RETURN TO COLLEGE PHYSICS II

GOALS FORCOLLEGE PHYSICS II:

This is an algebra-based physics course. Before you register for it, you should find out whether your major requires a calculus-based physics course. If so, you should register for engineering physics. You should check the requirements at the college or university where you intend to transfer.

This course continues the work started in College Physics I. It continues with more detail in wave motion, and thermodynamics, and then moves on to electricity, electric current, magnetism, light, and optics. There is a longer discussion of the content of physics in the goals page for College Physics I, which you might want to read.

This course also deals a little bit with modern physics. It turns out that Newton's laws and the other principles studied in College Physics I work fine for ordinary-sized objects moving at ordinary speeds. But in some cases, they completely break down. For example moving objects need to be described by the Einstein relativity theory if they are moving at large (actually, rather extreme, from a human point of view) speeds. Other systems need to be described by quantum theory.

Modern physics is the study of systems that are involved in this breakdown of Newton's laws. It is a very large subject and cannot be dealt with in any kind of adequate way in a first physics course. In this course, you will study the boundaries a bit, and peer over these boundaries briefly in order to notice that there is a lot of physics on the other side.

The specific goals are pretty much the same as in College Physics I, but applied to the new topics:

1. One goal of any science course is to allow you to experience the type of reasoning and activities that scientists engage in. That sounds mysterious, but it really just means making theory and experiment agree. The slide show "Whut's a Scientist?" gives you some more explanation about this.
2. During the course, you will be asked to understand and discuss the fundamental principles of wave motion, thermodynamics, electricity, magnetism, optics, and a bit of modern physics. See the class schedule for a more complete list of topics.
3. Critical thinking is needed for physics as well as for any other field of human thought. Therefore part of the course asks you to demonstrate critical thinking by means of problem solving on exams and assignments.
4. Communication is important in physics as well as in any other field. Therefore you will be asked to communicate principles and their applications using written laboratory reports.
5. The study of these topics is quantitative. So you will be asked to apply mathematics to physics problems. The math will be confined to algebra and a small amount of trigonometry.
6. No course can ever present everything there is to know about any field of study. Therefore, you should approach this course from the point of view of "learning how to learn" the subject.