Physics 214 Fundamentals II

Physics 214 Fundamentals of Physics II Spring (12) 2012

Instructor: Mark Taylor Office: Gerstacker 118

Phone: 569-5241

email: taylormp

Office Hours: MWF 4:15-6:30, Tues. 9:00-12:00, 1:00-2:00 Thurs. 1:00-3:00

Sunday 3:00-6:00

Physics Study Session: Thurs. 6:30-9:30 in Gerstacker 123

Meeting Times: MWF 2:45-4:05; Colton 2

Textbook: Six Ideas That Shaped Physics, Units E & Q, by Thomas Moore

Unit O by Paul DeYoung

Course Overview: Physics is a quantitative study of the world around us. The science is based on experimental observation and measurement. However, the underlying goal of the subject is to summarize or explain all experimental results with a small set of fundamental theoretical "laws". Thus physics seeks to provide a simple and unified description of the world. In the realm of electric and magnetic phenomena such a unification was achieved by Maxwell, who combined and extended the experimentally based "laws" of Coulomb, Gauss, Faraday, and Ampere into a simple (and beautiful) form known as Maxwell's equations. One surprising prediction of these equations is that light is actually an electromagnetic phenomenon and thus optics naturally falls within the subject matter of this course. A unified description of physical processes in the atomic and subatomic world is provided by quantum mechanics, developed by Heisenberg and Schrodinger in the early twentieth century. Although the results of quantum mechanics are clear, and extremely accurate, the meaning and interpretation of this theory remain the subject of debate among both physicists and philosophers.

General Information: Hiram College Course Policies

Links to pdf files:

Course Information Sheet Syllabus Lab Reports Lab Report Checklist Flash Cards

Problem Set 01 Problem Set 07

Problem Set 02 Problem Set 08

Problem Set 03 Problem Set 09

Problem Set 04 Problem Set 10

Problem Set 05 Problem Set 11

Problem Set 06 Problem Set 12

PreLabs:

Prelab #1 (Electrostatics) Prelab #7 (focal length of lenses)

Prelab #2 (Electric field mapping) Prelab #8 (diffraction & interference)