Physics 216, "University Physics I for Physics Majors", Spring 2018

This material can be found online at URL

http://spiff.rit.edu/classes/phys216/phys216.html

Outline for the course, class schedule, etc.

.

If you want to read through my lectures from the old, lecture-based version of this course, then visit

• my old lecture-based University Physics I web site.
• my old lecture-based University Physics II web site.

Workshops

• Week 1, Day B: Introduction, measurements, ring experiment
• Week 1, Day X: Measurements, uncertainties and graphing
• Week 1, Day C: Kinematic quantities
• Week 2, Day A: 1-D Kinematics under constant acceleration
• Week 2, Day B: Significant figures and unknown metals
• Week 2, Day X: Vectors
• Week 2, Day C: More 1-D Kinematics
• Week 3, Day A: 2-D Kinematics in simple situations
• Week 3, Day B: Projectile motion
• Week 3, Day X: Relative motion, uniform circular motion
• Week 3, Day C: Forces

• Week 4, Day A: Atwood's Machine
• Week 4, Day B: Newton's Third Law and Friction
• Week 4, Day X: Friction on a tilted surface
• Week 4, Day C: The Return of Atwood's Machine
• Week 5, Day A: UCM and centripetal force [Equipment: none]
• Tue: Test 1: 7:00-8:20 PM, room CAR-1210
  
  •     Formula sheet for the test (and course)
  •     A made-up test for practice
  •     Practice problems for the first test
• Week 5, Day B: Variable forces: springs [Equipment: yes, click to see ]
• Week 5, Day X: Variable forces: air resistance [Equipment: yes, click to see ]
• Week 5, Day C: Variable forces: gravity [Equipment: none]
• Week 6, Day A: Work and kinetic energy [Equipment: none]
• Week 6, Day B: Rolling cart experiment [Equipment: yes, click to see ]
• Week 6, Day X: Work in complicated situations [Equipment: none]
• Week 6, Day C: Potential energy and conservation of energy [Equipment: yes, click to see ]
• Week 7, Day A: Conservation of energy experiment [Equipment: yes, click to see ]
• Week 7, Day B: Forces and potential energy [Equipment: none]
• Week 7, Day X: Escape velocity and black holes [Equipment: none]
• Week 7, Day C: Impulse and momentum [Equipment: none]
• Week 8, Day A: Momentum and collisions [Equipment: none]
• Week 8, Day B: Ballistic pendulum [Equipment: yes, click to see ]
• Week 8, Day X: Center of mass: connection with momentum [Equipment: yes, click to see ]
• Week 8, Day C: Center of mass of extended objects, and rockets [Equipment: none]

Spring Break

• Week 9, Day A: Angular quantities [Equipment: yes, click to see ]
• Tue: Test 2: 7:00-8:20 PM, room CAR-1230
  
  •     Formula sheet for the test (and course)
  •     A made-up test for practice
  •     Practice problems for the second test
• Week 9, Day B: Rotational KE, moment of inertia [Equipment: none]
• Week 9, Day X: Moment of inertia of extended bodies [Equipment: none]
• Week 9, Day C: Parallel Axis Theorem, Torque [Equipment: none]
• Week 10, Day A: Moment of inertia experiment [Equipment: yes, click to see ]
• Week 10, Day B: Rolling motion [Equipment: yes, click to see ]
• Week 10, Day X: Torque with vectors (and the vector cross product) [Equipment: none]
• Week 10, Day C: Work in rotational motion [Equipment: none]
• Week 11, Day A: Angular momentum [Equipment: none]
• Week 11, Day B: Conservation of angular momentum [Equipment: none]
• Week 11, Day X: The gyroscope [Equipment: yes, click to see ]
• Week 11, Day C: Angular momentum in action [Equipment: yes, click to see ]
• Week 12, Day A: Static equilibrium and elasticity [Equipment: yes, click to see ]
• Week 12, Day B: Elasticity in action [Equipment: none]
• Week 12, Day X: Review of differential equations [Equipment: none]
• Week 12, Day C: Simple harmonic motion [Equipment: none]
• Week 13, Day A: The pendulum [Equipment: yes, click to see ]
• Tue: Test 3: 7:00-8:20 PM, room CAR-1230
  •     Formula sheet for the test (and course)
  •     A made-up test for practice
  • Try some practice problems for Test 3. You can look at the solutions if you get stuck.
  • Review session Tues, Apr 17, 4-5 PM in CAR-1275
• Week 13, Day B: The physical pendulum [Equipment: yes, click to see ]
• Week 13, Day X: Damped SHM and resonance [Equipment: none]
• Week 13, Day C: Waves and wave motion [Equipment: none]
• Week 14, Day A: Superposition of waves (the simple version) and standing waves
• Week 14, Day B: Superposition of waves (the phasor version)
• Week 14, Day X: Interference, interferometers, gravitational waves [Equipment: yes, click to see ]
• Week 14, Day C: Standing waves on a string experiment [Equipment: yes, click to see ]
• Week 15, Day A: Sound waves, music, standing waves [Equipment: yes, click to see ]
• Fri, May 4: Final exam: 2:45 - 4:45, room GOS-1305 Equation sheet for Final
  • Review session: Tue, May 1, 10:00 AM - noon, CAR-1230
  • Some practice problems for the final
  • Practice problems based on Winter Olympics

Homework sets.

In order to use the on-line homework system, you need to know your login name and your initial password. Your "login name" should be the same as your last name, but spelled in lower case only; so Joe Smith should type smith. Your initial password should be the final 4 digits of your 9-digit RIT student ID number so if your ID number is 123456789, the initial password would be 6789. You can change your password from the default after you log in for the first time.

