Exam scores are up.

I got the exam scores back yesterday morning (section 0002) and late last night (section 0001). They are now UP.

Comments:

1. Morning section 0001, your scantron score went straight into Webcourses, no need to modify.
2. Afternoon section 0002, due to the CPS getting fried, I converted your scantron score (out of 77) to an 80 point equivalent. The formula I used is below:

Last thing to do before computing grades: The Chuck Norris Factor, on SMA and HW.

Brain-burners

This is the list of the toughest brain-burners on the final exam, in no particular order.

1. "Which way will the compass needle point?" ←was the toughest of all.
   
2. Two balloons attracting each other: might be oppositely charged; might be one charged, one uncharged.
   
3. Baseball trajectories and hang time
   
4. "Suzy vs. Harry" with friction
   
5. "Sliding coin" -- stopping time, stopping distance
   
6. "loop-the-loop"
   

These questions were real bearcats to think out and answer correctly.

I will be posting scores in a few minutes.

Genius section

The afternoon section 0002 is the genius section for the semester. Even though they are fewer than the morning section, the "after lunch bunch" has consistently more top scores on midterms and higher averages on midterms. This is also true on the final exam. Chuck Norris would be proud of the afternoon section.

I am analyzing all the exam scores and so forth, and I hope to have them posted up by tomorrow morning, if not sooner.

Radio silence

I will be making last minute details on the final exam for you morning section 0001 students, so I expect to be in the proverbial "radio silence" this morning. This means I will probably not be responding to course mail and discussion postings until after the test.

Final exam for section 0001

Final exam today
for morning section 0001
10:00 AM, sharp.

No show me the money yet.

Section 0002, no data back from test scoring yet. When I dropped off the exams last night at 4:05 PM, they told me they would not be working this weekend, either -- some semesters they DO work overtime. So no data will be forthcoming until next week, maybe not til Wednesday if they are as slow as they have been during the semester. One of the reasons I hate scantrons.

Now I will catch some ZZZZZ.

Final exam today for afternoon section

Final exam today for afternoon section 0002
1:00 PM, sharp.
Large CPS section, so bring your clicker.

Force on current carrying copper bar

This video will be available soon.

What direction is the horseshoe magnet's magnetic field in this demonstration. The camera is sharp enough that you can figure it out after close inspection. Good camera work, Michelle P.!



Large nice versions are already up on iTunes U.

Take semester analytical summary test

The university has a summary analytical test for everybody to take. It's fifteen minutes, over in the "GEP PSC1121 09Fall" area of Webcourses.

The exam is short and will be available until Dec. 14th. Please take it before your final exam.

Bonus: Design a question for Final Exam.

You can contribute questions for the final exam, using the Discussions area, "BONUS Design a question for Final Exam."

Usual procedure: create a question on your own, indicate the correct answer with * an asterisk, and type in the study area for the concept: page and chapter, plus date of lecture if applicable. If I select your question for the final exam, it will earn you 2 bonus points.

Faraday cage 2

Here is the Faraday cage video from afternoon section, complete with front row guidance from John H.



And the big nice versions, in .m4v format, are in our iTunes U in the "Demonstrations" tab and in the "Demonstrations-mobile" tab.

Remember: we will feature Faraday cage questions on the final exam, so give this demonstration and the earlier video a good look.

By the way, in each of the Faraday cage videos, we discuss the graphite in the pencil. Here are some links to Webelements.com, for carbon and, for comparison, copper. Look at the resistivity of each substance. It is the intrinsic measure of a substance that gives you an idea how well it conducts electricity: low resistivity, good conductor.

1. Carbon spec sheet.
2. Copper spec sheet.

Gloria's S.I. review sheet is up.

Students, go to the Gloria Scott zone on the home page, and there you shall find that PDF of Gloria's S.I. review sheet.

Sweet wave in Hawaii

Excellent.

Exam guides and office hours

If you go to the Arnold icon on the course home page, you will find the exam guides for Exam 3. For each item on your test form, A, B, C or D, there is a short blurb or description to let you know precisely what your incorrect exam questions were about.

