The following recommendations are in place to maintain your learning environment, to enhance the safety of our in-classroom interactions, and to further the health and safety of ourselves, our neighbors, and our loved ones.

• Vaccines are readily available and have been demonstrated to be safe and effective against viruses. Visit one.uf.edu for screening / testing and vaccination opportunities.
• If you are sick, stay home. Please call your primary care provider if you are ill and need immediate care or the UF Student Health Care Center at 352-392-1161 to be evaluated.
• As with any excused absence, you will be given a reasonable amount of time to make up missed work.
• Masks are always welcome within our classroom, regardless of your vaccination status.

Prerequisites

Enriched Physics 2 with Calculus (PHY 2061, or the equivalent) as well as Elementary Differential Equations (MAP 2302, or the equivalent).

Description

This is a one-semester honors course providing an introduction to the history, basic theoretical concepts and major experimental results from the physical theories that emerged starting in the early 20th century. We will explore theoretical ideas and measurable phenomena in special and general relativity, waves and particles, quantum mechanics, atoms and molecules, phenomena connected to the statistical distributions of photons, electrons and atoms, nuclear physics, particle physics and cosmology. Each of these topics could be a course by itself, so we will cover only the highlights.

Purpose

The purpose of this course is to provide you with examples of “scientific theories” and why they are more than casual explanations for what we see in the world. Rather, you will see that a scientific theory is an explanatory framework, which, although provisional and evolving, involves an interplay between theoretical reasoning and experimental measurement. A successful scientific theory must be consistent with other theories while successfully passing experimental tests, some having incredibly high measurement precision.

Objectives

By the end of this course, students will have a solid foundation in the important concepts, principles, terminology, and methodologies used in modern physics, and an introduction to application of this foundation to selected topics in modern physics such as relativity, statistical physics, condensed matter, nuclear physics, and particle physics. Specifically, students will be able to:

Content:

PHY3063 is a small-course honors lecture from 3-3:50 pm (P8).  We use a single Canvas site for all course materials exam dates, homework, grading scheme and office hours. Attendance is not mandatory for this course but is highly recommended. We will move quickly through material, and you will quickly fall behind if you miss lectures. 

The most up-to-date course schedule is found in the Files area.  This schedule includes sections of the book covered each lecture, homework opening and due dates, and exam dates.

Class times and location are shown in the table below.

The instructors will communicate important announcements to the class using Canvas Announcements. Please send email through the Canvas system to communicate with the instructors. Please make sure to address the Canvas mail to both instructors so we are both aware of the issue.

Class Comportment

All participants of this course (students and instructors) should adhere to the following etiquette policies:

• Treat your instructor and classmates with respect in email or any other communication
• Always use your professors’ proper title: Dr. or Prof.
• Use clear and concise language.
• All college level communication should have correct spelling and grammar 
• Be cautious when using humor or sarcasm as tone is sometimes lost in an online interaction and your message might be taken seriously.

Grade components are listed in the Assignments tab. Below are the detailed descriptions for each category:  

Exams (60%): There are three exams, worth 20 course points each = 60 points total. These 3 exams are incremental and non-cumulative (although some overlap is unavoidable). For any missed exams (illness, family emergencies), a makeup will be administered (date/time to be determined). On each exam you will be allowed one handwritten formula sheet (front and back). You should bring a calculator. To earn full credit, all steps & work must be shown on the exam paper that we provide. We will provide a sheet with physical constants.

Exam Formula Sheet: When creating your formula sheet, pretend you weren't allowed to write one and instead it is provided by the profs.  What would be on it?

• equations only, no words
• no descriptions of what the equation does
• no phrases or sentences about concepts
• no examples, sketches, solved problems

This is not an open-book exam; we are testing your knowledge of what the equations represent and how to use them.  We will allow you to label the relativity variables with "earth frame" or "spaceship frame", but that's it!

You can use color, you can write it on your tablet and print it - but it cannot be typed and then printed. 

Any sentences/words/descriptive phrases on your formula sheet will result in a point penalty on your exam score.

Homework (40%): Weekly homework assignments will be given, with each assignment typically being due approximately 1 week from the time it was issued.  Homework is long-form.  To earn full credit all steps & work must be shown. Homework is due at the start of class on Fridays, to be submitted electronically on Canvas. Homework begins to be late as soon as class ends.  Late submissions will receive points as follows: 65% of max points (up to 1 day late), 30% (up to 2 days late), 0 points (> 2 days late) . We will post solutions as soon as possible after the due time. The lowest HW grade will be dropped. 

