News

2010/05/04 We are done! Please fill in the evaluation survey here before May 10th! I really appreciate your input and comments!

2010/04/06 New element discovered with atomic number Z=117. NY Times article

2010/03/30 The LHC starts collisions at record energy of 7 TeV. Check it out!

2010/03/23 Midterm exam #2 will take place in Hoyt at 2pm on Wednesday 31st instead of class.
Material covered: lectures 8-15, Recitations 5-7, Problems 5-7. No recitations that week.

2010/03/03 No recitations the week after Spring Break (March 15-19)!

2010/03/01 Presentation groups posted: make sure you get together with the members of your group to organize the work

2010/02/10 Midterm exam #1 will take place in Hoyt at 2pm on Wednesday 17th instead of class.
Material covered: lectures 1-7, Recitations 1-3, Problems 1-4.

2010/02/01 Interesting public lecture about wave particle duality on Tue Feb 9 at 8pm at Gleason 318/418.

2010/01/20 Recitations start the week of January 25th

2010/01/12 Welcome to PHY100!

Contact Info

Aran Garcia-Bellido, Department of Physics and Astronomy
Office: Bausch & Lomb 314
Phone: 585 276 3422
Email: aran@pas.rochester.edu
Office hours: Monday 3.30-4.30pm and Tuesday 2.00-3.00pm
Feel free to drop by anytime without an appt. with the understanding that I might be in the middle of something else and need to set up a better time to meet.

Information & Syllabus

Lectures are on Hoyton Hall Auditorium, Monday and Wendesday 2.00-3.15pm.

General information about the course, organization, grading and its syllabus: intro_and_syllabus.pdf

Text book: Physics: Concepts & connections 4th ed., Art Hobson

Recitations

Recitation leader: Ted Marschall (Office hours: Thursday 3.30-4.30 in B&L 208B)
Recitation times:

  • Monday 16.50-19.30, Morey 505
  • Wednesday 16.50-19.30, Morey 505
  • Wednesday 19.40-22.00, Morey 505
  • Friday 14.00-16.40, Hylan 105

  1. Recitation 1 - For week starting January 25, 2010
  2. Recitation 2 - For week starting February 1, 2010
  3. Recitation 3 - For week starting February 8, 2010
  4. Recitation 4 - For week starting February 15, 2010
  5. Recitation 5 - For week starting February 22, 2010
  6. Recitation 6 - For week starting March 1, 2010
  7. Recitation 7 - For week starting March 22, 2010
  8. Recitation 8 - For week starting April 5, 2010 Nobel prize 2008 link
  9. Recitation 9 - For week starting April 12, 2010

Presentations

You will form around 7 groups, with 5 students each, to prepare and deliver a 20 minute lecture to the class at the end of the semester. I will provide 26 topics to chose from, but will also accept suggestions.

Information about the presentations Including rules, topic list, grading and more.

Presentation
Group Members
Files
GREAT PHYSICIST LIFE
(Apr. 14)
 Nicholas Cacciola, Lauren Dougherty, Monique Mottler, Daniel Rosens, Michael Wexler
 talk (pptx)
summary (doc)
CONTROLLED FUSION
(Apr. 14)
 Adam Davis, Alexander Lyubarsky, Alex Perry, Tyler Robins, Cristin Stephen
 talk
summary (pdf)
NUCLEAR POWER
(Apr. 19)
 Rahul Edirisinghe, David Levy, Bennett Parmington, Joshua Stillman, Elise Van Pelt, Cainaan Webb
 talk (pdf)
summary
SERCH FOR ET LIFE
(Apr. 19)
 Kevin Bain, David Copeland, Sean Kelly, Jonah Rifkin, Lance Taubin, William Urciuoli
 talk (ppt)
summary (doc)
MUSIC
(Apr. 21)
 Stacey Chou, Rebecca Holtzman, Rebecca Kennedy, Edward Merrit, Megan Steron
 talk (pptx)
summary (pdf)
NUCLEAR TERRORISM
(Apr. 21)
 Tye Johnson, Steven McIlveen, Aaron Rubin, Jeffrey Terril, James Zino
 talk (pptx)
summary (doc)

Lectures

  1. January 13, 2010: Intro to course/Syllabus | Nature of Science, scales in the universe
  2. January 20, 2010: Fundamental physical quantities and Newton's laws
  3. January 25, 2010: Newton's laws, gravitational and electrostatic forces, fields
  4. January 27, 2010: Fields, Special Relativity
  5. February 1, 2010: Special relativity, Magnetism
  6. February 3, 2010: Magnetism, Maxwell's equations, waves
  7. February 8, 2010: Light, electromagnetic radiation, waves
  8. February 10, 2010: Blackbody radiation, photoelectric effect, quanta of light
  9. February 15, 2010: De Broglie matter waves, Atoms: Rutherford and Bohr
  10. February 22, 2010: Bohr model, Schrodinger's equation, rise of quantum mechanics
  11. February 24, 2010: Chemistry, start of quantum uncertainty
  12. March 1, 2010: Quantum uncertainty
  13. March 3, 2010: The atomic nucleus, nuclear decays
  14. March 15, 2010: Half life, binding energy, chain reactions, nuclear bombs
  15. March 17, 2010: Nuclear power, fusion, life of a star
  16. March 22, 2010: Particle Physics
  17. March 24, 2010: More Particle Physics
  18. March 29, 2010: Vacuum, General Relativity
  19. April 5, 2010: Big Bang cosmology
  20. April 7, 2010: More cosmology, inflation, dark matter
  21. April 12, 2010: History of the Universe
  22. April 14, 2010: Presentations
  23. April 19, 2010: Presentations
  24. April 21, 2010: Presentations
  25. April 26, 2010: Presentations

Problem sets

  1. Problem Set 1 - January 18, 2010
  2. Problem Set 2 - January 25, 2010
  3. Problem Set 3 - February 1, 2010
  4. Problem Set 4 - February 8, 2010
  5. Problem Set 5 - February 22, 2010
  6. Problem Set 6 - March 1, 2010
  7. Problem Set 7 - March 22, 2010
  8. Problem Set 8 - April 5, 2010
  9. Problem Set 9 - April 12, 2010

Exams

  1. Exam 1 Wed February 17: Exam | Solution | Grade distribution
  2. Exam 2 Wed March 31: Exam | Solution | Grade distribution
  3. Final Tuesday May 4th: Exam | Solution | Grade distribution

Final grades: Best Numerical Average | Letter grades

The class mean was at 72/100, which corresponds to a B, and the mode (most frequent value) was also a B. I think most of you did a great job overall, the minimum grade was 43, and the maximum a 92.

The best numerical average is calculated according to the table below. All three paths are calculated and the one that yields the highest numerical value is chosen as your final numerical grade. All average numbers are rounded up to the nearest integer.

Percentage of final numerical grade

Exam1
 Exam2
 Final
 Presentation
 Recitations
Path1
 24
 24
 24
 20
 8
Path2
 32
 -
 40
 20
 8
Path3
 -
 32
 40
 20
 8

The best numerical grade is then converted to your course letter grade, with the following conversion table:

Letter grade
 D
 D+
 C-
 C
 C+
 B-
 B
 B+
 A-
 A
Min. number (inclusive)
 40
 45
 50
 55
 60
 65
 70
 75
 80
 85