework sets: one due this coming Friday, one due the following Tuesday before midnight.

Tomorrow / Exam coverage

Tomorrow, we'll spend some more time on torque and cover angular momentum (Ch. 10). With what time remains, we'll start elasticity (Ch. 11). Based on the slightly-delayed schedule, I am leaving Ch. 11 material off of the upcoming exam. That means the following are fair game for exam 2:

Ch. 6.1,2

Ch. 7.2-7

Ch. 8.1-5

Ch. 9 all

Ch. 10.1-6

This also means that exam 3 will cover about the same number of sections as the previous two exams (Ch. 11-16).

Lab 5: work-kinetic energy

Here is the procedure; sorry for the delay. It uses the same half Atwood machine as last time, so the mechanics of the procedure are very similar.

Wednesday, we will have a team problem-solving competition, so there is no procedure you need to read. Just show up with a calculator, a notebook, and all of your cleverness.

Exam 1 details

Exam 1 will take place this Thursday during your normally-scheduled lab period. You will have approximately 90 minutes for the exam, but we will not be really strict on the time. (more details after the fold)

Tomorrow's reading

For tomorrow, we'll cover the mathematical aspects of motion in 1D, and just start on 2D motion. The former will cover essentially all of Ch. 2, the latter sections 3.1 and 3.2 of Ch. 3.

I made one small mistake today when we were talking about the graphs at the very end. The plots I was analyzing should have been position versus time, not velocity versus time. The slope at any given point on the position graph is the instantaneous velocity. If we plot velocity verus time, the slope at any given point is the instantaneous acceleration.

As a result, we'll start off tomorrow morning by discussing graphical analysis of motion again, just so you see it correctly, and then move on to the mathematical analysis of motion.

And, one last thing: be sure to read the lab procedure and statistics introduction before tomorrow's lab. Things will go a lot smoother & more quickly if you've read it ahead of time ...

Lab 1: statistics & uncertainty

For Wednesday's lab, we'll learn to count cards.

Actually, we'll use normal and 'stacked' decks to learn about standard deviation and uncertainty, which we'll use throughout the rest of the laboratories. Please read the procedure (which includes in introduction to basic statistics) before Wednesday's lab session. This one is longer than usual ...

Introductory slides

Find them here; some details about how the class will work, etc.

Welcome to PH101!

At the bottom of this page, or here, you will find our course calendar, which you should review carefully. If you click on a lecture and show 'more details' you should see the reading for that lecture. We will stick to our schedule rigidly, as our time is quite short over the summer term.

You may also want to look over the course syllabus and other information, which you find in myBama. Some course introduction slides can be found here, which I'll use on the first day of class.