Wednesday’s quiz is based on a lot of material. To narrow the scope a bit and reflect what we had time to cover in class, I do not plan to ask questions about the net capacitance of various combinations of capacitors connected in series and parallel. I also noticed that on the last couple of questions of the Week 14 homework there were parts that asked about material that was really covered in Ch. 24 (this week’s reading) – basically, any questions about current. I will not expect you to be able to answer questions regarding electric current on this week’s quiz. (The opposite will be true next week, of course!)

• Please find problem set assignment at the Math page, also linked in the main navigation bar.
• Complete All Problems in your Math Problem Set Notebook. Bold underline problems also due via WebAssign by 9pm on Fri. Feb. 9, 2018.
• Reminder: Problem Set Notebook Checks (all subjects) during Math Exam 3, Monday February 5, 9am.

• Chemistry: McMurray & Fay 8.7 – 8.9, 10.11
• Math: Stewart 5.10
  • No Math Reading Response for this material; read by Wed. morning
• Physics: Wolfson 24.1 – 24.5
  • Physics Reading Response due via MasteringPhysics 6pm Sun. Feb. 4

• Reminders:
  • Math Exam 3, 9am Mon. Feb. 5.
  • Notebooks checks this week.
  • Regular Chemistry Lecture at 1:30 Mon. Feb. 5.

This coming week (week 5 of Winter quarter already?!) we will be checking your problem set and lab notebooks in all subjects.

• Please bring your problem set notebooks for chemistry, math and physics to the Math exam Monday morning.
• Chemistry lab notebooks will be collected at the end of chemistry lab Tuesday.
• Physics lab notebooks will be collected at the end of physics lab Tuesday.

As a reminder, spot checks of problem set and lab notebooks can occur at any time. The main reason for this announcement is so that we can expect you to have problem set notebooks with you Monday.

The entries you record in any of these notebooks are simply a record of the work you have done in the corresponding part of the program; “fixing” or “completing” notebooks is not extra work that you should do in response to an announced notebook check, but part of your ongoing learning process. In this spirit, you should not be making a special effort to polish your problem set notebooks for Monday; rather, you should be completing problem sets as usual, studying for your math exams, and turning in the notebooks simply as a record of the work you have already been doing in support of your learning, rather than as pieces of “busy work.”

Here is Quiz 10 for corrections. Since you are already doing #3 as for your IDEAl solution, I’ll evaluate that submission in lieu of re-writing it on any corrections you turn in.

Speaking of #3, Example 20.6 outlines how to solve the problem. The Evaluate step in the text is very compressed, and I want you to give a more detailed explanation of what is going on, in your own words and maybe pictures, than Wolfson offers. What I’m most interested in is your understanding. Also note that some elements of this problem are the same as in this week’s Math Lab (particularly the way one handles the element of charge dq). The main difference is that in Math Lab you found solutions for arbitrary locations in the plane of the ring, while this problem asks for E at a specific location on the axis of the ring, but in a different plane 15 cm away. You might think about what change you’d need to make to your Mathematica notebook to solve the fully 3-dimensional problem – you may be surprised at how small the change would be!

Download (DOCX, 49KB)

Rather than taking workshop time, I thought I’d give a briefing on the longest/most challenging problems of the current week’s Mastering Physics assignment here. There are a lot of problems but only three that are rated higher in difficulty than 1 out of 5. Number 1 is rated a 4, and #7 and #16 are each rated a 2.

You might also be interested in the median time it takes students to do problems… the eight longest problems, in descending order, are #6, #15, #16, #1, #19, #18, #4 and #8.

Finally, I plan to collect physics lab notebooks at the end of next Tuesday’s lab period. I would also like to do some checks on problem set notebooks; since Krishna is already doing that with math problem set notebooks during the math exam, I think I’ll join him in checking physics problem set notebooks at the same time.

This is going to be the 3rd problem on this week’s quiz.

Download (DOCX, 22KB)

• Blank copy of Math Quiz #10 is available at the Math page.
• Math Quiz #10 Revisions & Reflection are due 9am Mon. Feb. 5.
  
• See this post for detailed guidelines for Revisions and Reflections

Although some of this information is not immediately pertinent to the Energy Project posters, here are a few sites intended to help people create posters for scientific research presentations. (The main difference is that you are not presenting original research, which affects what some of the appropriate subsections should be.)

Designing Conference Posters

Better Posters (blog)

You’ll notice a wide variety of examples and even some conflicting advice (for instance, Colin Purrington is not a fan of the portrait layout for posters, while Better Posters features one as an example of good design.

In the end, you have significant latitude simply to do what makes sense for the work you are presenting. But these sites provide lots of ideas, thoughtful critiques, and resources that you may find helpful.

• Please find problem set assignment at the Math page, also linked in the main navigation bar.
• Complete All Problems in your Math Problem Set Notebook. Bold underline problems also due via WebAssign by 9pm on Fri. Feb. 2, 2018.
• A reminder that the problems chosen for submission via WebAssign are not necessarily the most important or the most interesting on the problem set; sometimes those are just the problems which are available on WebAssign.
• Advance notice: Math Problem Set Notebook Checks during Math Exam 3, Monday February 5, 9am.