Welcome Physics Phriends!

How Things Work
Physics 103
Fall 2017
Sean Lally
seanplally@gmail.com
412.965.0805
Wednesdays - TUNE building, 117
Office Hours:  Immediately after class (as late as desired)
htwfall2017.blogspot.com
How Things Work,  Louis A. Bloomfield


Good evening physics phriends!  Welcome to a new semester and your new favorite class, "How Things Work," with your humble host, Sean Lally.

I am thrilled to be sharing some of the big ideas of physics with you this term.

There will be 3 non-cumulative exams, equally weighted.  Exams are generally multiple choice, though it is possible that there *may* be short answer questions, mathematical problems or 1-2 paragraph essays asked as well.

I will assign problem and question sets regularly, but these will not be collected.  Primarily, they are used to help you study material and see what concepts I find to be most valuable (on exams, and in general).  I will give some text references as well, but in general, if it is important I will cover it in class, with related notes on the blog.

I use this blog for my personal notes and to get important information to you.  I tend to use the document projector to work out problems or write essential things.  If it's important stuff, I'll take an image and post it on the blog.  However, don't view this as a substitute for good note-taking.  The blog will have some detail, but also at times, only a skeleton outline of notes.  Sometimes these notes will be up on the blog well in advance of class, and sometimes, well, they won't.

Welcome to "How Things Work"!

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMFPe-DwULM
(Just because Richard Feynman was cool.)


8.30  Introduction; course overview; SI units and how to measure things
9.6  How things move, part 1: velocity, acceleration and the math of motion (1.1, 1.2)
9.13  How things move, part 2: acceleration, gravity, and the math of motion (1.1, 1.2)
9.20  How things move, part 3:  Newton, pre-history and his laws
9.27  How things move part 4:  gravitation again; orbits (4.2); Center of Gravity; Test review
10.4  Exam 1; How things move in air, Bernoulli's principle (6.2, 6.3)
10.11  How things wave
10.18  No class - virtual assignment instead
10.25  How things sound
11.1  How things sound and look - light and optics; Doppler effect
11.8  How things look, part 2 - light and optics; Test review
11.15  Exam 2; How things tick (intro to electricity)
11.29  How things tick, part 2 - circuits
12.6  How things tick, part 3 - magnetism
12.13  Final exam (7:30 - 9:30 PM)

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