Fall 2025
Email is the best way to contact me. Many questions and issues can be solved over email.
I will be in my office
| Monday | 9:00–10:00 |
| Tuesday | 11:00–12:00 |
| Tuesday | 1:00– 2:00 |
| Wednesday | 9:00–10:00 |
| Friday | 9:00–10:00 |
during the course of the Fall 2025 semester.
If you need to meet at a different time, please send me an email to set that up. You can drop by my office any time to see if I am there. If I’m there, we can chat.
An introduction to fundamental ideas in physics—focusing primarily on mechanics—including kinematics, dynamics, conservation laws, rotational motion, and statics. PHY 103 must be taken concurrently with PHY 103L, the laboratory portion; together, they constitute a single 4 credit course. PHY 103 contains 3 contact hours of instruction per week.
It is expected that students will
The textbook for the course is Physics, Principles with Applications (7th edition) by Douglas C. Giancoli, ISBN 978-0-321-62592-2.
Health request: if you have cold, flu, or COVID symptoms, please wear a mask. If you feel too sick to come to class, please stay home and send me an email. You are free to use your own judgment on when you are too sick to come to class.
Our primary goal in this course is for you to learn some physics. Learning is not an easy endeavor; different methods are effective for different people. Nevertheless, I believe that attending class will help you to learn physics. It may not be as entertaining as you or I would like. It may not be as pleasant as you or I would like. But I am committed to spending our time together effectively, doing activities that will help you begin to see the principles of physics and apply them to real-world situations.
Please attend every class meeting that we have. I will take attendance.
I’m no linguist, but attendance and attention surely must come from a common root. Attendance, showing up for class, is the first step. But I really need your attention during class, and this second step can be harder. Modern life has made it difficult for us to focus our attention on anything that is not extremely pleasing, entertaining, horrifying, disturbing, or outrageous in some way. I’ll do the best I can not to bore you, and you’ll do the best you can to attend to the ideas we come across, whether they seem pleasing, repulsive, or neutral.
From time to time, we will do activities in which I ask for your participation. A portion of your course grade is based on class participation. Of course, you must attend class in order to participate and earn participation points.
An exam is an opportunity to demonstrate what you know about physics. There are three regular exams and one final exam in this course. The dates of these exams are listed later in the syllabus. Each exam consists of problems and short essay questions.
How do I know if I am ready for an exam? The litmus test of the solidity of your understanding of physics, and consequently whether you are ready for an exam, is whether you can do the problems in the textbook on your own in a reasonable amount of time. It is useful to read the textbook, do the homework, take notes in class, do the practice exam, and study the conceptual questions on the web site, but the real test of your understanding is whether you can solve problems (and conceptual questions) like those in the textbook on your own. If you can, you’re in great shape. If you can’t, you need more practice; you need to train your brain to think of possible ways forward when confronted with a situation you haven’t seen before. What principles might apply? What tools are at your disposal? This practice is best to do over time, not right before an exam. There is very little to memorize in physics. It’s more about knowing when to apply which principles.
An exam is an individual endeavor in which you write and submit your ideas, your solutions, your guesses, and your work.
During an exam,
During an exam,
At the end of the semester, we will have a comprehensive final exam.
You should not think that office hours are only a time for people that need remedial help. Coming to office hours is helpful for people at all levels. Nobody is too advanced or too far behind to benefit from coming to office hours. A typical student in this class probably cannot get a high grade without coming to office hours, at least from time to time. Even if you don’t have specific questions, I can suggest problems for you to work on that will deepen your understanding, putting you in a better position for exams.
There will be a computer-based homework assignment for each chapter in the textbook that we study. The purpose of these assignments is to give you an opportunity to work with the concepts that we discuss in class and that you read about in the textbook. ("The only way to learn physics is to do physics.") I encourage you to start work early on the homework. This way you will have multiple opportunities to see me before the deadline.
You will learn the most if you attempt the homework on your own, formulate questions when things get confusing, and refrain from looking at how others solved the problem until you have thought about it for a bit. The reason is that you need to train your brain to emerge from the confusion or blankness you experience when you first look at a problem and don’t know exactly what to do. Think about how the principles we’ve studied might apply to the problem in front of you. Don’t spend forever trying to solve a problem on your own. Give it a reasonable effort, then seek help, either from me or a fellow student.
Students may work together on the homework. You may explain to another student exactly how you did a homework problem. Each student has different numbers for each homework problem. You are expected to do your own calculations with your numbers, and enter your results into the moodle system. There is no academic dishonesty in getting a lot of help on the homework from a fellow student. It may decrease the effectiveness of your learning to get too much help too quickly, but for the homework, it is not academically dishonest. It would be academically dishonest to have another person do your calculations for you.
The homework is available on a web site, using a computer-based learning environment called moodle.
You can access the moodle homework system at http://quantum.lvc.edu/moodle/.
You do not need to do a homework assignment in one sitting. In fact, you should not. You can do a few problems one day and a few more the next day. If you get a problem wrong, you can try it again, although your grade decreases slightly with each additional attempt, so don’t just guess.
