Phys 6A, News Flash Archive


News Flash!
Archived from: http://physics.ucsc.edu/~gweon/teaching/current
  1. 10/22, 3am A blog website for this course has been added. I intend the blog spot to be a “virtual office” for “virtual office hours.” I hope this “experiment” goes well. The blog website address is: http://samphy6a.blogspot.com/ (added below under Websites as well).
  2. 10/21, 2:30pm For tomorrow’s lecture, quiz (quizzes/Quiz_10-22.pdf) and lecture note (lecnotes/Lec_10-22.pdf) are uploaded. Please review them before coming to class. Also, the previous lecture ppt file is uploaded as a pdf file(lecnotes/Lec_10-20.pdf). I added one more quiz policy. If you happen to be a person who explains a quiz solution really well in class, then your quiz score will be doubled for that day. If you think you are a little low on homework or exam scores, then please be ready to provide some cool explanations for the quiz problems, and you will earn some extra credits. From now on, I will also begin to introduce extra credit opportunities for homework and exams.
  3. 10/20, 1pm Please note a small change of the quiz make-up policy at the bottom of this web site (the main page of the course web site). Also, there is a small change for HW #3. You will hear about it in an email soon. If you missed today’s lecture, here is a bit of information for the first midterm: the mean score is 60 ± 15. However, there were couple of difficult problems, and so I feel that a uniform offset of +10 may be appropriate. When I do, I will let you know. Feel free to come and discuss any concerns you might have about your score and midterm problems. Keep in mind that no matter what score you got on the first midterm, pretty much any final grade that you want should be within your reach, in principle, if you work hard for the rest of the course. There is a new office hour schedule. Check below. Did you get my email sent last night (“tomorrow’s quiz”)? If not, you are not in my email list, and you have to email me.
  4. 10/19, 8:30pm Tomorrow’s Quiz is uploaded. You can find it here: quizzes/Quiz_10-20.pdf.
  5. 10/17, 11am Kudos to all of you who showed good efforts in the first midterm! It is possible that I will have them graded by Monday, although I can’t make a hard promise. In the mean time, note that the solutions are uploaded for your information (sols+/Sols-Midterm1A.pdf and sols+/Sols-Midterm1B.pdf, depending on which version you worked on). If you have any concerns about this midterm, you should express them to me after I return your graded midterms. My two overarching pieces of advice for you continue to be “please work together in peer-groups and aggressively seek help in office hours or discussion sessions” and “please give priority to reviewing materials uploaded in the course web site.”
  6. 10/16, 10pm Homework solutions uploaded (sols+/Sols-HW02.pdf). If you already studied Lec_10-15_theRest.pdf (and if you did well in your homework), it is most likely that you will not need to study this new file at this moment. Better to hit the sack and feel fresh tomorrow morning!
  7. 10/16, 1pm You asked for it, and you got it. There is one more office hour schedule, added below. It is 12:30-1:30 pm on Tuesday. Is the midterm looming large? Be sure to pay attention to my recent emails and my recent news flash items (like the one just below this one), and feel better.
  8. 10/15, 2:30pm Two files are uploaded. One is lecnotes/Lec_10-15_ppt.pdf. This file is the pdf version of today’s ppt file used during the lecture. The other file is lecnotes/Lec_10-15_theRest.pdf, which is the rest of the solutions that I promised to go through in class today, but did not have time to go through. The rest of the 4 most popular problems are discussed here. Also, there is an important message hidden in that file, so be sure to check that second file out!!!
  9. 10/13, 3:30pm (i) Please get in touch with me if you are using the clicker with ID 19AFF147. A record has to be straightened out, that is all. Nothing serious really. (ii) Please note that several files are uploaded in the new folder: sols+ (solutions). Two files might be of interest to you. One is solutions to selected probs of HW#1. The other is solutions to the practice midterm. Other files are old files, just renamed. Please go over them NOW! I plan to ask some questions to you by email tonight (not physics questions to grade!). If you are doing problems of HW#1, you are not allowed to view the corresponding solutions. (iii) I just sent out emails about whether the quiz score was recorded to your credit or not, today. If you did not receive that email, you have to let me know. Please review the quiz policy at the bottom of this web page. Also, note that today’s quiz is uploaded in quizzes.
  10. 10-10, 1pm (1) MSI hour information that Dennis announced the other day is added (see “MSI” below). (2) Practice midterm uploaded. Even if you obtained a copy from today’s class, please take look at the pdf file, since I added a note at top of the first page. (PracMid1.pdf) The solutions to this practice exam will be uploaded around Monday. You should try these problems without any help (do Newton’s law problems later, though). (3) Quiz_Wk02.pdf uploaded. (quizzes/Quiz_Wk02.pdf) Solution for that “cosine quiz” included. (4) “Chap_03 - Sams Solutions to Examples.pdf” uploaded. (sols+/Sols-Chap03Examples.pdf). This is essentially the lecture today and then some. (5) Quiz policy updated (see the end of this document). (6) If you did not get my emails today, then you have to email me! Email is vital in this class.
