Electricity, Magnetism, and Thermodynamics

Oberlin College Physics 111

Syllabus for Spring 2024

Learning goals: Through your work in this course, you will

• build a firm understanding of concepts and techniques in electricity, magnetism, and thermodynamics;
• hone your laboratory and measurment skills; and
• broaden and deepen your physical and mathematical problem solving skills.

Classroom Teacher: Dan Styer, Wright 215, 440-775-8183, Dan.Styer@oberlin.edu
home telephone 440-281-1348 (9:00 am to 8:00 pm only). Instructions for meeting with me are given under "Schedule" here.

Pronouns, nouns, adjectives, and the character of science: I don't care what pronouns you use when referring to me. Similarly, you may call me "Dan", or "Mr. Styer", or "Dr. Styer", or "Prof. Styer", whichever you find most comfortable. My personal preference, however, is that you call me "Dan". In this course I will present upsetting conclusions violently opposed to our common sense and common experience. (For example: That electrical energy can flow from one circuit and into another without passing through wires. That light added to light can sum to darkness. I make no apologies for presenting upsetting conclusions: An education that avoids difficult or disturbing issues is no education at all.) I hope you'll accept those conclusions because they are based on experimental evidence and on cogent, clear, fact-based reasoning -- experiments and reasoning that you or I or anyone else could execute. If you accept those conclusions instead because I have earned the right to put a fancy shingle in front of my name, my teaching will have been an abject failure.

Laboratory Teacher: Bryan Terrazas, Wright 211, bterraza@oberlin.edu, office hours Mondays 2:00 to 3:00 pm or by appointment.

Meeting times: Class: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 9:00 am at Wright Laboratory room 201.
Conference: (optional) Tuesday at 11:00 am at Wright Laboratory room 209.
Laboratory: Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday at 1:30 pm at Wright Laboratory room 214.
(The first lab will be a brief orientation on the week of 5 February.)

There is a dedicated tutor for this course called a "HOOT". He is Iago Braz Mendes. Sessions are Sunday and Tuesday, 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm, starting on 11 February, at Wright Laboratory room 114.

Course web site: http://www.oberlin.edu/physics/dstyer/P111. I will post handouts, problem assignments, and model solutions here.

Topics:

• Electricity (weeks 1-5, chapters 5-10)
• Magnetism (week 6, chapters 11 and 12)
• Electromagnetism (weeks 7-10, chapters 13-16)
• Thermodynamics (weeks 11-13, chapters 1, 3, and 4)

Textbook:

• S.J. Ling, J. Sanny, and W. Moebs, University Physics, volume 2.

Lectures: In this course I will need to represent many different types of entities on the chalkboard simultaneously. To help keep these different sorts of things straight, I will use various colors. (Some students have found it helpful to take notes with a variety of colored pens.) I will use

Problem assignments: The problem assignments in this course are not a dry appendage designed to keep you indoors on sunny days. Instead, the problems are central to your learning in the course. Problem solving is a more active, and hence more effective, way to learn than reading text or listening to lecture. Problems will be posted on the course web site every Wednesday and are due at the beginning of class the following Wednesday unless there is an exam. My model solutions will be posted at the end of this class, so late assignments cannot usually be accepted. (I may make an exception in the case of a medical or family emergency, but in most cases it is to your advantage to move on to the next assignment rather than to let old work pile up.) In writing your solutions, do not just write down the final answer. Show your reasoning and your intermediate steps. Describe (in words) the thought that went into your work as well as describing (in equations) the mathematical manipulations involved. For numerical results, give units and apply significant figures.

Why do you have to "show your reasoning and your intermediate steps"? Suppose someone claimed "I won reelection in November 2020. I won by a landslide." but could not provide evidence supporting his assertion. Would you belive him? I hope not. Similarly with any scientific (or non-scientific) problem. If you merely present the answer without showing supporting data or reasoning, you have not solved the problem.

The very name "reasoned discourse" means that you present not only your conclusion, but also the reasoning behind that conclusion. If you present only your result, you are not engaged in reasoned discourse.

The problems will come, not from the textbook, but from my "Problems for Physics 111".