Do not include units when submitting answers to homework problems. Each problem should tell you what units to use. If no unit is specified, use the appropriate standard SI unit (for example, kg, m, s, N). Enter only the numerical answer into the computer.
Do not count significant figures of the given numbers to decide how many significant figures to include in your answer. The computer will regard your answer as correct if you are within 1% of what it regards as the correct answer. So, keep at least 3 or 4 significant figures in your calculations regardless of the number of significant figures given in the problem.
Do not type commas in your answers, such as 39,450.
Instead, type 39450.
You may use exponential notation in your answer if you wish.
Instead of 39450, you may type 3.945e4 or 3.945E4.
When you have answered all of the problems on the homework assignment, you must click the box that says Submit all and finish. If you fail to click this box, your grade will not be recorded. On the other hand, do not click this box until you are finished with the entire homework assignment.
Your grade will be determined by a weighted average as indicated in the table below.
| Quiz | 4% |
| Exams | 42% |
| Homework | 20% |
| Laboratory | 15% |
| Class Participation | 5% |
| Final Exam (comprehensive) | 14% |
Your letter grade for the course is determined by the weighted average. The minimum weighted average (out of 100) required for each letter grade is indicated below.
| A | 93 |
| A- | 90 |
| B+ | 87 |
| B | 83 |
| B- | 80 |
| C+ | 77 |
| C | 73 |
| C- | 70 |
| D+ | 67 |
| D | 63 |
| D- | 60 |
| F | 0 |
Your grade is not an indication of how much I like you. It is not an indication of your worth as a person. It is not even a measure of your ability to learn physics. It is my judgment of your accomplishment in learning physics, in particular the portion of physics that we studied.
Homework and exams can only be made up in the event of serious circumstances such as illness. There is no extra credit in this course.
| Date | Topic | Read before class | Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| 08/25 | Welcome | ||
| 08/27 | Acceleration | 1-5, 1-6, 2-2 to 2-4 | |
| 08/29 | Constant Acceleration | 2-5 to 2-6 | |
| — | |||
| 09/01 | Falling objects | 2-7 | |
| 09/03 | Graphs | 2-8 | HW 1 |
| 09/05 | Vectors | 3-1 to 3-4 | |
| — | |||
| 09/08 | PVA diagrams | ||
| 09/10 | PVA diagrams | HW 2 | |
| 09/12 | PVA diagrams | ||
| — | |||
| 09/15 | Vector Components | 3-5 to 3-6 | |
| 09/17 | Quiz (PVA diagrams) | ||
| 09/19 | Acceleration in 2D | ||
| — | |||
| 09/22 | Newton’s 1st and 2nd laws | 4-1 to 4-4 | |
| 09/24 | Newton’s 3rd law | 4-5 to 4-6 | HW 3 |
| 09/26 | Exam 1 (Kinematics, Chapters 1-3) | ||
| — | |||
| 09/29 | Free-body diagrams | 4-7 | |
| 10/01 | Problem solving | 4-8 | |
| 10/03 | Friction | ||
| — | |||
| 10/06 | Fall break (no class) | ||
| 10/08 | Circular motion | 5-1 to 5-2 | |
| 10/10 | Highway curves | 5-3 | HW 4 |
| — | |||
| 10/13 | Universal gravity | 5-5 | |
| 10/15 | Satellites | 5-6 to 5-7 | |
| 10/17 | Work, kinetic energy | 6-1, 6-3 | |
| — | |||
| 10/20 | Potential energy | 6-4, 6-5 | |
| 10/22 | Mechanical energy | 6-6, 6-7 | HW 5 |
| 10/24 | Exam 2 (Newton’s Second Law, Chapters 4-5) | ||
| — | |||
| 10/27 | Conservation of energy | 6-8 to 6-9 | |
| 10/29 | Power | 6-10 | |
| 10/31 | Momentum | 7-1 to 7-2 | |
| — | |||
| 11/03 | Collisions | 7-3 to 7-4 | HW 6 |
| 11/05 | Collisions | 7-5 to 7-6 | |
| 11/07 | Center of mass | 7-8 to 7-9 | |
| — | |||
| 11/10 | Rotational kinematics | 8-1 to 8-2 | |
| 11/12 | Rotational dynamics | 8-3 to 8-4 | HW 7 |
| 11/14 | Moment of inertia | 8-5 to 8-6 | |
| — | |||
| 11/17 | Rotational kinetic energy | 8-7 to 8-8 | |
| 11/19 | Oscillations | 11-1 to 11-2 | |
| 11/21 | Pendulum | 11-3 to 11-4 | HW 8 |
| — | |||
| 11/24 | Exam 3 (Conservation laws, Chapters 6-8) | ||
| 11/26 | Waves | 11-7 to 11-8 | |
| 11/28 | Thanksgiving vacation (no class) | ||
| — | |||
| 12/01 | Specific heat | 14-3 to 14-4 | HW 9 |
| 12/03 | Latent heat | 14-5 | |
| 12/05 | Latent heat | 14-5 | HW 10 |
| — | |||
| 12/12 | Final Exam (Cumulative, 8:30-11:00 am) |
PHY 103 satisfies the Natural Science (NS) Analysis area of the Disciplinary Competencies requirement of the General Education program. The learning outcomes for NS courses are:
PHY 103 also satisfies the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) area of the Literacy requirement of this General Education program as well as the QR requirement of Constellation LVC. The learning outcomes for QR courses are:
| General Education and Constellation QR Learning Goal | Course Objective | Assessment |
| Upon completion of this course, students will be able to: | ||
| Interpretation: Demonstrate ability to utilize mathematical forms (e.g., equations, graphs, diagrams, tables, words), including the ability to learn about and interpret unfamiliar quantitative structures
Representation: Convert relevant information into various mathematical forms (e.g., equations, graphs, diagrams, tables, words) Application and Analysis: Make judgments and draw appropriate conclusions based on the quantitative analysis of data, while recognizing the assumptions used and other limits of the analysis. Communication: Clearly express the results of the interpretation, representation, application, and analysis of quantitative information in an effective format The course will have a significant and continuing focus on working with quantitative arguments. | describe motion using the mathematical language of position, velocity, and acceleration