  11. 10-09, 1pm The average homework score is about 79 % out of 100 %. That is excellent! Kudos to all of you who did well despite some small bumps along the way. You should let me know by email if you deserve more points than you got so far. If you sent me emails, and are waiting for my email response for more than a day, please kindly send me a reminder. I think I responded to all of you, but I would not be surprised if I mistakenly missed couple among the many emails that I went through. New lecture notes and appendices: (5 files) Lec_06,7.pdf, Appendix_A,B,C.pdf. Appendix B is the trigonometry summary (typo in figure corrected 11π∕6 instead of 11π∕16) and one thing added at the end. Appendix C is a re-cap of significant figures. If you did not understand prob. 1.50, you should go through this appendix. I claim that you gotta know significant figures. Ten years from now, you are not likely to be be doing physics but you are most likely to be dealing with numbers! In tomorrow’s lecture, I won’t go into Lec_06 and Lec_07. I will do some examples of projectile motions and do the circular motion.
  12. 10-08, 6am Information about new service “LSS Tutoring Service” can be found below, right before lecture plan.
  13. 10-05, 5pm [homework #2 and midterm #1] The 2nd homework set is open for you to work on, in case you have time and ability to do it already. The first midterm is planned for Oct 17. It will be based on homework sets 1, 2 and all lectures up to the midterm. So, it will also have some materials related to Newton’s laws. However, since you will not be expected to have completed homework on Newton’s laws by Oct 17, the midterm will test only basic materials of Newton’s laws, strictly at the level of lecture and quiz. Practice exam for the 1st midterm will be made available by the end of this week. Generally, you should not expect exam problems to be identical with problems that we do in class/homework, while you can expect exam questions to require the same level of conceptual and mathematical expertise.
  14. 10-05, 3:30pm New lecture note (Lec_05) uploaded, and old notes updated (Lec_01: one clause added in Fact 1.13 of page 6; Lec_03: Example 3.5 of page 14 – “free fall” definition corrected(!); Lec_04: several additions)
  15. 10-03, 5pm New folder created for quiz (see Websites below). [Check out the quiz 2 of Quiz_Wk01.pdf, which is now corrected. B can be a good hint for your homework.] Also, added a new note: “Advice for using MP and getting help” below. Lec 04.pdf was uploaded this morning.
  16. 10-02, 3:30pm Sam’s solutions to the questionnaire are available from here: sols+/Sols-Questinnaire.pdf. Also, there is one new link to a pdf file in “Extra general help” below. Good tips that might resonate well with bio/chem/non-phys majors (and physics majors too, actually). Check it out!
  17. 10-02, 2:30pm Lec 01.pdf, updated with three additions. (Look at Definition 1.11, Fact 1.13(1), and Example 1.14; Always remember that only additions/corrections are marked by underlined word(s). If you are scanning for changes, look for underlined words first and then read the sentence/paragraph they belong to.)
  18. 10-02, 2:30pm Note the item “Extra general help” below.
  19. 09-30, 6:30am “Lec 03.pdf” uploaded. Also, “Lec 01.pdf” and “Lec 02.pdf” are uploaded with corrections and additions. All corrections and additions are marked by underlined words and titles, so they should be easy to notice. Notable corrections/additions for “Lec 01.pdf” are in pages 3, 5 and 8. Be sure to check them out.
  20. 09-26, 8pm If you did not get a copy of the questionnaire in the first class, please down load it from here Questionnaire.pdf. You can complete it and then submit it at the beginning of the next class.
  21. 09-26, 8pm The iclicker website is working so that I can download your clicker information from their web page. Please register your i-clicker at their website as soon as possible, if you did not get your iclicker registered with my computer using the roll call in the first class or if you did not register at the i-clicker webiste yet! I will also have that roll-call program going 10-15 minutes before class on Monday so that you can have your iclicker registered with my computer at that time, if necessary.
  22. 09-26, 8pm “Lec 01.pdf” has been updated. A few error-corrected texts are underlined for your easy identification. The most significant error correction is the sign change in the exponent at top of page 6. Also, a new lecture has been uploaded (“Lec 02.pdf”). See lecnotes. Please do let me know if you find anything erroneous or confusing in the lecture note.
  23. 09-26, 8pm The schedule for TA discussion sessions has been determined today. Please see below (“TA discussion session hours”).
  24. 09-26, 8pm As Carol (Physics dept. advisor) mentioned today, the web site to swap your labs, if you are so inclined, is http://pbsci.ucsc.edu/physics-waitlist/.