Physics 53 Resources are provided for the benefit of the
students taking Physics 53 from me during the regular semester at Duke.
Others who discover them online are welcome to use and peruse them and
the associated other resources online for the purpose of teaching or
learning physics.
Students should probably download copies of each of the following
PDFs:
- The course syllabus. This describes what we will cover in very
broad terms and tells you how the couse is divided up into logical
sections.
- The course schedule. This is a week-by-week guide to the course,
with the dates for the homework and exams (and certain other important
dates) laid out. This schedule is not written in stone and may
be changed as circumstances dictate during the semester, but it is a
pretty good estimate of where we'll be, when, for the time being.
- The course grading scheme. This describes how the assigned work
and exams will be graded and how the scores will contribute to your
overall grade. It is very important to look at this early, so that you
can see how to succeed in the course in a way that lives up to your
expectations.
- Suggested study methods to use in this course, especially The
method of three passes. The latter details a way to study physics
systematically over several days each week that optimizes understanding
given a reasonable investment of effort.
As you might expect, some of these documents may change during the
course of the semester, especially if events like hurricanes or
earthquakes or terrorist attacks (all of which have been factors in the
years I've been teaching) intervene to introduce a delay. I will try to
announce it in class if an updated version has been posted, but it is
still sensible to come back and check from time to time.