.. Physics - 2D Fall 2020

Welcome to Physics 2D, Relativity and Quantum Physics, Fall 2020

You will learn many new physical concepts in this course that will challenge your intuition and spark your imagination. How can identical twins age at vastly different rates? How does mass get converted into energy, and energy into mass? How can particles behave as waves, and waves behave as particles? These strange things happen when speeds become much faster than and/or distances much smaller than the speeds and distances we encounter in our everyday experience. As you become familiar with these new concepts they will become progressively less strange and more fascinating.

To do well in this course it is important to attend all lectures, discussion and problem sessions, pay attention during them, ask questions when you don't understand, and take notes. Also, to work on the problem assignments every week, to come to office hours especially if you are falling behind, and to read the textbook as well as other books on reserve.

Announcements

Course Materials:

Course Information:

Lectures: M 6-6:50p, Tu, Th 12:30-1:50p
Quizzes: some Mondays, 6-6:50p (see Schedule of lectures and quizzes link above)
Discussion: Wed 6-6:50p
Problems: Th 5-6:50p

Course Text: Serway, Moses, Moyer, Modern Physics, Third Edition (2005). Get hard copy or ebook at UCSD bookstore , or elsewhere (amazon etc).
Supplementary textbook material

Course Description: See General Catalog
Final exam: Friday December 18, 11:30am-2:29pm

Instructor and TA Information -

Instructor: Jorge E. Hirsch, 5310 Mayer Hall, Ext. 4-3931, e-mail: jhirsch@ucsd.edu
                     Zoom Office Hours (click here) : Monday 1:30 - 2:30 pm, Friday 2:00 - 3:00 pm, or by appt.
                    
Teaching Assistant: Raghav Kansal, e-mail: rkansal@ucsd.edu
                                  Zoom Office Hours: Friday 12-1pm, https://ucsd.zoom.us/j/98196960555
Grader: Mingyun Cao, e-mail: m2cao@ucsd.edu

Course Format

HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENTS: Problems from the book will be assigned every week, solutions will be posted on the web page. To fully understand the material, you should work the problems on your own without help of the solution key. The homeworks will not be graded.
DISCUSSION AND PROBLEM SECTIONS: Attendance and participation is strongly encouraged. In addition to learning, extra credit of up to 10% of course grade can be earned by attending and participating.
QUIZZES: Quizzes will be given on alternate Mondays (five quizzes), see Course Schedule. There will be lectures on the other Mondays.
FINAL EXAM: There will be an in-class final exam on finals week.
COURSE GRADE: Will be the best grade resulting from the following possible combinations: n quizzes n*15% of the course grade, final exam (100-n*15)% of the course grade, with n=5 or 4 or 3 or 2 or 1. PLUS up to 10% extra credit for attendance and performance in Discussion and Problem Sections.
Grading scale: A: >85 %, B: >65%, C: >45%, D: >30%.

General Information