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Welcome to Dr. Elston's Physics 231 Course for Spring Semester 2004!

Announcements and News

Important announcements and news will appear here on a regular basis. Check here often! Older announcements that drop off the bottom of this page will be archived with lecture notes.

April 19, 2004

Course Evaluation: This course is being evaluated by the online evaluation system. Please submit your evaluation by visiting http://oira.tennessee.edu/sais/ and clicking on the area at the right-hand edge of the page, labeled "SPRING 2004 ONLINE EVALUATION"

April 19, 2004

Tentative Schedule for remainder of semester:

Mon Apr 19 - Remainder of Chapter 28 (Ampere's Law)

Wed Apr 21 - Highlights of Chapter 29 (Electromagnetic Induction)

Mon Apr 26 - Highlights of Chapter 30 (Inductance)

Wed Apr 28 - Course Review

Mon May 3 - Final Exam, 8:00 am - 10:00 am

April 11, 2004

Reminder: Hour Exam III is scheduled for Wednesday, April 14. This exam will cover Chapter 25, section 5, Chapters 26 and 27, and Chapter 28, sections 1-3.

April 11, 2004

The Chapter 28 homework set, originally due on April 19, has been postponed until April 21.

March 22, 2004

A new MasteringPhysics assignment for Chapter 26 is online.

March 15, 2004

Reading assignment:Chapter 26, sections 1-5.

March 1, 2004

An error that was discovered in lecture, in a formula for the energy stored in a charged capacitor, has been repaired. The slide containing the error appeared in the Lecture 11 notes as well as the Lecture 12 notes, so if you downloaded a copy of the Lecture 11 notes, you should either get a fresh copy or correct the error (U=1/2*Q^2/V should have read U=1/2*Q^2/C) on the copy you have.

March 1, 2004

Reading assignment:Chapter 25, sections 1-5. See new MasteringPhysics assignment online.

February 23, 2004

Reading assignment:Chapter 24, sections 1-4. Try to complete this by February 25. See new MasteringPhysics assignment online

February 15, 2004

The Chapter 23 homework assignment deadline is being extended to Feb 23. Some of the problems that were assigned "for practice" (they were ALL originally assigned for practice) have been changed to "for credit". In addition, some end-of-chapter questions have been assigned, as well. Some of these will be done in class on Wednesday, Feb. 18.

February 10, 2004

The solution to the "Trajectory of an electron in an electric field" STP problem that I outlined in lecture on Monday has been posted on the bulletin board across the hall from my office (Nielsen 515). Better yet, you can download it here

February 4, 2004

REMINDER: Hour Exam I is scheduled for February 11, during our normal meeting time. Hour Exam I will cover material from chapters 21, 22, and section 1 of Chapter 23. Most of lecture on February 9 will be devoted to a review of this material.

January 28, 2004

Slide #12 of today's lecture notes had an error in it, as we discovered in lecture today. The error has been repaired, and the pdf file stored under lecture notes was updated at 11:30 this morning. If you downloaded a copy of the lecture notes for today prior to 11:30, you should get a fresh (and corrected) copy. Hey - this stuff happens!

January 28, 2004

The chapter 22 problem assignment will be released on MasteringPhysics by 4:00 pm today

January 26, 2004

Several changes and announcements are necessary as a result of my unexpected hospitalization and absence on January 21, and because of time we have lost while "climbing the learning curve" with MasteringPhysics:

  • I am pushing the due date for the Chapter 21 homework set to February 2.
  • The exam scheduled for February 11 will not be moved; consequently, the material covered on that exam will be less. Exam I will cover material discussed in lecture through February 4.
  • We are behind; we will catch up, gradually.

    • One week remains until the first assignment due date. If you do not yet have access to MasteringPhysics, get an access code today. If you can not make it to my office during office hours or at some other time that I am in, ask one of the ladies in the main physics office (Nielsen 401) for a code.

    January 14, 2004

    If you need an access code for MasteringPhysics, you need to come to me so that I can keep a count for the publisher. Come during my office hours, or email me for a good alternate time.

    There are two assignments set up in MasteringPhysics. The first contains 3 introductory tutorial exercises that should take 20 minutes on average and which will help you with the math formula entry methods you'll need to use for the real problems. The intro assignment is due at 8 am on Monday, January 26. The second assignment is a collection of tutorial problems and "skill builders" in addition to about 5 end-of-chapter problems (I did roughly half of one of them in class today). This assignment is due in (approximately) 2 weeks, at 8 am on January 28.

    January 12, 2004

    I have researched the Lab Repeat Policy issue for those who asked whether repeating the course required repeating the lab. The specific departmental policy has been copied into the Labs page and into the Policies page.

    January 12, 2004

    IMPORTANT: Click on Policies in the navigation bar above and read the policies page.

    This course will use the online homework and tutoring system known as Mastering Physics. This system is being pilot tested in this course this semester. The cost of access to Mastering Physics is included in the cost of a new textbook, if you purchased it new.

    For those who have purchased a used textbook, and for this semester only, the publisher has generously offered free access. The mechanism for obtaining this free access has not yet been revealed to me, so I will make an announcement in class, and post the information here as it becomes available.

    To use MasteringPhysics, and to receive credit for the homework problems you work and submit through it, you must enroll online using the MasteringPhysics link in the navigation bar above. When you get to the first page of the MasteringPhysics site, click on the appropriate link, corresponding to our textbook. Register using the keycode issued with your textbook, and then add (or enroll in) this course, for which you will need to know the course ID. The course ID for this course is MPELSTON0001.