So look at your exam printouts. Then check the exam guide for that exam form. That will let you know semi-precisely what to study before the final.

I will try to do exam 2 and exam 1 files, also.

I have all your exam printouts handy in my office, room 412 of Math and Physics Building. Drop in any time today to pick them up.

Whoops! Room change for S.I. review Tuesday night

Gloria's S.I. review session has been switched to Room 218 ABCD in the Student Union. The date and time will be the same: Tuesday, Dec. 8th from 6:00-8:00 PM.

Chuck Norris mega-combo review

The Chuck Norris mega-combo review homework assignment is now UP. It is a big one, and you have until noon, Friday, to finish it up. Use it as a study tool. There are a few brain burners in there. Nice.

SSG signups will open at 8 PM tonight.

At 8 PM tonight, Sunday night, SSG signups will be visible and activated for the first group. Look for the blue SSG icon, then click through and find yourself an SSG session that fits your schedule. If the blue icon is not visible, you are not in the first group.

I will open up the SSGs for the rest of the two sections at 5 PM, Monday afternoon.

iTunes U bonus point

I just uploaded the iTunes U bonus point for 13 more students. That brings us up to Nov. 4th.

By Tuesday, I hope to have one more gigantic spreadsheet (20,000 lines) of data to analyze and extract the very last few students' names for the iTunes U bonus point. If you drop in for office hours, most likely I will be working on that big spreadsheet!

The number of students subscribed to the visual podcast as of Nov. 4th is 194, not as many as we needed for our Friday plan, but still pretty good.

Grading ins and outs

In the next week or so, I will be messing around with the gradebook frequently. So do not panic is all the HW points disappear for an hour or other weirdness. It is just me working in the gradebook. :)

Prelim

I have activated the "Total semester points" line in your My Grades page. Right now it contains CPS pointage and best two midterms. After Monday, I will also add the HW pointage out of 16. After your final, I will get the final exam points and bonus points in there, too.

You can use the "Total semester points" figure to estimate your current grade going into the final exam:

1. Before Monday evening: divide your "Total semester points" by 104, and then look up the percentage value on the table below. If I gave a semester grade based on CPS and best two midterms, this is what it would be.
2. After I add in the last HW27 points on Monday evening, do the same thing, but divide by 120. This would be your semester grade if I were to give it based upon CPS, HW and best two midterms.

Your bonus points, which are not all in yet, will boost that.

Here is the semester grade scale again:

Preliminary letter grade	Percentage
A	0.90 or higher
B	0.75
C	0.60
D	0.50
F	less than 0.50

NOTE: the semester grade is based on points. See syllabus.

CPS complete

I just uploaded your regular CPS pointage into Webcourses. These are the 24 points (or less) that you earned for your semester grade through answering CPS questions in lecture. Not everybody got all 24, but a ton of you did pretty well. These points are in the "CPS pointage" in your My Grades page.

Also, in the "CPS correct bonus" line, you will see whether you received the 4 bonus points for answering 75% of the CPS questions correctly. Not everybody got these 4 bonus points, but a decent fraction of you did.

Both of these CPS data are in accord with the syllabus.

Monday we will have the Chuck Norris mega-combo review in SMA, so bring your CPS clicker!

Homework 27 has a mighty, mighty brain burner.

The last regular homework assignment of the semester is now up, Homework 27. As always, it is due on Monday at the normal times. It contains a real brain burner that, if you can understand the correct answer, you will have put together concepts from August and December. Good.

Start discussion threads on the brain burner, and we can sort it out.

More HW coming, the mega-combo review. Maybe later tonight -- I have to catch some zzzzz right now.

Office hours etc.

