Tuesday and Thursday, 141 Loomis Laboratory of Physics (LLP)

Lecture Section A1: 12:30 – 1:45 pm

Lecture Section A2: 2:00 – 3:15 p.m.

*LLP = Loomis Laboratory of Physics MRL= Materials Research Lab LLW/LLNW=Loomis Lobby W/NW

^† change (at) to @ symbol when sending e-mail.

TA Com = TA Commons on the second floor Loomis Laboratory

You are welcome to attend any office hour listed, and to make appointments with any of the TAs or Professors Pitts and Perdekamp.

How Things Work 3^rd edition by Louis A. Bloomfield

The discussion/laboratory sections are called “Discovery Room,” or DR, in Physics 140. The DRs begin on January, 14. The DR week runs throughout the semester from Wednesday 8:00 a.m. through Tuesday at noon. Please note that the first week of DR is an exception, and runs from Monday, January 14 through Friday, January 18 (see the course syllabus). There will be NO DRs in the weeks after the hour exams: 2/06–2/12; 3/12–3/18; and 4/16–4/22.

Your Pass/Fail grade is determined by your attendance at your assigned discovery room, your willingness to participate, and completion of a short DR worksheet. Being 5 minutes late counts as an absence: you must sign an attendance sheet to get credit, which is removed 5 minutes into the hour. If you cannot make your assigned time, you may attend another DR only if you get prior permission from BOTH your own TA and the TA whose class you wish to attend, and you must sign the attendance sheet of the DR you attended. Check DR times and instructors on the Physics 140 Web Page under “Instructors”. Your lowest Discovery Room grade is dropped at the end of the semester. You may attend a substitute DR section no more than twice a semester unless you get approval from Prof. Pitts.

We cannot help you to get into a DR section or to change DR sections—only you can sign up for and drop DR sections in Banner.

iClickers are available at all three university bookstores. You MUST register your clicker to your NetID by January 26: Choose "Gradebook and Exam Results" on the course home page, then click on "iClicker Registration" and follow the instructions. The lecturer will ask multiple choice questions during class and you are invited to respond using your clicker. Credit is given for responses (right or wrong), with two points given per lecture. You may miss four lectures without any loss of credit. iClickers will not count for credit on exam days.

You are responsible for changing the batteries in your iClicker. You are also responsible for replacements if you damage or lose your iClicker.

iClicker Rules:

1. Read the instructions on the back of your iClicker carefully.
2. iClicker Student Gradebook updates require at least one week.
3. Please note the iClicker registration deadline. If you do not register your iClicker by the deadline, you will not receive iClicker points for the semester
4. A blank iClicker grade in the Student Gradebook indicates that the Student Gradebook has not yet been updated for that lecture. An “AB” grade means “absent” (and that the Student Gradebook has been updated).
5. If you replace your iClicker, you must re-register your new iClicker AND e-mail Prof. Perdekamp within 24 hours to receive iClicker credit for the rest of the semester.

Any concerns, questions, or comments about the administration of the course you wish to submit by e-mail must be sent to Prof. Pitts (kpitts@uiuc.edu). Please bring physics questions to any TA’s, Prof. Pitts’s, or Prof. Perdekamp’s office hours.

You may also e-mail the TAs about re-scheduling a DR, but all administrative questions must be sent to Prof. Perdekamp.

All e-mails must be sent according to the following rules:

1. You must use your UIUC express e-mail account.
2. You must have PHYS140 in the subject line.
3. You must have the reason for the e-mail in the subject line (e.g., double conflict exam, homework question, etc.).
4. Your full name must appear in the e-mail message.

Your email messages will be deleted as spam if you do not follow these rules.

There are three 45-question multiple-choice Hour Exams:

1. February 5, 2008
2. March 11, 2008
3. April 15, 2008

Exam locations will be announced on the course webpage and by e-mail.

CONFLICT EXAM: If you have a conflict with the exam time, you may sign up for the conflict exam, which is given at 5:45 p.m. on that same day. This sign-up option will appear in the Student Gradebook by the end of the second week of classes. To take the conflict exam you must sign up in the Student Gradebook by 10:00 p.m. on the Sunday preceding the exam.

DOUBLE CONFLICT EXAM:There is a double conflict exam given at 4:00 that same day. Only conflicts with other. UIUC classes make one eligible for the double conflict. You must e-mail Prof. Pitts detailed information of your UIUC conflicts, including your UIN, at least one week before the exam, so it can be cleared by the Emergency Dean (see below). You can view the “Answer(s) You Marked” in the “Exam Results by Question” options listed under “Gradebook and Exam Results” on the Course Web Site. If you think the displays do not accurately reflect what you bubbled in on your answer sheet, send an e-mail message to chubert@uiuc.edu. In your e-mail message, please include your name, the name of your discussion section, that this concerns Physics 140, the exam number, the question number(s) and answer letter(s).

Lecture Section A1: Wednesday, May 7, 7-10pm

Lecture Section A2: Thursday, May 8, 1:30-4:30pm

The Final Exam has 96 multiple-choice questions, is comprehensive with a slight weighting on the material after the third hour exam. Students are initially signed up to take the exam for the lecture in which they are enrolled. If you wish to change to the other exam, you must sign up in the Student Gradebook before 10:00 pm April 29. This sign-up option will be available in the in the second half of the semester.