Requirements for class attendance and make-up exams, assignments, and other work in this course are consistent with university policies. Click here to read the university attendance policies (Links to an external site.) .

Grading in this class is consistent with UF policies available at: https://catalog.ufl.edu/UGRD/academic-regulations/grades-grading-policies/

Note: A minimum grade of C is required for General Education credit.  Courses intended to satisfy General Education requirements cannot be taken for an S-U grade.

Grading scale (not curved)

This course is aligned with the UF policies described below. 

• Contact Hours:
  • "Contact Hours" refers to the hours per week in which students are in contact with the instructor, excluding office hours or other voluntary contact. The number of contact hours in this course equals the number of credits the course offers.
    

• Workload:
  • As a Carnegie I, research-intensive university, UF is required by federal law to assign at least 2 hours of work outside of class for every contact hour. Work done in these hours may include reading/viewing assigned material and doing explicitly assigned individual or group work, as well as reviewing notes from class, synthesizing information in advance of exams or papers, and other self-determined study tasks.
• UF Attendance Policy for Excused Absences
• Statement Regarding Evaluations:

  • Students are expected to provide professional and respectful feedback on the quality of instruction in this course by completing course evaluations online via GatorEvals. Guidance on how to give feedback in a professional and respectful manner is available at: https://gatorevals.aa.ufl.edu/students/. Students will be notified when the evaluation period opens, and can complete evaluations through the email they receive from GatorEvals, in their Canvas course menu under GatorEvals. Summaries of course evaluation results are available to students at https://gatorevals.aa.ufl.edu/public-results.

• Statement Regarding Course Recording:
  • Students are allowed to record video or audio of class lectures. However, the purposes for which these recordings may be used are strictly controlled. The only allowable purposes are (1) for personal educational use, (2) in connection with a complaint to the university, or (3) as evidence in, or in preparation for, a criminal or civil proceeding. All other purposes are prohibited. Specifically, students may not publish recorded lectures without the written consent of the instructor.
  • A “class lecture” is an educational presentation intended to inform or teach enrolled students about a particular subject, including any instructor-led discussions that form part of the presentation, and delivered by any instructor hired or appointed by the University, or by a guest instructor, as part of a University of Florida course. A class lecture does not include lab sessions, student presentations, clinical presentations such as patient history, academic exercises involving solely student participation, assessments (quizzes, tests, exams), field trips, private conversations between students in the class or between a student and the faculty or lecturer during a class session.
  • Publication without permission of the instructor is prohibited. To “publish” means to share, transmit, circulate, distribute, or provide access to a recording, regardless of format or medium, to another person (or persons), including but not limited to another student within the same class section. Additionally, a recording, or transcript of a recording, is considered published if it is posted on or uploaded to, in whole or in part, any media platform, including but not limited to social media, book, magazine, newspaper, leaflet, or third party note/tutoring services. A student who publishes a recording without written consent may be subject to a civil cause of action instituted by a person injured by the publication and/or discipline under UF Regulation 4.040 Student Code and Student Conduct Code.
    

• Honor Policy:
  • UF students are bound by The Honor Pledge which states, “We, the members of the University of Florida community, pledge to hold ourselves and our peers to the highest standards of honor and integrity by abiding by the Honor Code". On all work submitted for credit by students at the University of Florida, the following pledge is either required or implied: “On my honor, I have neither given nor received unauthorized aid in doing this assignment.” The Honor Code specifies a number of behaviors that are in violation of this code and the possible sanctions. You are obligated to report any condition that facilitates academic misconduct to appropriate personnel. If you have any questions or concerns, please consult with the instructor in this class.
  • The penalty for an honor code infraction includes failure for the assignment in question, and may extend to failure of the course depending on the severity of the infraction.

Students with disabilities who experience learning barriers and would like to request academic accommodations should connect with the disability Resource Center. Click here to get started with the Disability Resource Center.

It is important for students to share their accommodation letter with their instructor and discuss their access needs, as early as possible in the semester.

• Knack (although may target only Physics 1 and 2)
• UF teaching Center

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ONE.UF is the home of all the student self-service applications, including access to:

• Advising
• Bursar
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The official source of rules and regulations for UF students is the Undergraduate Catalog and Graduate Catalog. Quick links to other information have also been provided below.

• Student Responsibilities, including academic honesty and student conduct code
• e-Learning Supported Services Policies includes links to relevant policies including Acceptable Use, Privacy, and many more
• Accessibility, including the Electronic Information Technology Accessibility Policy and ADA Compliance
• Student Computing Requirements, including minimum and recommended technology requirements and competencies