University of Houston

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Introduction

This Page will grow during the course of the semester. I plan to post homework solutions, the hour test questions and solutions after the tests are given and other related materials as they become available. In particular, watch this space for special announcements regarding schedule changes, etc

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Physics 3309 Syllabus

Edgar A. Bering, III
Science & Research I, Room 530D
Phone: 743-3543
e-mail: eabering@uh.edu
Office Hours: W 1:30-2:30; otherwise by appointment
Personal Home Page: http://www.uh.edu/~ebering/index.html
Course Home Page: http://www.uh.edu/~ebering/3309/ber3309.html

PHYS 3309, Sec. 09637, MWF 10:00 - 11:00 am, SR1 516

This course will cover chapters 1 through 10 in Classical Dynamics of Particles and Systems, 4th edition, by Marion and Thornton, Saunders College Publishing . There will be three hour exams: one at the end of chapter 2 on Oct. 9, one at the end of chapter 7 on Nov. 06 and one at the end of the course on Monday, Dec. 09. The final will be held 11:00-2:00 on Wednesday, Dec. 18, and will be comprehensive. No calculators or notes will be permitted during any examination; paper will be provided, so you only need to bring with you to each exam a pencil and an eraser. Each exam will focus on testing your problem solving skills.

Required homework will be assigned once each week and will be collected almost every Monday. Because of Labor Day, the first HW will be due on Sept. 16. Each problem will be graded on a scale of 0 to 10. Solutions will be posted below on the course home page. A penalty of 15 points will be assessed for homework turned in late. Under normal circumstances, students will not be permitted more than 2 late homework papers. Late homework must be turned in directly to me, not buried in a subsequent submission stack. Late homework will not be accepted after the solutions are posted or the next assignment is due, whichever comes first. The homework that is due the day before any hour test will not be accepted late under any circumstances. The homework assignments are listed below:

Due Date	Chapters	Problems
Sept. 16	1	1-	03	07	09	13	19	22	23	25
Sept. 23	1, 2	1-	31	33	37;	02-	01	05	09	13	17
Sept. 30	2	2-	21	22	25	29	31	33	37	39
Oct. 07	2, 3	2-	43	47	51	57;	3-	01	07	11	13
Oct. 14	3, 4	3-	19	21	27	29	33	39	41;	4-	03
Oct. 21	4, 5	4-	07	11	13	19	23;	5-	03	07	09
Oct. 28	5, 6, 7	5-	13	15	19;	6-	03	07	11;	7-	03	07
Nov. 04	7, 8	7-	09	15	17	23	27	29	33;	8-	03
Nov. 11	8	8-	07	11	14	17	23	27	31	35
Nov. 18	8, 9	8-	37	41;	9-	03	05	09	13	19	21
Nov. 25	9, 10	9-	25	31	33	39	45	49;	10-	01	07
Dec. 02	10, 11	10-	09	13;	11-	03	07	09	15	17	23
Dec. 09	11, 12	11-	27	29;	12-	01	07	09	17	19	23

Recommended Additional Problems and Exercises

The list of required homework problems should NOT be taken to represent the entirety of the problem solving that you should be doing in studying this material. The size of the homework assignments is determined by the grading budget not by pedagogical considerations. Ideally, you should do every exercise at the back of each chapter. Practically, this may not be possible for many of you. As a minimum target, you should try to do at least 24 exercises in addition to the required homework each week. The exact choice is up to you. For those who may some guidance in this choice, a list of recommendations is posted here.

The formula used to compute your numeric grade is the following:

1311for1.gif (2035 bytes)

Note that each quiz is equally weighted, that the quizzes constitute 45 percent of your final grade, that the final is 35 percent, and that you can gain 20 points by doing all of the homework correctly. That's usually more than the difference between a C and an A. Homework solutions, exam solutions and curves will only be distributed via posting to the course Web site.