HW 12 has a brain-burner.

Homework assignment 12 is ready now. Sorry - it is a bit late, so I will let you all have an extra 48 hours on it. It will be due Wednesday morning, instead of Monday morning.

The fifth problem on this homework is a real barn-burner!! :)

This is the last mini-workout before the midterm exam on Wednesday.

Quantum physics, photons and ping pong balls

Here is an interesting news article about quantum states and how they work, as an elaboration of my comments in lecture this morning.

Blurb:

Researchers have shown that removing a photon from a laser beam can lead to it containing more photons than it had before... Measuring position and momentum in different orders produces different results. "You are working at the quantum level," explains Marco Bellini from the National Institute of Applied Optics in Florence, Italy. "If you did it with ping-pong balls it wouldn't work this way," he says.
K. Sanderson, News@Nature.com, 27 Sept. 2007

Read more (while on campus)

Read more (if off campus)

Homework 11 and where to find it.

Conservation of momentum homework #11 is available to work on right now.

Some of you might have missed the previous HW because you were clicking on the Assessments page in Webcourses. After a certain number of assessments, the Assessments page starts putting new HW assessments on its second page. You might not have paged over to page 2.

But if you log in to the home page and look for the yellow pickup truck icon, then you will see all of the HW assignments in one big multi-column list. That is the best way to find HW.

If you took notes last Wednesday...

If you took notes on the CPS questions from last Wednesday, Sept. 19, please post the questions in the discussion area called "CPS, Wed., Sept. 19," and this will help me sort out the trouble with CPS scores last Wednesday.

If there are more than two or three postings already, with the same questions you have, then you do not need to post. I will lock the discussion after a few students post. Gracias!

Homework 10, ready for your input

Go try homework 10 now, on the Webcourses site. Remember the impulse formula we covered today.

Sept. 14 lecture podcast

I just set up the lecture podcast for Sept. 14. It is on the Uvision visual podcasting site.

Homework 9 is UP.

Homework assignment 9 is set up and ready for both sections. You will want to study pp. 97-98 on impulse, FΔt, before tackling this homework.

HW 8 is ready to go.

More homework is ready, covering some basic concepts from today's lecture on chapter 6 toppics. Look in the yellow pickup truck icon in Webcourses.

HW 7 is up and ready to go.

Homework 7 is now ready to go. You might find it handy to review the gravitational strength mini-workout before trying this homework. Both files are in the HW section with the yellow pickup truck.

New exercises in the Uvision podcast

I just published seven (7) new visual podcasts corresponding to homework exercises up to chapter 6. Go take a look.

Friday, Sept. 14 lecture is UP.

The lecture from Friday, Sept. 14, is now up on the UVISION website. GO FOR IT!

Midterm exam 1 grades are UP.

OK, the scores for midterm exam 1 are now UP. Look in your My Grades page in Webcourses. The score posted is how many points you got out of 45, one point per question. It is not a percentage. I will have printouts for you next week.

Nobody aced it, 45/45; only four out of 342 did not earn a passing score. The average for earlybird section 9:30 AM was 33, and for the midmorning section 10:30 AM the average was 32. So this means that the earlybirds are the GENIUS section until at least Oct. 3! :)

Remember, we keep the best three scores out of four midterms. For many of you, that will end up being this first exam score. So if your grade is a little stinky compared to what you are shooting for, stay with it and do not be discouraged. We can attain victory!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good work, everybody! That was a tough exam!

HW 6 is ready to go, due Monday morning.

Homework #6 is now up in Webcourses, and it is ready to roll. Before tackling this assignment,you might find it handy to read and study the paragraphs and diagrams in chapter 5, up to about p.80.

And remember to THINK.

P.S. No news yet on exam 1 scores. Do not bug Dr. B about exam scores.

Midterm exam 1 today

Midterm examination 1 is today in class. Bring a raspberry-flavored scantron with the UCF logo on it, 50 questions on each side. Bring a pencil and eraser, and a calculator if you like. If you forget your calculator, it will not be a huge disaster.

And be ready to think!

Today's lecture is now UP.

I podcasted the Sept. 10 lecture, just now. Look at the lectures page in the Uvision website.

CPS points and study guides are UP.

I just inserted the CPS scores from today's session, PSC4, and the scores from Friday's sessiom, PSC3. For each session, there is a figure for how many questions you answered, and how many you got correct. At the end of the semester, those two sets of figures will determine your CPS regular points and the CPS bonus points. (See syllabus.)

Also, in the "CPS Hideout" you will find study guides from Friday's and today's sessions, in PDF. You might benefit from using them to study a bit.

Friday's lecture is UP on uvision.

The visual podcast of the Friday lecture is now available at Uvision, http://web.mac.com/uvision.

The visual podcasts of lectures actually make up a different podcast series, so you will want to subscribe to it individually in iTunes, in addition to your subscription to the "uvision podcasts" that we have been using since the first day of classes. So you will actually have two separate iTunes subscriptions now.

I will try to get as many lectures up as possible, time permitting. I hope to get Monday's lecture up on Monday afternoon.

Homework 5 and a homework redemption assignment

Homework 5 is now available in Webcourses. Two of the questions are about some concepts in chapter 4 that you all are ready to grapple with, so do some skimming ahead in chapter 4.

ALSO: There is a mega combo-basket redemption assignment that you can use to rescue your points from the nastiness that occured with assignments HW1 and HW2. If you already have all the HW1 and HW2 points in your My Grades page, you can bypass the combo-basket redemption assignment.

Uvision, new podcasts

There are four new visual podcasts at Uvision. Three of them are about forces, chapter 3 and chapter 4 concepts.

Homework 4 is UP

There is a new homework assignment up and ready for you. Sorry, it is a bit late. You can have til dinner time, Friday, to complete it. Look in the yellow pickup truck on our Webcourses homepage.

One of the questions is a brain-burner.

Homework 3 is now UP.

Homework 3 is now up for both sections in Webcourses, due Wednesday before lecture. Click the yellow pickup truck icon, and you will see the homework. It is related to our discussion of average speed and time intervals in lecture on Friday.

Office hours for the semester

OK, my office hours for the semester will be Tuesdays, 8:00-11:30 AM, in Starbuck's cafe in the UCF Bookstore. I will usually be at a table near a wall outlet for my Powerbook. I like Starbuck's because it's more comfortable, it's fun to meet there, and it's a fairly convenient location; my actual office in MAP is pathetic.

The normal procedure in office hours is that

1. I have no agenda, but
2. you have the agenda.

So drop in if you can squeeze it into your schedule, and bring questions or ideas that you want to discuss. We can get ready for lecture, double-check homework or talk about pretty much any subject except the parking situation on campus (don't get me started). ;)