Next week:

1. Sunday: first group signs up for SSG, starting Sunday evening.
2. Monday lecture:
   1. The quantum of light, demonstration;
   2. Mega-combo review in SMA.
3. Tuesday:
   1. Dr. B office hours all day, drop-in when you have some time.
   2. Gloria's S.I., 6 PM, Student Union. (See her announcement blurb below.)
   3. First SSG sessions.
4. Wednesday: More SSG sessions
5. Thursday: Last SSG sessions
6. Friday: final exam for afternoon section 0002, starting at 1:00 PM, sharp.
7. Saturday: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

And then morning section 0001, your guys' final exam is on Monday, Dec. 14, starting at 10 AM.

Centripetal force video prep for final exam

Sweet video of a real car taking a loop-the-loop.



We will make use of this excellent dynamical procedure on the final exam.

Homework 26 has two brain burners plus...

You can go start working on Homework 26 now. It is due at the normal time, tomorrow, Dec. 4.

It has some review that will help us tackle diffraction effects and atomic spectra tomorrow in lecture. Plus there are two brain burners to challenge your grey matter.

Homework 26 and podcast

Today's lecture is up in iTunes U.

Also, Homework 26 will be ready for you to work on by lunchtime tomorrow.

Gloria's S.I. review, before the final

Here are the specs for Gloria Scott's S.I. review next week, before the final exam:

1. Tuesday, December 8
2. 6:00 - 8:00 PM
3. Student Union 316 A, B, C, D

Good.

And even if you can only make 20 minutes of this session, it will be helpful!

Final exam schedule for all classes

Public Service Announcement:

Here is the schedule for final exam week, for all classes.

University of Central Florida Exam Schedule

Make sure that you know all of your exam times, and if there is a conflict with your PSC1121 final exam, let me know. It happens occasionally. We will coordinate with the other instructor.

WARNING: if this is your first semester at UCF, read that schedule carefully!! It is set up weirdly, in my opinion. My first semester at UCF, I got caught napping b/c I read the schedule incorrectly. What a disaster.

By the way, we stick to our exam schedule by necessity, so do not ask me to take it early or late. Your section has one and only one time for its final exam, as printed out on the syllabus from Day One.

Monday's lecture is UP.

You can view and listen to the Monday lecture on iTunes U now. I had to "borrow" a few horseshoe magnet images from other universities, but otherwise it is the regular Keynote slides and the doc cam PDF.

iTunes U survey

I recently got a request from the university that you all complete a questionnaire about your experiences with UCF on iTunes U. Only by hearing from every single student can UCF continue to improve the effectiveness of UCF on iTunes U.

As a reminder, I cannot see your questionnaire responses, and this UCF on iTunes U questionnaire is in no way related to the online Student Perception of Instruction you've also been asked to complete.

As a reminder, you may access the questionnaire at the following URL until Monday, December 7 at 11:59pm.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dGpuUWRBX09lN014eEszYjBsSVNiTGc6MA

If you have any questions about the questionnaire or any problems completing it, please send a message to idev@mail.ucf.edu for assistance.

P.S. Just so you know, the university knows the difficulty we have had getting your NID from the usage logs. I also got a faculty survey! :)

Homework 25 is ready to go.

Your homework is ready to tackle, due on Wednesday. You might also want to double check the doc cam PDF of morning class, which I will upload now.

CPS points only for afternoon section

The L40 CPS data are only for the afternoon section. You guys in the morning section did not quite have time for CPS, but the afternoon genius section did have time.

So I posted up points for the afternoon section.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, I will have one more question for the morning section. E.g., if my CPS lesson is 10 questions for afternoon, the morning section will be 11 questions. That will even everybody out, even though the L40 rows look lonely and forgotten for you all in morning section.

By the way, I always upload zeros to EVERYONE'S CPS rows in the gradebook. I do this so that Webcourses will compute the CPS running subtotals properly. Webcourses acts weird if it has a blank space with which to compute, so

1. my first move is always to pave each CPS line in the grade book with zeros,
2. then replace the zeros with actual CPS answered and CPS correct scores for everybody who clicked.

Space shuttle, what a machine!

What a great machine. Leaves orbit at 8:29 AM while over Indonesia, south Pacific, then lands safely 75 minutes later at Kennedy.