You are welcome to consult the library, the Internet, AI resources such as ChatGPT, your friends, or your enemies in working the assigned problems, but the final write-up must be entirely your own: you may not copy word for word or equation for equation. When you do obtain outside help you must acknowledge it. (E.g. "Following the suggestion on page 357 of Elby, The Portable TA to use a cylindrical Gaussian surface, I find that. . ." or "Employing the substitution u = sin(x) (suggested by Carol Hall). . ." or even "In working these problems I benefited from discussions with Mike Fisher and Jim Newton.") Such an acknowledgement will never lower your grade; it is required as a simple matter of intellectual fairness. Each assignment will be graded by a student grader working under my close supervision.

Laboratories: Your laboratory work is an important part of this course, both for its own sake and for the light it sheds on the classroom material. The laboratory is also a good place to question, explore, and generally have fun. Laboratory sections meet for three hours once a week on either Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday afternoons starting promptly at 1:30 pm in Wright 214. There will be laboratory-related questions on the exams.

Exams: There will be two in-semester exams and a final. The in-semster exams will be 50 minute exams held at class time on Wednesday 6 March and on Wednesday 24 April; the final exam will be at 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. on Thursday, 16 May (the time set by the registrar). No collaboration is permitted in working the exams. To each exam you may bring an 8.5 by 11 inch page of notes (use both sides), but no other material. (In particular, your lab manual and lab notebook are not permitted.) Calculators are permitted. Before each exam I will distribute a sample exam consisting of exam questions that I have given in previous incarnations of this course. In determining your grade I will drop the lowest hour's worth of exam score (that is, either of the two in-semester exams or half the final, whichever is smaller).

At each exam you're allowed one sheet of paper with your own notes. What are the reasons for this policy?

• I doubt that you'll use your notes, but the process of making up your notes - of deciding which ideas are the most important and the most useful - can be very helpful in giving you a clear overview of what's transpired in the course.
• The fact that you can bring these notes emphasizes that you're not supposed to memorize equations - you're supposed to work with and apply the ideas.
• Save your notes and use them to prepare for the final exam. You also might find them valuable in future physics (or chemistry!, or math!) courses.

Guest lectures: The Department of Physics and Astronomy periodically invites visiting scientists to lecture at Oberlin. I will announce these visits in class. If you attend the guest lecture and submit to me a one-paragraph description, you will be awarded 20 extra-credit problem-set points.

The purpose of the guest lectures is to broaden your horizons: to show you physics as it is done today and to present you with a viewpoint different from my own. You will not understand everything that the visiting speakers say . . . neither will I! One objective of the guest lectures is to show you how to get something out of a talk even when you don't understand everything in the talk.

Grading: Your final numerical grade will be compounded of 25% lab, 37.5% problem assignments, and 37.5% exams. In addition, you must receive a passing lab grade to pass this course. On a 40-point scale, those with 40-36 points earn the grade "A", 35-30 points earn the grade "B", 29-20 points earn the grade "C", 19 or fewer points do not pass.

Reserve reading: The following books are on reserve in the Science Library. (They are located on shelves along the south wall, not far to your right when you enter, near some comfortable chairs to encourage browsing.) A text previously used in this course is

• J. Walker, R. Resnick, D. Halliday, Fundamentals of Physics (10th edition) [Science QC21.3.H35 2014]

• E.M. Purcell, Electricity and Magnetism [Science QC21.2.B474 vol. 2]
• R.P. Feynman, R.B. Leighton, M. Sands, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, volume II [Science 530 F438F vol. 2]

• F.W. Sears, M.W. Zemansky, H.D. Young, University Physics (6th edition) [Science QC21.2.S36 1983]

• Edward Nelson, Tensor Analysis [Mudd QA433.N44]
• Ivan Sokolnikoff, Tensor Analysis: Theory and Applications to Geometry and Mechanics of Continua [Mudd QA433.S64 1964]
• Banesh Hoffmann, About Vectors [Science QA433.H63 1975]

• Enrico Fermi, Thermodynamics [Science 536.7F386T]
• H.C. Van Ness, Understanding Thermodynamics [Science QC311.V285 1983]

• George Polya, How To Solve It [Mudd QA11.P6 1973]
• Andrew Elby, The Portable T.A.: A Physics Problem Solving Guide, volume 2 [Science QC32.E56 1998 vol. 2]
• Michael E. Browne, Schaum's Outline of Theory and Problems of Physics for Engineering and Science [Science QC21.1.B77 1999]

• Jearl Walker, The Flying Circus of Physics [Science QC32.W2 1977]