PHY 2054 (Physics 2 without Calculus) Spring 2018
Physics Topics Covered in This Course
More detailed OpenStax textbook summary here
Electric Charge and Electric Field (Chap. 18)
- Charge, conservation of charge, conductors and insulators
- Coulomb's law for point charges, comparison to gravitational force
- Force from multiple charges (vector addition of forces)
- Electric field E, force on charge from E, E from multiple charges, spherical shapes
- Electric field lines
- Conductors and E fields in static equilibrium
- Applications of electrostatics
Electric Potential and Electric Field (Chap. 19)
- Electric potential energy U for two charges, U for multiple charges (scalar addition)
- Electron volt (eV) unit of energy for microscopic systems
- Conservation of energy, including electric potential energy
- Definition of potential V, potential difference ΔV, ΔV vs E, V for uniform E
- V for point charge, multiple charges, charge distributions
- Equipotential lines, relation to E field lines, conductors and equipotentials
- Capacitors and charge storage, parallel plate capacitor, E field inside capacitor, energy stored in capacitor, dielectrics
- Combining capacitors in series and parallel
- Applications of capacitors
Electric Current, Resistance, Ohm's Law (Chap. 20)
- Definition of current, ampere unit, direction of current flow vs electron flow, relation between current and drift velocity
- Ohm's law & its applicability, definition of resistance, simple circuits
- Resistivity and resistance, calculating resistance from resistivity and geometry
- Resistivity vs temperature T
- Electric power and energy, power supplied by power supply, power dissipated by resistance
- AC vs DC circuits, rms quantities, average power in AC circuits
Circuits, Instruments (Chap. 21)
- Resistors in series and parallel (finding equivalent resistance)
- EMF; effect of internal resistance on net voltage & delivered power
- Kirchhoff's rules and solving multi-loop circuits
- Ammeters, voltmeters and how they are used
Magnetism (Chap. 22)
- Magnetic field lines, direction
- Force of B field on moving charge, current; right hand rule
- Orbit of moving charge in a B field (helix, circle, radius of curvature)
- Hall effect, Hall emf
- Torque on current loop; motors
- Generation of B fields from currents (ex. long wire, circular loop); right hand rule #2 ; Ampere's law
- Magnetic force between 2 parallel currents
Electromagnetic Induction (Chap. 23)
- Magnetic flux, Faraday's law, Lenz' law, direction of induced current
- Motional emf, force on moving conductor in B field; magnetic damping
- Electric generators, back emf, motors, transformers
- Inductance, emf, energy stored in inductor
- RL circuits, behavior of current & voltage
Electromagnetic Waves (Chap. 24)
- EM waves as oscillations of E, B fields; speed of EM waves in terms of ε0 and μ0
- Relation between B field and E field
- The electromagnetic spectrum vs wavelength and frequency (radio, microwave, IR, visible, UV, X-ray, gamma)
- Energy carried by EM waves; intensity; relation between energy and amplitude
Geometric Optics (Chap. 25)
- Laws of reflection and refraction; index of refraction; Snell's law
- Total internal reflections & applications (fiber optics, medical instruments, etc.)
- Dispersion; how rainbows are formed
- Images from plane mirror, spherical mirror (concave/convex); focal length, ray tracing, lens equation, magnification
- Images from thin lens; converging and diverging lenses
Vision and Optical Instruments (Chap. 26)
- Single lens instruments: Magnifier, projector, camera, human eye
- Two lens instruments: Telescope, microscope
- Lens and mirror aberrations and their correction
- Vision defects and their corrections
Wave Optics (Chap. 27)
- Huygens' principle and propagation of light
- Interference, effect of interference on reflectivity from thin films & soap bubbles; applications of thin coatings for low reflectance lenses and high reflectance mirrors
- Polarization of light and it's causes
- Interference and path length; application to light transmitted through double slit
- Diffraction, single slit, diffraction grating; diffraction as a limitation on performance for optical instruments (Rayleigh criterion)
- Radiotelescopes and high resolution astronomy, VLBI