Nice.

More digital video of the hair experiments

Here are Lydia, Michelle and Madeleine donating their hair styles to scientific experimentation with the van de Graaff generator.

Gabrielle and William defeat the Faraday cage.

Science experts William and Gabrielle find a way to defeat the Faraday cage in morning lecture yesterday.



Also in iTunes U. Excellent.

Homework

You guys have worked HARD this semester, and we are now looking good for a leisurely stroll through the last chapter of the semester, "Electromagnetism."

Therefore, by the power vested in me by the Sunshine State, I hereby declare:

Your homework this weekend is

1. Chow down with family and friends for Thanksgiving Day.
2. Reach out a generous helping hand to the needy or lonely.
3. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

See you on Monday.

When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.

HW ready

Make sure to look over the podcast when it is ready and/or the doc cam files for Nov. 23, before you tackle Homework 24. There are two brain burners.

Parallel circuit and the brightness level of the light bulbs

Another crude but effective video from yesterday.



Thanks to Gloria S. for operating the HD cam. Good work, Gloria!!

P.S. I will drop the videos into iTunes U as soon as I drive up to campus this morning.

Combo circuit demonstration video, various formats

Crude but effective high-def 1080p video from today's lecture demonstration is now up. First up: the series of two light bulbs. You can view the YouTube version here or the higher quality version in iTunes U.

1. "Demonstrations" which holds the larger format video, or
2. "Demonstrations-mobile" which contain the smaller file "mobile" version, which might be faster if you are on iPhone.

Exam 3 is UP.

I just uploaded your scantron scores for Exam 3. The score is out of 40, since we did not use CPS, only scantron. I will be working on the gradebook here in Webcourses so that you can see your "best two out of three midterms" subtotal.

CPS threshhold

Right now, if you have 99 CPS answered, or more, you are on track for getting 24/24 points on your semester grade. That means you could have missed 16 questions -- one pre-exam SMA review, or about 3 average lectures.

If you have 95 CPS answered, or more, by my rounding up method, you also will get 24/24.

At 94 CPS answered, you will nab 23/24 for your semester grade. In general, if you are below 99 right now, you must solve this proportion:

yay

Friday's lecture is up on iTunes U now.

Homework 23

GO for launch on homework now. HW 23 requires a bit of reading in chapter 21 before you light into it.

This assignment is due on Monday, usual time.

Friday lecture podcast is up not up.

Friday's lecture is uploading now onto iTunes U, kind of poky, but it ought to be up in a few minutes.

Unfortunately, the upload speed into the iTunes U server is down to 1 kb per century, approximately. :(

Somewhere, the internet is running on citrus batteries, I guess.

So I will try to upload it later.

No news on exams yet

No news on exam scores yet. Scantron machines need to be dealt with. Bah!

Exams are getting scored; see you Friday for lecture.

Exams are in the process of being graded. Perhaps by Friday at lecture, we will have printouts.

By the way, Friday's lecture will have a battery demonstration and we will record in high-def digital video again, with volunteers from the audience. No sparks but definitely interesting.

Monday and Wednesday lectures next week will also have some demonstrations with cell phones and other electric systems. The cell phone demonstration will totally psych your mind.

Today's lecture is up on iTunes U.

Today's lecture on the electric field is now up on iTunes U.

Today's SMA study guide is up.

Your scores for today's SMA session are now UP. Also, the SMA study guide is up in the CPS area, blue mailbox icon.

Last SSG now open.

Penelope's SSG is now open for latecomers. Slide over to Webcourses and snag a spot, FAST!

Her group meets at 8 PM tonight, at the library.

Homework and CPS updates

I just updated all the HW and CPS scores in Webcourses. Right now you have

1. 234 homework points
2. 101 CPS points.

At semester's end, we will convert CPS scores to 24 points on the semester grade, as lined out in the syllabus. For CPS, you will get all 24 points if you have answered 85% of the questions, either right or wrong. So if your "CPS answered running subtotal" reads 85 or more today, you have a lock on the 24 points for now. However, we have about 8 more lectures, so that result can change between now and the end of the semester.