• Homework 0: Introduction to WebWork due Friday, Jan 19, at 10 AM.
  This assignment does not count towards your grade; it is intended to uncover any errors in the system and give us time to fix them.
  Answers to homework 0
• Homework 1: Graphs and kinematics due Tuesday, Jan 23, at 10 AM.
  Answers to homework 1
• Homework 2: 1-D kinematic under constant acceleration due Wednesday, Jan 24, at 10 AM.
  Answers to homework 2
• Homework 3: Vectors due Friday, Jan 25, at 10 AM.
  Answers to homework 3
• Homework 4: Vectors and 2-D Kinematics due Wed, Jan 31, at 10 AM.
  Answers to homework 4
• Homework 5: Projectile motion (not so easy) due Fri, Feb 2, at 10 AM.
  Answers to homework 5
• Homework 6: UCM and a horizontal Atwood's machine due Monday, Feb 5, at 10 AM.
  Answers to homework 6
• Homework 7: Newton's Third Law and friction due Friday, Feb 9, at 10 AM.
  Answers to homework 7
• Homework 8: Sliding with friction due Monday, Feb 12, at 10 AM.
  Warning, Will Robinson! Start early!
  Answers to homework 8
• Homework 9: Newton's Laws, Friction, and Circular Motion due Tuesday, Feb 13, at 6 PM.
  Answers to homework 9
• Homework 10: Spring on a ramp due Friday, Feb 16, at 2 PM.
  Answers to homework 10
• Homework 11: Variable Forces due Monday, Feb 19, at 2 PM.
  Answers to homework 11
• Homework 12: Work and the dot product due Wednesday, Feb 21, at 2 PM.
  Answers to homework 12
• Homework 13: More work due Friday, Feb 23, at 2 PM,
  Answers to homework 13
• Homework 14: Work, work, work due Monday, Feb 26, at 2 PM.
  Answers to homework 14
• Homework 15: Conservation of energy due Wednesday, Feb 28, at 2 PM.
  Answers to homework 15
• Homework 16: Using conservation of energy and potential energy due Friday, Mar 2, at 2 PM.
  Answers to homework 16
• Homework 17: Momentum, impulse, and simple collisions due Monday, Mar 5, at 2 PM.
  Answers to homework 17
• Homework 18: Momentum and collisions due Wednesday, Mar 7, at 2 PM.
  Answers to homework 18
• Homework 19: A baseball-powered rocket? due Friday, Mar 9, at 2 PM.
  Answers to homework 19
• Homework 20: Center of mass, a real rocket due Monday, Mar 19, at 2 PM. (After spring break)
  Answers to homework 20
• Homework 21: Rotational kinematics due Friday, Mar 23, at 2 PM.
  Answers to homework 21
• Homework 22: Rotation and Moment of inertia due Monday, Mar 26, at 2 PM.
  Answers to homework 22
• Homework 23: More Moment of inertia due Friday, Mar 30, at 2 PM.
  Answers to homework 23
• Homework 24: Torque and rolling motion due Monday, Apr 2, at 2 PM.
  Answers to homework 24
• Homework 25: Angular momentum due Wednesday, Apr 4, at 2 PM.
  Answers to homework 25
• Homework 26: More angular momentum due Friday, Apr 6, at 2 PM.
  Answers to homework 26
• Homework 27: Static equlibrium due Wed, Apr 11, at 2 PM.
  Answers to homework 27
• Homework 28: Elasticity due Fri, Apr 13, at 2 PM.
  Answers to homework 28
• Homework 29: Simple harmonic motion (I) due Fri, Apr 20, at 2 PM.
  Answers to homework 29
• Homework 30: Simple harmonic motion (II) due Mon, Apr 23, at 2 PM.
  Answers to homework 30
• Homework 31: Waves (I) due Thu, Apr 26, at 2 PM.
  Answers to homework 31
• Homework 32: Waves (II) due Mon, Apr 30, at 2 PM.
  Answers to homework 32

Extra Credit Projects (each student may hand in up to 2 extra credit projects during the semester)

1. Human Reaction Times
2. Indoor Exercise
3. The Paris Gun
4. Measure the Earth's Radius
5. Coefficient of Static Friction
6. Bouncing balls
7. A Solar Sail
8. The Office Chair Radar Gun
9. Moment of Inertia of the Human Body
10. Verify Conservation of Angular Momentum
11. The Pendulum
12. Record a Wave
13. Measure the Speed of Sound in Air

For more information

• I have written down some very simple rules for dealing with uncertainties in measurements.
  • My tutorial on uncertainties adopts the "simple" version of error propagation
  • Ultra-condensed description of propagation of errors again using the "simple" version of error propagation
• Know it all? Try solving some of the Duke Physics Challenges
• Solar sails can propel a spacecraft through the solar system without any fuel. How? It's just conservation of momentum .... If you want to get into the messy details of sending spacecraft to another planet, check out
  • Solar Sails: A Novel Approach To Interplanetary Travel is an electronic book in the Wallace Library
  • NASA's Basics of Space Flight
  • The Rocket and Space Technology version of Basics of Space Flight
  • Orbiter -- a space flight simulator a free program which runs under Windows
  • So You Wanna Build A Rocket? takes a somewhat speculative look into future rocketry.
• The Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics site tries (futilely, no doubt) to point out how Hollywood ignores Mr. Newton.
• A good place to look for information on the solar system is The Nine Planets.
• Information about the Earth's oceans can be found at the Argo Project's web page.
• The Physics Video Library has many movies of objects in motion, and suggestions for analyzing the films.

This page maintained by Michael Richmond. Last modified Aug 23, 2015.

Copyright © Michael Richmond. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.