Haverford College Physics 106b-2009 -- Fundamental Physics II
Meets: MWF 11:30-12:30, INSC H108, optional recitation Tu 11:30-12:30, W 4:30-5:30, or Th 1:30-2:30 in INSC H106
Labs (every other week): Tuesday or Wednesday, 1:15-4:00, Harris 105
Physics Clinic: W and Th evenings, 7:30-9:30, H107

Lecturer: Walter F. Smith (X1332, INSC L110)
Office hours: Tu 10-11, W 9-10, Th 2:30-3:30, F 1:30-2:30 or by appointment

Clinic: Wednesday and Thursday evenings, 7:30-9:30, Physics Lounge (INSC H107). Clinic staff: TBA

Lab instructors: Walter F. Smith (X1332, INSC L110), Scott Shelley (INSC L207, X1310)

Syllabus (choose a format) Web Page .. PDF .. Word Format

Course Evaluation Form

Student Projects

Assignments
Exams

#1 (due 1-30): Web Page .. PDF .. Word
#2 (due 2-6): Web Page .. PDF .. Word
#3 (due 2-13): Web Page .. PDF .. Word
#4 (due 2-27): Web Page .. PDF .. Word
#5 (due 3-6): Web Page .. PDF .. Word
#6 (due 3-20): Web Page .. PDF .. Word
#7 (due 3-27): Web Page .. PDF .. Word
#8 (due 4-3): 
Web Page .. PDF .. Word
#9 (due 4-17): Web Page .. PDF .. Word
#10 (due 4-24): Web Page .. PDF .. Word
#11 (due 5-1): Web Page .. PDF .. Word


Exam 1: coverage .. practice questions
Exam 2: coverage .. practice questions

Final Exam: coverage .. practice questions

 

Solutions for assignments and exams (password required)

Lecture summaries

Monday
Wednesday
Friday
1-21: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
Coulomb's Law
1-23: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
The electric field, electric fields of continuous charge distributions

1-26: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
Polarization in electric fields, dielectric breakdown, electric field lines
1-28: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
Voltage, finding V from E
1-30: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
Finding E from V, finding V from q, graphical form of Gauss's Law
2-2: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
Electric flux, Gauss's Law
2-4: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
E due to spherically symmetric charge, Gauss's Law and conductors
2-6: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
E at surface of metal vs. E due to surface charge, Gauss's Law and conductors (ctd.)
2-9: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
Voltage of charged conductors, definition of capacitance
2-11: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
Calculating capacitance, parallel plate capacitors, energy stored in a capacitor, energy density of E
2-13: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
Capacitors in series and parallel, dielectric constant
2-16:
Exam 1 review session
2-18: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
Air pressure analogy for electric current, Ohm's Law, drift velocity
2-20: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
Drude model, resistivity, resistors in series and parallel, power in electric circuits, internal resistance, using current meters
2-23: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
RC Discharging
2-25: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
RC charging, the magnetic field, Gauss's law for magnetic fields
2-27: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
The Oersted experiment, Lorentz force, motion of point charges in magnetic fields
3-2: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
Force on a current-carrying wire, DC motors, Hall effect
3-4: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
Magnetic field due to a moving charged particle, Biot-Savart Law
3-6: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
Ampere's Law for constant E
3-16: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
Solenoids
3-18: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
Motional emf
3-20: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
Faraday's law, Lenz's law
3-23: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
Applying Faraday's law
3-25: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
Eddy currents, microscopic version of Ohm's Law, transformers
3-27: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
Corrected version of Ampere's Law, practice with circulation
3-30: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
More practice with circulation, Are plane waves consistent with Maxwell's equations?
4-1: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
Electromagnetic radiation, the speed of light
4-3: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
Detecting electromagnetic radiation, The Poynting vector, intensity, radiation pressure
4-6: Review for exam 2
4-8: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
The nature of light, polarization
4-10: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
Huygen's principle, Two-slit and multi-slit interference
4-13: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
Reflection diffraction gratings, single slit diffraction, Rayleigh criterion
4-15: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
Introduction to special relativity
4-17: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
Time dilation
4-20: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
Experimental verification of time dilation, synchronization
4-22: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
Fitzgerald contraction, Numerical example
4-24: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
Train and tunnel paradox, Lorentz transformation
4-27: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
Example of using the Lorentz transformation, Lorentz velocity transform
4-29: Web Page .. PDF .. Word
Why nothing can go faster than c, relativistic momentum, relativistic energy, E = mc2
 

Handouts:

Relativity fundamentals explained well

Famous paradoxes

Historical Notes, demonstrator applets, songs, etc.

Math Appendices -- Helpful mathematical material collected by Haverford and Bryn Mawr Physics majors some years ago, edited by Lyle Roelofs.

Charles Coulomb biography


1736-1806

A keen Coulomb force demonstrator!
See if you can get the electron into a stable orbit! Note that you can add several electrons, but the applet does not include the effects of the forces between them, only the force between each electron and the proton. I suggest you click on the "Show Forces" button for the best effect.
 

Snell's Law Song

A nice three-dimensional electric fields applet The top pull-down menu allows you to pick a charge distribution (I suggest you choose one of the first five), then choose "Display: Field Vectors" or "Display: Field Lines" from the next pull-down menu. Then click and drag with your mouse on the image to make it rotate. If you let go of the mouse button while you're still moving the mouse, you can start the thing spinning, which looks pretty nice. (The animations work best if you leave the applet window at the size it appears originally, rather than maximizing it.)

Here's a nifty two-dimensional electric fields and voltage applet. Use the slider bar to determine the strength and polarity of a charge, then click to place it. For me, the "Go" feature doesn't work well, since I can't see the charges while they're moving. But, the displays of the field configurations and equipotentials are pretty neat. Red equipotentials correspond to positive voltages (relative to the voltage infinitely far away) and blue to negative voltages.

Gauss's Law Song

Carl Friederich Gauss biography Note: Gauss did so much, especially in math, that you will not find his law explictly mentioned here! Instead, it is referred to as the "law of quadratic reciprocity". He originally derived it as a purely mathematical result for functions that fall off as 1/r^2, and then it was applied to the electric field.



Gauss in 1803
An Ode to Capacitors Quickly Polarize Song

No Magnetic Monopoles Song

Oersted Song
(Now including link to Techno version by Aziz Khan!)

A really nice DC motors demonstration

Michael Faraday:

Short biography

Complete biography, written in 1872

A Physics Utopia (Faraday's Law Song)

The Mechanical Universe:
Maxwell's Equations

Free registration required. Choose episode 39.

Poynt Little Vector song: lyrics .. mp3 (guitar by Matt McCutchan)
A fairly nice applet about single-slit diffraction.

The Mechanical Universe:
Special Relativity

Free registration required. Choose episode 42. The segment we watched in class begins at 07:55.

 
Background image: A rare triple lightning strike (this is not a multiple exposure), taken on the great plains by Dr. Steven Horsburgh.