1. Instructor: Chris Coffin
Physics 211
(welcome!)
Instructor: Chris Coffin
Wngr 283

2. Show web site (quick tour) after this slide.
See the PH 211 web site for all course information (and this is not on Blackboard):
Know the site well (no info is provided via paper).
PH 221 is the recitation for this course (optional for some majors, but required for others). It has its own web site:
Show web site (quick tour) after this slide.

3. For all registration issues, please go to the Physics Dept
For all registration issues, please go to the Physics Dept. office (Wngr 301). Unless you have explicit permission, do not attend any lecture, lab or recitation section you’re not registered for.
First labs meet this Thursday. Lab TAs and schedules will be posted on the web site (Contacts) by then—right now, the schedules are still not determined.
First recitations meet next week (Tuesday the 7th). See the PH 221 web site for all recitation TA info.

4. Everyone must own a TurningPoint NXT clicker (available at the bookstore.
Bring your clicker to every lecture, starting this Wed. (Don’t worry if you’ve never used the clicker—we will practice—and see also the After Class 1 materials.)
And for more detail on how clicker credit works, see the Syllabus online.
Show clicker.
Then show books.

5. Don’t be late. Class starts at the top of the hour.
Classroom Courtesy
Spend your tuition as you wish, but you must let others hear and see for the entire 50 minutes. So…
Don’t be late. Class starts at the top of the hour.
Silence your phone/tablet/computer
Do NOT start packing up before the lecture ends.
Show clicker.
Then show books.

6. Show web site (quick tour) after this slide.
Please break into small groups now (3 or 4 persons—whoever is sitting around you) and take a few minutes to decide among the group:
What are your three biggest concerns/worries/fears about this physics class? State them as simply as possible.
I’ll take an informal poll shortly and try to find out what the most common issues are, and we’ll talk about them.
Show web site (quick tour) after this slide.

7. What am I going to do in this course?
I am going to introduce each concept and how it connects with others—using examples and clicker questions.
I will also work some problems (at least the setup portions)—also with clicker questions.
But 50 minutes, three times a week is not nearly enough.
Show clicker.
Then show books.

8. It’s like telling someone how to play basketball.
“You cannot tell people physics. It cannot be done.”
– MIT Physics Professor (Eric Mazur)
It’s like telling someone how to play basketball.
Sure, I can describe/introduce the basic ideas, but to build the skill, you have to practice. Regularly.
Simply “cramming” before an exam doesn’t help.
Memorization is not key, either. Every basketball game—every player, every team—will be different. So your skills need to be fundamental but flexible.
Show clicker.
Then show books.

9. Can you finish this quote?
“I hear, and I ______________ ;
I see, and I _______________ ;
I do, and I ________________ .”
Show clicker.
Then show books.

10. Can you finish this common saying?
“You never really understand something until
you can ___________________________ .”
Show clicker.
Then show books.

11. What are you going to do in course?
1. Practice using your own words to express the ideas of physics and the methods of science.
2. Practice using your own words to translate from a real-life situation to a mathematical model.
3. Practice using your own words to reason through a situation you’ve never encountered before—but using principles you already know.
Show clicker.
Then show books.

12. Using your own words is a major portion of the credit in this course.
Guessing is not rewarded.
No exam answer (not even a T/F question) is accepted as correct until/unless you explain in your own words/methods why and how it’s correct.
In the real world, simply being right isn’t enough. You have to convince others that you’re right.
Show clicker.
Then show books.

13. How to Do Well in This Course
(and see also the Syllabus)
Stay caught up! Use the resources offered on the Course Calendar; budget enough time/energy).
Be prepared! Do the guided study!
Be an active learner.
(What’s that? It means, “Use your own words.”)

14. Why is active learning so essential in physics?
What is physics, anyway?
Show web site (quick tour) after this slide.

15. Just a few very powerful principles.
The forest… the trees… the roots…
Biology is staggeringly complex: untold billions of organisms and relationships—all formed by fewer than 100 chemical elements.
But what governs the chemistry—and the universe it sloshes around in? How does it hold together? Or move? Or expand?
Just a few very powerful principles.

16. (zoom in….)

17. How do we express those principles
How do we express those principles? How do we describe the few deep consistencies of the universe?With mathematics.
Math is the language. Physics is the story. It’s a story of principles, not facts: unraveling those few principles requires deductive reasoning (yet a third “language” or way of thinking). You’re not here to memorize facts. Your goal is to understand how the facts arise—even predict them—from the principles.
Show clicker.
Then show books.

18. Concentrate on the Principles
Your homework and other practice sets of questions are not verbatim “rehearsal” for the exams. The exam questions/problems will be ones you’ve never seen before. But if you grasp the principles, you’ll be able to handle those questions; you’ll be at least “conversational” in the language and logic of the universe. That’s why physics takes active learning: It takes “doing”—not just listening or reading—to learn a language.
Show clicker.
Then show books.

19. Language: Let its form enhance— rather than obscure—its meaning.
“To be or not to be…”
“Four-score and seven years ago,…”
“There is no frigate like a book…”
“When in the course of human events,…”
“I pledge allegiance to the flag…”
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood…”
“Keep things as simple as possible—but no simpler.”

20. But all language has context
(definitions, assumptions, references, syntax, etc.)
“Bleen viptelmorger fixa quocedj sheka wuzzy g’hadthl.”
(“It will be mostly fair today, with highs in the mid-70’s.”)
So when you use math to describe the universe, equations are useless unless you know (i) what you’re saying with them (so you must know how to translate—how to say it in your words!); and (ii) when/how the equations apply—and when they don’t.