Physics 1403 Announcement Page

FINAL ANNOUNCEMENTS

The following is long, sorry. I've divided it into sections, with headings in all capital letters. You don't have to read it. However, I hope that you will, because I've attempted to answer anticipated questions. Of course, if I've not answered yours, feel free to email me or call me!

1. Final Exam Results: The Final Exam is on the Exams Page. I'll TRY to post tsolutions soon! The average was about 72, similar to the results of the other exams. MANY did well on it! Some didn't do as well as they did on the other exams. It was possible to make greater than 100 because of the 5 point BONUS question (about demonstrations). I was surprised that so few bothered to answer this! A reason may be related to the low attendance often seen this semester. If you weren't there when I did demonstrations, you couldn't have answered this!

Statistics: 161 people took it. High = 105! Low = 22! Using the grade scale in the syllabus, the Final Exam distribution is: 100+>"A">88, 28 people. 87>"B">76, 45 people. 75>"C">64, 69 people. 63>"D">54, 13 people. 53>"F">0, 6 people. 7 people are still on the roll who didn't bother to take the Final! They aren't included in these statistics. If you want your graded Final, drop by my office sometime & I'll give it to you. As usual, I was liberal with partial credit! It's clear that a significant minority do NOT understand (or didn't study!) some of the fluids material covered since Exam III! Fluid dynamics may be difficult, but it needs to be understood by someone who has finished Physics I! If you want to see comments about the common physics mistakes on the Final, if I have time, I'll send a separate email about this. If you don't care about this, of course you don't have to read it!

2. Course Grades: These were discussed IN DETAIL the first day. Also the Syllabuscovers them IN DETAIL.

On Sat., May 10 at 6:30pm, your grades were completed & entered into the TTU Web system. They should be available to you on the TTU Student Web. You can also check them by using the Compute Your Grade Page. I've revised it recently so that some minor errors have been fixed. PLEASE!!! I can't answer 165 emails/phone calls!! PLEASE CHECK THOSE FIRST, BEFORE CALLING OR EMAILING ME about your grade. PLEASE!!! Try calculating your grade BEFORE contacting me!!! Thanks!!!
If, after checking these, you legitimately feel that an error may have been made, OF COURSE, you should feel free to call or email me (or see me!) about it. Several of you have already contacted me & I've tried to answer most questions. If I've not responded to your question yet, please be patient; I'll eventually do so! It's too late to change grades on the web, but I can file a "Change of Grade" form any time up to a year from now.

By the syllabus, the Lab & Homework are 15% & 10% of the COURSE grade, respectively. Over the semester, there were many & varied requests for these percentages to be altered. By agreement with the other Physics 1403 instructor, Dr. Glab, these percentages were NOT changed. They were weighted exactly according to the syllabus. I agree with some comments about the lab (not relevant, too difficult, too easy, etc. Yes, I received both kinds of comments!). I also agree with some comments about the homework being too much work & too difficult for only 10% of the grade. But, Dr. Glab & I decided that changing the percentages for each would likely cause problems (some people were for some changes, others were against them). TTU considers the syllabus as a contract between us & the students. So, changing it would change this contract & could likely cause more complaints than we already have gotten.

For many of you, the Final Exam WAS the lowest exam, so it was reduced to 15% of the grade instead of 35%. The Quiz & Homework averages were NOT dropped. As explained repeatedly, the Quiz average counts equivalent to one homework problem set. The extra quiz points for the first email were added to the Quiz point total before a percentage was computed. (I know that I didn't return many graded quizzes to you this semester. I'm sorry. I graded them at the last minute these past few days.)

The average score in the course was about 76. The high score was 104.5 (because of extra points!) & the low score (not counting those who skipped the Final) was about 34. The letter grade given for the final grade numerical score was given EXACTLY according to the cut offs in the syllabus: 100>A>88>B>76>C>64>D>54>F>0. 168 students are still on the roll. There are 29 A's, 41 B's, 69 C's, 18 D's, & 11 F's. If you received a B or better, you should be proud of yourself! This is extremely fast paced (remember the "firehose physics" analogy?) & the material is extremely difficult for many (most?) people.

3. Physics II: (Physics 1404): Many of you need to take Physics II (Physics 1404). I strongly suggest that you do this SOON, while Physics I is still fresh in your mind! It's very unlikely that I'll teach Physics II soon. It's not part of my assignment for Fall, 2008. I appreciate, though, some of you wanting me to do this. My teaching assignments for the near future are in upper level undergraduate (Physics majors) courses, graduate Physics courses, & this same Physics I course again. The usual people who teach Physics II are Drs. Quade, Thacker, Glab, Sanati, & Huang. Each is a good instructor. Each though, has their own style, which is likely (very?) different from mine. Physics II for Fall, 2008 has many openings left!