explain motion using the theory of Newtonian mechanics apply the theory of Newtonian mechanics to specific physical situations calculate quantities of physical interest using the theory of Newtonian mechanics calculate quantities of physical interest by applying conservation laws explain phenomena in terms of principles and theories | Exams |
| General NS Learning Goal | Course Objective | Assessment |
| Upon completion of this course, students will be able to: | ||
| Inquiry: Pose questions and identify appropriate empirical methodologies to gather evidence to evaluate theories or hypotheses.
Analysis: Synthesize and organize evidence to identify important patterns. Critical Thinking: Evaluate the strengths or limitations of evidence before accepting or formulating a conclusion. Communication: Clearly express the results of the interpretation, representation, application, and analysis of scientific information in an effective format. | describe motion using the mathematical language of position, velocity, and acceleration
explain motion using the theory of Newtonian mechanics apply the theory of Newtonian mechanics to specific physical situations calculate quantities of physical interest using the theory of Newtonian mechanics calculate quantities of physical interest by applying conservation laws explain phenomena in terms of principles and theories | Exams |
Any student who submits work that is in violation of the academic honesty policy will be subject to the penalties described in the College Catalog and outlined in LVC’s Academic Honesty Policy. Lebanon Valley College expects its students to uphold the principles of academic honesty. Violations of these principles will not be tolerated. Students shall neither hinder nor unfairly assist the efforts of other students to complete their work. All individual work that a student produces and submits as a course assignment must be the student’s own.
Cheating and plagiarism are violations of the academic honesty policy. Cheating is an act that deceives or defrauds. It includes, but is not limited to, looking at another’s exam or quiz, using unauthorized materials during an exam or quiz, providing unauthorized material or assistance to another student, colluding on assignments without the permission or knowledge of the instructor, and furnishing false information to receive special consideration, such as postponement of an exam, essay, quiz, or deadline of an oral presentation; and fabricating evidence, sources, or source material. Plagiarism is the act of submitting as one’s own the work (e.g., the words, ideas, images, compositions, or other intellectual property) of another without accurate attribution. Plagiarism can manifest itself in various ways: it can arise from sloppy, inaccurate note- taking; it can emerge as the incomplete or incompetent citation of resources; it can take the form of presenting passages or work prepared by another as one’s own, whether from an online, oral, or printed source. It may also take the form of re-using one’s own previously submitted work (such as a paper written for a different class) without the current instructor’s knowledge and permission.
A student is culpable for violations of the academic honesty policy, as outlined above, when caused by either academic negligence or academic dishonesty. An act of academic negligence is when a student engages in behaviors outlined above through irresponsible ignorance or carelessness. Acts of dishonesty involve the intent to deceive or mislead. Initially, the instructor will make the determination that a violation of the policy may have occurred.Students who take part in violations as described above are subject to a meeting with an Associate Provost, who has the authority to take further action, up to and including expulsion from the College.
Students should be aware that the work they submit must be their own. Professors may create assignments or activities that require or encourage the use of AI. If such use is not either required or allowed explicitly, then students must assume that the use of artificial intelligence is *not* acceptable in any given assignment. In this instance, unacknowledged uses of artificial intelligence in student work can be deemed violations of our academic honesty policy (see above). If this is unclear in any way, it is the student’s responsibility to ask the professor about appropriate uses of AI for the assignment.
Audio and/or video recordings of the class sessions may be made by the College and/or by students who have been authorized by the LVC Center for Accessibility Resources to record classes as an accommodation for a disability. By participating in the class, all students consent to be recorded for these purposes. Any other recordings of class sessions are not permitted. Students participating in online courses are asked to respect the privacy of those participating in the class by ensuring that class sessions cannot be overheard by those who are not enrolled in the course.
College-wide course policies concerning the following topics can be found at https://lvc4.sharepoint.com/sites/LVCSyllabusPolicies.
It is the student’s responsibility to review these policies.