For homework, you just go by the straight percentage. E.g., if you have 204 HW points today, that is about 87% of the homework and you get 14 out of 16 points on your semester grade.

CPS and HW points come in right handy this time of the semester.

Early Bird Special

I just activated another Monday afternoon special study group. It's 4:45 PM at the Library, the Early Bird Special. If you have not gotten signed up yet, get into Webcourses and snag a spot with the William's group!

Lydia and the van de Graaff generator

Sweet video from the afternoon section yesterday.

SSG signups ready

Special Study Groups for Exam 3 are now ready for signups. GO GO GO!

Homework is so lovely, so fine.

Your 22nd homework assignment is now UP. I recommend that you read the pages 411-414 carefully before you tackle this assignment. It is due Monday at the usual time.

I am going to start getting SSG signups ready next. Hopefully by lunchtime or early afternoon I will open SSG signups.

Infra red

We spoke on Monday about thermal radiation as a tool for studying weather, focused mainly on water's spectrum.

Recently NASA crashed a spacecraft into a crater near the moon's south pole. Looking at the spectra of the ejecta from the crash landing, NASA scientists now reckon they have detected a good amount of water. Interesting.

S.I. Review next Monday night

Gloria Scott will hold the S.I. review next Monday night, 6:00-8:00 PM, in PSY108.

We are attempting to schedule the SSG sessions at other times, not conflicting with S.I. review, so that you can possibly go to S.I. review AND to an SSG session.

APOD: Scale of Earth-moon system and a Saturn-moon system

Earlier this semester, we studied the true scale of the Earth-moon system. It is tough to get a good photo of Earth and our moon together, but here is one of Saturn and one of its moons, Tethys, that little blip halfway out and below the rings. Click for full size view. Again, it is plain to see that a moon and its planet are very different sizes. Excellent.

SSG leaders

SSG leaders, I will be sending you a course mail message later today, in Webcourses.

No homework

No homework today. See you on Friday for regular lecture, and for more discussion of electrostatic forces.

CPS

Starting today, you are to consider a CPS device to be the equivalent of a scantron exam form. Therefore, operating someone else's CPS response pad is considered cheating.

I do not want to EVER see anyone operating two CPS response pads in lecture.

Hurricane Ida

500 mile radius circle:
its center is Huricane Ida, the red circle just east of Cancun;
it curves a bit beyond Miami and not quite as far as Orlando.

Here are some of this morning's specs on Hurricane Ida.  Note the central pressure, 983 millibars.

ESTIMATED MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE 983 MB
EYE DIAMETER 20 NM
MAX SUSTAINED WINDS 80 KT WITH GUSTS TO 100 KT.
64 KT....... 15NE 0SE 0SW 15NW.
50 KT....... 40NE 30SE 20SW 30NW.
34 KT.......120NE 70SE 40SW 90NW.
12 FT SEAS..150NE 120SE 75SW 150NW.
WINDS AND SEAS VARY GREATLY IN EACH QUADRANT. RADII IN NAUTICAL
MILES ARE THE LARGEST RADII EXPECTED ANYWHERE IN THAT QUADRANT.

A fair day at sea level has a pressure rating of 1013 millibars. Right now, Miami is reporting 30.06 inches, 1018 mb; Orlando is reporting 30.18 inches, 1022 mb. So right now: ΔP = -35 mb from Orlando to the eye of Hurricane Ida. That is only a 3.4% dip, yet it is an enormous change in the weather. Total distance from Orlando to the eye is approximately 580 miles. Excellent.

Hurricane Ida to Orlando

---

1. National Hurricane Center
2. Orlando weather data
3. Computer models: where will it go?
4. Weather Channel update

Air pressure, the source of the F = ma that lifts a 747 carrying the space shuttle into flight. Amazing.

Friday's lecture podcast is UP -- as a video.

