General College Physics

Wisconsin Lutheran High School

Week 3 (Aug. 26, 27, 28)

Reading: PSE Chap 2, Motion in 1 dimension

Topics: Estimation, displacement, velocity, acceleration, free fall

No Quiz this week.

Week 3 exercises:

Orbital speed estimation: Estimate the speed of the earth as it orbits around the sun. Hint: the earth is bit under 100 million miles from the sun. Don't look up any other numbers in books or on the internet or anywhere. Remember: when estimating, round to just one significant figure. No calculators! If you have to use a calculator, you are doing it wrong.
Spiders estimation: Estimate the number of spiders inside your house. Do not look up any numbers anywhere, and explain your reasoning. And again: no calculators!
Ping pong balls estimation: Estimate the number of ping pong balls can be placed (in a single layer) on the surface of Lake Michigan? Do not look any numbers anywhere, and do not use a calculator! What quantities do you need to estimate? What assumptions must you make?
Thrown object: An object is thrown straight up wards from the ground level with a speed of 50 m/s. What is its distance from the ground 3 seconds later? Six seconds later? At what time does it strike the ground?
Dropped ball: A ball is dropped from a 100 meter cliff. Assume that the acceleration due to gravity is 10 m/s^2. (a) What is the time it takes to strike the ground? (b) What is its speed when it strikes the ground? (c) Make a graph of the ball's (i) velocity versus time, (ii) acceleration versus time and (iii) height versus time. (d) If the ball is perfectly elastic, so that its motion is reversed the moment it hits the ground, then how long will it take to get back up to 100 meters? What will be its speed at the top of its flight? What will be its acceleration at the top of its flight?

Classroom problems: As a reminder, these are some of the problems we worked out in class…

Uniform motion: how far does a car moving at 30 mph travel in 1, 2, 3 hours?
Uniform acceleration: how far does a uniformly accelerating car travel if it speeds up from 0 to 30 mph in one hour?

General College Physics

Return to course website.

Course syllabus

General College Physics is a year-long introductory college-level course for advanced (typically junior or senior level) students at Wisconsin Lutheran High School. It is a dual-credit course offered at Wisconsin Lutheran High School in collaboration with Wisconsin Lutheran College. This means that students enrolled in the course have the option of receiving credit for a four-credit algebra-based laboratory science course from the College.

During the first semester, we will primarily study the science of motion and its relationship to forces. Topics include: dimensional analysis, measurement, uncertainty, estimation, two dimensional kinematics, projectile motion, newton’s laws, force diagrams, centripetal force, circular motion, conservation of energy and momentum, torque, angular momentum, oscillations, and gravity. During the second semester, we will explore a number of inter-related topics including: heat, thermometry, the laws of thermodynamics, electricity, magnetism, optics, electromagnetic induction, radiation, atomic theory, and nuclear physics.

Emphasis on theoretical topics, careful thinking, laboratory experiments, and problem solving makes this course challenging. My aim is to help you succeed in this course, and to have fun while learning physics. So please do not hesitate to contact me with any problems you may run into this semester!

Course textbook: The course will be loosely organized around a book: the Pocket Guide to accompany Physics for Scientists and Engineers (4th edition) by Serway. (I’ll call this PSE for short.) I would highly recommend obtaining a copy of this book. It is inexpensive, compact, and well-written. It will make a very handy addition to your home science library. If you don't want to buy it, I will have copies to loan out for the semester.

Course time and location: The course meets on a rotating schedule in WLHS 223—the science wing on the first floor of WLHS.

Professor: Dr. Kuehn from Wisconsin Lutheran College (WLC) is the professor for this course. Best contact info: kerry.kuehn[at]wlc.edu

Registration for College Credit: Wisconsin Lutheran College is requiring students in this course who are interested in obtaining college credit. Please apply in the application link below for each class you are wishing to apply for college credit. This must be approved by Friday, September 27.

https://admissions.wlc.edu/register/foundations

Once students apply we will wait for Wisconsin Lutheran College to confirm eligibility and requirements for college credit and communicate out further information. Please reach out to Mr. Davis if you have any questions.

Teaching Assistants One day each week (beginning in September) the course will be overseen by teaching assistants Richard “Ricky” Hill and Henry Brown. Both are physics major enrolled at Wisconsin Lutheran College.

Course websites: In addition to the course information provided through WLHS’s OnCampus system, we will be also using a website I’ve designed for this course: www.greatphysics.com/WLHS/

Homework exercises: II will assign weekly homework problems. These are designed to deepen your understanding of lecture material and to prepare you for the quizzes and tests. Although I do not intend to regularly grade your homework solutions, I will occasionally do “spot checks” to make sure that you are keeping up with the material. I plan to give credit for submitting your best attempt by the assigned due date (typically Sunday late afternoon). Late assignments will receive reduced credit.

Laboratory exercises: Some of our weekly assignments will include laboratory work. Labs will typically take up at least two class periods. Your laboratory notebook pages must be scanned and submitted electronically as a single file by the assigned due date. More details about the required format and expectations will be discussed before the first laboratory period. You will need to order/purchase a dedicated laboratory notebook. Here are guildlines on what to include in your laboratory notebook.

Quizzes: We will have in-class quizzes almost every week on Monday. To prepare for quizzes, you should read the assigned book chapter (at least once), review the lecture material, complete all of the homework problems, and review the homework solutions.

Tests: We will have a final exam before the end of the second quarter, and a comprehensive final examination before the end of the fourth quarter.

Software: Logger Pro 3.15 Is an excellent data analysis software package. Download for Wndows 10, 8.1, 7, and for macOS 10.14, 10.13, 10.12, 10.11, 10.10. For more details on how to download and install Logger Pro click here.