4. Final Comments: In addition to the grade you EARNED, I sincerely hope that you LEARNED SOMETHING in this course! You've now been exposed to most of the ways we have for analyzing the (MACROSCOPIC) mechanical world & you should now (hopefully!) have a better understanding than when you started about the way things work in this world (the WHY & the HOW!). You also should now be equipped with the tools to understand related topics which we didn't have time to discuss (say, Chs. 11 & 12!).
        I also hope that I've been able to convince you that Physics is NOT a bunch of formulas to memorize! Instead, it is a set of unified PHYSICAL CONCEPTS! The performance on the Final tells me that many have gotten this message. That's good! However, a FRUSTRATION for me is that, again based on the Final, many of you NEVER DID get this message! Since I have repeatedly "preached" about this for the entire semester, maybe you can understand my frustration. I also really hope that you have learned some of these PHYSICAL CONCEPTS. I hope that you have also STOPPED thinking about the physical world the (WRONG!!) way Aristotle & the ancient Greeks did. Instead, I hope that you are now thinking about it like Galileo & Newton did (WHICH IS mostly CORRECT!!!). Even though their work & discoveries are about 350-400 years old, their view of the physical world is still (mostly) correct today.
        Newtonian concepts (like his 3 Laws covered in this course, which some of you didn't know on the Final! These are the THEME of the course!) are correct for the MACROSCOPIC world and as long as an object's speed is very small compared to the speed of light (3 x 10^(8) m/s!). They form the basic foundation of MUCH of Engineering & Architecture. For objects moving at a significant fraction of the speed of light, Newton's Laws break down & we have to use Einstein's Relativity (Special Relativity or, sometimes General Relativity). Yes, Relativity and all its "weirdness" (much of which you likely know from science fiction & the movies) IS correct, according to MANY EXPERIMENTS! For objects the size of atoms or smaller (smaller than about 10^(-10) m!), Newton's Laws also break down & we have to use Quantum Mechanics (invented on the early 20th Century by people named Heisenberg and Schrodinger). Quantum Mechanics is, in some ways, even "weirder" than Relativity! Yet, it IS correct, as MANY EXPERIMENTS have also shown. Even though Physics is mathematical, it is an EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE!!
        In Physics I, we have ONLY studied the Physics of the 1600's & 1700's. In Physics II, you'll first study electromagnetism & optics, the Physics of the 1700's and 1800's (Newton also did many things in optics!). Near the end of that course, you'll get a quick & rapid exposure to (in my opinion) the REALLY INTERESTING material: the Physics of the 1900's ("Modern Physics": Quantum Mechanics & Relativity). It's too bad that this brief exposure to 20th Century physics is ALL that most of you will ever see of it. It is this Physics (mainly Quantum Mechanics!) which forms the FOUNDATION for the majority of the modern technology on which we all rely (computer chips, lasers, various medical diagnostic techniques like MRI, CT-scan, nuclear medicine, etc.). Unfortunately, we live in a society that makes great use of technology (much of which is a NECESSITY!) that most people in the society have very little, if any, understanding about. Do you wonder how a laser works? To understand lasers, you first have to understand Quantum Mechanics!

Despite the extremely rapid pace of the course (me shooting a "firehose" of physics knowledge at you!) and despite the fact that the subject is difficult for most people, I hope that you also ENJOYED this course. My attempts at humor (not always successful!) were designed to try to get you to see that physics can be FUN, as well as challenging. I hope that I succeeded in that also.
I'm tired now, just as you are, but I have enjoyed (trying) to teach you physics. Since the course began, I have gotten to know some of you better than others. However, I've enjoyed meeting all of you. I sincerely hope that each of you has success in your chosen field. I would welcome any of you to drop by in the future to share with me how things are going with you (in Physics II, or just in general!).

Good luck in the future!

Charley Myles

LABS: Lab Syllabus. You MUST be in Lab. Exceptions? Ask the Physics office (Rm 101, 742-3767)! Labs are different than in the past. They have Tutorials (see 1 & 2) & Problem Solving. There also are experiments, homework & quizzes!! You NEED the Tutorial Book, available in the bookstores.I have nothing directly to do with lab. Questions? Ask Dr. Beth Thacker (beth.thacker@ttu.edu) or Dr. Sung-Won Lee (sungwon.lee@ttu.edu). They are in charge of the labs.

EMAIL: 179 of 180 are on my distribution list! I can add you, but 15 points are no longer available. Tues., Jan. 15, I sent two announcement emails. If you didn't receive them, something's wrong. Possibilities are that it went to your junk (spam) box or that your mailbox is full. An announcement Here gives further discussion. I make announcements by email!! It's vital that I have your correct email address, that you tell me if it changes, & that you check your email DAILY!!

How Do you learn physics? Coming to class, listening to me lecture, & reading the book in advance of class are all very important & necessary. But, these things alone are usually not sufficient! Unless you are a genius, the ONLYway to learn physics is to

DO PHYSICS YOURSELF (or with friends) by WORKING MANY, MANY, MANY PROBLEMS!!

9AM CLASS: Meeting at 9am is early, but not terrible! When you graduate & get a job, likely you will be required to be at work at 8AM. This should actually be easier because it is one hour later! So don't use the class time as an excuse to skip!!

ATTENDANCE: The weekend DOESN'T start Thursday evening! Friday is a class day (so is Monday!), not a weekend day! Attendance for this class has steadily gotten worse over the last few years, especially on Fridays. I don't take roll & have no specific attendance policy. But, isn't it obvious that (unless you're a genius!) attendance is REQUIRED to get a good grade (or to LEARN SOMETHING!)? There is a correlation between class attendance & grades. Skipping also means that you are WASTING the tuition & fees that you (or someone) paid! With tuition & fees for a full-time (Texas resident) student, each class meeting (for 3 hours of this 4 hour course; lab is excluded) costs about $16.15!! So, each time you skip, you throw away about $16.15!! After a while this adds up! My lectures may not be entertaining or brilliant, but I do expose you to the material.

Some MISCELLANEOUS COURSE INFORMATION is Here.

Items covered are: Attendance, Study Groups, Labs, Email List, My Teaching Philosophy, Tips on Downloading & Printing Course Related Files, Fonts in Course Related Files & Textbook.

1. Dr. Myles' Homepage & Research Page. Dr. Myles' Future Teaching:A page discussing this is Here.

2. Physics News:Physics Central (for the public). Focus News (advanced level) from the APS. Physics Fun!