Homework: 140 points
Discovery Rooms: 140 points
iClicker: 60 points
Each Hour Exam (3): 140 points each (420 total points)
Final Exam: 240 points
TOTAL POSSIBLE: 1000 points

Your final grade for Physics 140 will be based on your total score on all the components of the course (after the lowest DR and homework grades are dropped). Letter grade ranges are: A+(900), A(860), A-(840), B+(820), B(790), B-(770), C+(750), C(700), C-(660), D+(620), D(550) and D-(500), where the number in parentheses is the lowest score for that grade.

HWs: You will be graded on 13 homework assignments (14 total with the lowest one dropped), 10 points each. To get your HW score, multiply your total sum of points of your 13 kept HW assignments times 140/130.

DRs: You will be graded on 9 DRs (10 total with the lowest one dropped); each DR is worth 1 point. To get your DR score, multiply the sum of your remaining 9 DR grades times 140/9.

iClicker: Each lecture in which the iClicker is used is worth 2 points. The number of lectures in which the iClicker is used is 23, but you will be graded on only 19: the lowest four grades will be dropped. Your iClicker grade is then the sum of your points times 30/19.

HEs: Your hour exams are 45 questions each. To get your score for each HE, multiply your score times 140/45.

Final: The Final Exam has 96 questions and is worth 240 points. To get your final exam score, multiply your number of correct answers times 240/96.

EX grade: “Excused Absence” (see Section XII):

HEs: Your grade becomes your grade on the final. If you have an EX on an hour exam, you calculate your grade by multiplying your Final Exam grade times 140/240.

HWs, DRs and iClicker: After dropping the lowest grades, your EX grade becomes the average of the rest of the grades.

AB grade: “Absence” . This becomes a 0 (zero) at the end of the semester.

If you must be absent from class, please follow the applicable set of directions as detailed below. Absences will be excused only if the Emergency Dean approves an absence letter for you. If you have any questions about an Emergency Dean approval, you must contact Dean Broga, Emergency Dean in the Office of the Dean of Students. You must ask Dean Broga to forward a letter directly to Prof. Pitts; we will not accept a copy of the letter from a student. All excused absences must be turned in and recorded by noon on April 29 (Please check your Student Gradebook).

Confining Illness:

1. Receive treatment from McKinley Health Center or your private physician on the day of your illness.
2. As soon as is possible, bring your paperwork from McKinley Health Center or your private physician to the Emergency Dean at 300 Student Services Building. Request an absence letter for Physics 140 and any other classes requiring an Emergency Dean letter.
3. If an absence letter is approved, you will receive an Excused Absence.
4. For short absences of 1-2 days you can submit the paperwork from McKinley or your private physician directly to Professor Pitts.

Death of Family Member or Friend:

1. Contact the Emergency Dean. Request an absence letter for Physics 140.
2. As soon as is possible, provide any required documentation to the Emergency Dean.
3. If an absence letter is approved, you will receive an Excused Absence.

Personal Emergency:

1. For a personal emergency over which you have no control, contact Dean Broga to discuss your situation and to request an absence letter for Physics 140.
2. If Dean Broga is out of the office for several days, notify Professor Pitts (kpitts (at) uiuc.edu).
3. If Dean Broga approves an absence letter, you will receive an Excused Absence.
4. For short absences of 1-2 days , notify Professor Pitts (kpitts (at) uiuc.edu).

Emergency Dean: Dean Abbie Broga

How Excused Absences are applied:

Hour Exams: If your Confining Illness or Personal Emergency Excused Absence dates include the date of an hour exam, you will receive an EX grade. Your EX grade becomes your fractional grade the Final Exam (i.e., calculate your grade by multiplying your Final Exam grade times 140/240).

Homework Assignments: Since you have a full week to do your homework assignments, an EX grade will only be granted if four or more days of that week are Excused Absences. Please do your homework assignments early, just in case an emergency occurs! An EX grade becomes the average of the other homework grades, after the lowest homework grade is dropped.

Discovery Rooms: Since you can easily make up a missed DR in another section during the Wednesday morning through Tuesday Noon DR week, an EX grade only be given if it was not possible for you to re schedule your DR in another section during the week that your Excused Absence(s) were granted. An EX grade becomes the average of the other DR grades after the lowest DR grade is dropped.

This course is meant to be a fun “kitchen cabinet” course to help us learn how things actually work. We hope that by the end of the course you will understand why it is easier to stay up on your bicycle when you are moving than when you are standing still, why violins and pipe organs are shaped the way they are and why you need to always wear your seatbelt, pulled tightly, in a car or airplane. But even more, we hope you will discover questions you never even thought of before the course started, and that this gentle touch into physics will spark your curiosity about the intriguing puzzles that surround us every day.

Physics is actually a lot of fun and we believe that if you can find that out, and hopefully learn scientific perspective along the way, you will enjoy yourself and find your life enriched.