PH 203 General Physics

Algebra/trig-based General Physics sequence for science majors. Concepts include electricity, magnetism, and selected topics from modern physics. Emphasizes conceptual understanding, mathematical representations, problem solving, applications and science skills. Lab included.

Credits

Prerequisite

PH 202 with a C- or better

Course Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to:
1. Understand charge and analyze situations in terms of how charge moves
2. Understand and apply Coulomb’s Law to situations using FBDs and Newton’s 2nd Law
3. Understand, construct and evaluate energy bar charts for situations involving static electricity
4. Understand and apply electric fields and voltage fields to analyze situations
5. Understand and apply the concepts of voltage, current resistance and power in electrical circuits
6. Analyze circuits in terms of series and parallel connections
7. Understand and apply Kirchhoff's Laws
8. Understand magnetic fields and how they are created
9. Determine magnetic fields using Ampere’s Law for special cases
10. Understand and apply the Lorentz force law for moving charges and currents
11. Understand and apply Faraday’s Law and Lenz’s Law to physical situations
12. Understand and explain the origins of Faraday’s Law
13. Understand Einstein’s postulates and the reasons for proposing them
14. Analyze situations using Einstein’s postulates
15. Understand and apply the concepts of time dilation and length contraction
16. Understand, construct and evaluate spacetime diagrams from different frames of reference
17. Understand and apply Einstein’s energy and momentum equations
18. Understand and explain sources of fields from different reference frames
19. Understand the historical origins of Quantum Mechanics
20. Apply ideas of wave mechanics to simple situations
21. Choose coordinate systems and determine components of vectors
22. Extract information from representations
23. Construct new representations from given ones
24. Translate from one representation to another
25. Evaluate consistency of representations and modify appropriately
26. Consider different systems, coordinate systems, reference frames and methods of analysis to arrive at a solution
27. Evaluate units in an equation
28. Perform dimensional analysis on an unfamiliar system
29. Identify assumptions
30. Evaluate special cases for solving and checking problems
31. Use solutions to make predictions
32. Check solutions based on units, reasonable fit to the question
33. Use multiple representations to determine solutions
34. Use proportional reasoning to solve problems
35. Design and conduct an observational experiment:
36. Propose hypotheses for the observations
37. Design and conduct a testing experiment
38. Identify the hypotheses to be tested
39. Design a reliable experiment that tests the hypothesis
40. Distinguish between a hypothesis and a prediction
41. Make a reasonable prediction based on a hypothesis
42. Identify the assumptions made in making the prediction
43. Determine specific ways in which assumptions might affect the prediction
44. Decide whether the prediction and the outcome agree/disagree
45. *Make a reasonable judgment about the hypothesis
46. *Revise hypotheses when necessary
47. Design and conduct an application experiment
48. Identify the problem to be solved
49. Design a reliable experiment that solves the problem
50. Use available equipment to make measurements
51. Make judgments about the results of the experiment
52. Evaluate the results by means of an independent method
53. Identify the shortcomings in an experimental design and suggest specific improvements
54. Choose a productive mathematical procedure for solving the experimental problem
55. Identify assumptions made in using the mathematical procedure
56. Identify relevant assumptions
57. Determine specific ways in which assumptions might affect the results
58. Propose and evaluate potential experiments
59. Evaluate assumptions in an experimental set up
60. Identify and estimate measurement errors in an experiment