General Remarks
A. Check into this page for announcements and items I may have forgotten to mention in class. If you think some course-related information is missing from this page, contact wsaslow@tamu.edu
B. Why
this subject matter is an essential part of the science and engineering
curriculum:
Around 1865, James Clerk
Maxwell
unified the separate subjects of on the one hand, Electricity and
Magnetism, and
on the other hand, Light.
He predicted that oscillations of the
coupled
Electric and Magnetic fields can propagate through space at any
frequency,
and that what we see as Light (some 10^{15} cps) is such an
oscillation.
When
Maxwell's
theory of Electromagnetic Radiation was
22
(in 1887) these oscillations were observed by Heinrich Hertz
at microwave frequencies (some 10^{12} cps). EM Radiation
includes, in order of increasing
frequency,
Microwave Radiation, Infrared Radiation (IR), Light, Ultraviolet
Radiation
(UV), x-rays, and gamma-rays.
Within ten years of Hertz's work, Marconi had developed the radio; this marks the beginning of modern wireless communications. We owe a deep debt of gratitude to Maxwell for predicting EM radiation, which we now use in radio, TV, cellphones, wireless connections to the World Wide Web, etc.
All forms of electromagnetic radiation, whether carried through the air or along cable, are summarized mathematically in Maxwell's Equations, and all areas of science and engineering associated with electromagnetic signals have their basis in Maxwell's Equations.
C. Make sure that you get the names, addresses, and emails of at least three others, to form a study group. Make sure you are part of a study group.
Technical Details of the Course
1.
Syllabus: Click on highlighted text to download files in
pdf format, which can be read with Adobe Acrobat Reader, which can be
downloaded
at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.html
The syllabus contains information on: (1) how
the course is graded; (2) the assigned readings and homework; and (3)
advice
on how to succeed in this course.
2. Textbook: University Physics, by Young and
Freedman; three chapters from Electricity,
Magnetism, and Light,
by Saslow, available from Kinko's on University Avenue.
3. Lab Schedule: First lab is Monday June 6. Lab Manual: Laboratory Manual for Physics 208-219, 8th ed.
4. Online Math and Physics 218 Quizzes via WebCT: These must be done by two days before Exam 1.
5. Help Desk: Not yet set up.
6. TAs: Sects.
301
and
304, Raj Srivastava (rsrivastava@physics.tamu.edu)
Sect. 302, Huachun Xu, hxu@physics.tamu.edu
Sect. 303, Luohan Peng, pengluohan@tamu.edu
Sect. 304, Debin Liu, dliu@physics.tamu.edu
7. As soon as possible: Read this math
sheet containing some math you should know.
8. Homework: WebCT.
Homework due dates: The assignment on a chapter is due the day after the chapter has been lectured on. In some cases this may correspond with exam dates.
Homework solutions will be made available
only
for the Saslow problems.
Solutions
to Ch.0 HW, Solutions
to Ch.1 HW, Solutions
to Ch.9 HW.
9. Exam Formula sheets: for exam
1, exam
2, exam
3, and the final.
10. Old Exam Keys: "Old exam keys" means the questions and the answers mixed together on the same page. There are no copies of "old exams, " which means only the old exam questions.
Don't just read the problems and the solutions. First
read the problems and then try really hard to solve them
yourself
before you read the solutions.
Answer
Key for Summer 2005 Exam 1 Yellow
Answer Key
for Summer 2005 Exam 1 Pink
Solutions
to Summer 2004 Exam 1
Solutions
to Summer 2004 Exam 2
Here are the summer 2002 solutions for exam 1:
pink1
pink2
pink3
pink4
pink5
yel1
yel2
yel3
yel4
yel5
Here are the summer 2002 solutions for exam 2: pink1
pink2
pink3
pink4
pink5
yel1
yel2
yel3
yel4
yel5
Here are the summer 2001 solutions for exam 1 pink
only
(graders lost key for yellow): pink1pink2
pink3
pink4
pink5
Here are the summer 2001 solutions for exam 2: pink pink1
pink2
pink3
pink4
pink5
yel1
yel2
yel3
yel4
yel5