I made an experimental video version of Friday's lecture, based on Apple Keynote. It is regular audio on top of Keynote slides, mixed down into a Quicktime movie. For this reason, it is about 187 Mb in size... a hefty download.

Because it is so large, I slapped it into a new, special tab on our iTunes U page, as shown in the diagram: "Video lecture." It is significantly different from the enhanced audio podcasts from previous lectures. I am not sure yet if I like it, so see how you like it. Remember, we are the pioneers on iTunes U at UCF, so we have to sort out the good from the bad.

P.S. I still have a few regular enhanced audio podcasts to upload, from earlier in the week, Nov. 4 and Nov. 2!

Homework 21 has 10 questions.

Homework 21 is ready now. It has 9 regular type questions and one brain burner. HW 21 is due on Monday at the usual times.

GO TO IT!!!

Homework 20 will go active at noon today.

Your next homework, HW 20, will open for business at noon today. It will be due at the usual times on Friday.

HW 19 do-over

You can make another attempt on HW 19 to correct your score. It will stay open for business until 7 PM, Friday.

Homework 19 ready to go.

Your 19th homework assignment is now ready to go. It has a nice combo section that walks you through a full buoyancy force problem. It is due on Wednesday at the usual time.

Excellent meteor shower from direction of constellation Leo

Coming up in a few weeks is the Leonid meteor, best viewing between midnight and dawn, looking toward constellation Leo. Very cool. It is actually the leftovers of a comet that passes near Earth's orbit and leaves a trail of debris behind.

Excellent.

Homework 18 is ready.

Homework 18 is ready to go active at 5:00 PM today. It is due on Monday at the usual times.

Lecture UP

Wednesday's lecture is now UP on iTunes U. New music.

Homework 17 ready for tonight.

Homework 17 is ready to go active at 5 PM this afternoon. It is due on Friday at the normal time.

Biographical spec sheet

I just set up a biographical spec sheet about Thales of Miletus and good old Avogadro. It is in the Homework folder. Wednesday night's homework will query you about the Thales and Avogadro information, but you can read up on it starting now.

My current rheory about Avogadro: he was a space alien. Just look at that portrait, at left!

Homework 16 is rolling.

OK, homework 16 is rolling. It is about today's lecture concerning molecules, and it contains a brain-burner. It is due Wednesday at the regular time.

Excellent.

Exam 2 scantron scores are UP.

Exam 2 scores came in earlier this time. They are now UP in Webcourses, in the "..Exam 2 scantron" line of your My Grades page.

As before, some of you have not bubbled in your PID correctly or forgot to bubble in the test form, so there are a few handfuls of you with a zero. It is going to take some time before I dig out your exam and scantron and grade it by hand.

Some of you brought up your exam score nicely. Good.

No lecture this Friday.

I will be away from main campus today on university business. No class today, but make sure to get that mini-homework 15 squared away.

See you next Monday, Oct. 26 for regular lecture.

iTunes U situation

We are still working on the iTunes U situation.

Note: you guys are focused on that bonus point, but the real payoff comes if and when we execute the Friday strategy. That is what Chuck Norris and I are looking at.

Diagnostic test bonus (from August)

I finally updated the promised bonus points for taking the diagnostic test way back on the first week of classes. Look in your My Grades page.

Yay. And now Godzilla can get back to work, "protecting" the citizens of Tokyo.

SMA scores are up; new podcast

Your SMA points are now UP in Webcourses. Look on your My Grades page for the "..Exam 2 SMA" line. The "Exam 2.39 answer" line further down the page shows your actual answer on the SMA problem #39 -- correct answers are denoted by the + sign. There were a few students with "dna" also.

Hmmmm.... Afternoon section: three women got #39 correct, and only one of the men! Morning section, majority female on #39. What the?!

I spent a few minutes podcasting up the solution to #39 on today's exam. It was a brain burner of the nth degree, so if you were one of the top 4% of students who snagged it, you should feel confident! Take a look at iTunes U... it is actually a video, not an enhanced audio like lecture.

See you at lecture on Friday.