Updated for Summer 2010.

This site is maintained by Professor Kathie Newman, Director of Graduate Studies, Physics. She created and taught these courses in the summers of 2003, 2004, 2005. The courses were not taught in 2006. Four instructors, including Professor Newman, taught during summer 2007 to 2009. The course will be again be offered with four instructors in the summer of 2010.

Text:

Physics (Fifth Edition)
John Wiley and Sons (2002)
Vol 1 is by Resnick, Halliday, and Krane and has the following ISBN: 0-471-32057-9
Vol 2 is by Halliday, Resnick, and Krane and has the following ISBN: 0-471-40194-3

Purpose:

These courses are offered for physics graduate students to help them assume mastery of material which is tested on the physics qualifier examination.

All physics graduate students are required to pass the two sections of the qualifier examination during their first two years at the university. The qualifier examination is normally offered twice a year, once in the Fall (generally, late September) and once in the Spring (generally, late January or early February). A Qualifier Examination Committee, consisting of some of the faculty of the Department of Physics, write, administer, and grade this exam.

The qualifier exam tests fundamental physics knowledge. As an aid to the students preparing for this exam, the exams have been limited to material of the first two volumes of Physics (Fifth Edition) by Resnick, Halliday, and Krane. These two volumes are textbooks used generally in first-year undergraduate physics courses. Problems on the exams are drawn from the sample problems of the chapters and end-of-chapter exercises and problems of these books.

There are two sections to the Qualifier Exam, Parts I and II, corresponding to Volumes 1 and 2 of Resnick, Halliday, and Krane. Each portion may be passed separately; once a student has passed a section, the student does not need to take again that portion of the exam. Since the exam is offered only twice a year, the student has four tries to past the Qualifier Exam.

The courses, PHYS 77031-77032, offers students a chance to review the material covered in Halliday, Resnick, and Krane prior to the beginning of their graduate studies. The two sections of the Qualifier Examination are administered at the end of the two courses. Thus, participants in PHYS 77031-77032 have one "free try" at the Qualifier Exam.

Format:

• One or two chapters a day will be covered.
• The class will meet MTWHF roughly between 9:00 AM and 11:00 AM.
• In the first 30 minutes, the material in the assigned chapter will be discussed.
• In the next hour, students will present the homework problems at the board.
• On a day when two chapters have been assigned, there will next be 15-minute break and the class will reconvene for discussion of the next chapter and presentation of homework problems.
• Classes will start promptly at 9:00 am. Attendance is expected at every lecture. Students will be asked to sign in each lecture! (Please let the instructor know by email if you are sick and unable to attend. Please also let the instructor know in advance if you have a conflict that will interfere with the attendance of a lecture.)
• On the last day of class for each course, students will take a part of the qualifier exam. Since four hours is allowed for each part, class on the last day will start at 9:00 am and end at 1:00 pm.

Registration:

• You will need to officially register and enroll for Summer Session for the courses PHYS 77031-77032. The Department Office can help you with the required paperwork. Most students will take the course for a grade (satisfactory/unsatisfactory). In the few cases where a tuition waiver is not available, students will be allowed to audit informally the courses.
• Note, auditors do not receive grades for the courses.

Attendance:

• Attendance of the course is mandatory. Homework assignments are also mandatory. If you are not a full participant in the course, you will not be allowed to take the part of the qualifier exam administered at the end of the course.
• If you have already passed Part I or Part II of the Qualifier Exam, then you need not attend the course associated with that section of the exam.
• We will make accommodations for incoming graduate students who are unable to join the course on the first day, Monday, June 7. For those who have this difficulty, you may join PHYS 77031 any time from Monday, June 7 through Monday, June 14. (You will be urged to self-study the material covered before your arrival.) Providing that you participate fully in the course after you join, you will then be allowed to take the Part I examination on Friday, July 2. Very late arrivals may choose to join just the second course, PHYS 77032. You may join anytime through Monday, July 5 to Monday, July 12. If you intend to arrive after this date, please email the DGS to discuss other options.

Expectations:

• Students should read the assigned chapter(s) ahead of the class date. Homework problems are also to be worked ahead of the class date.
• If you have difficulties with the assignment, send the instructor email by 7:00 pm the night before. In your email, please indicate the topics from the chapter that you want to have discussed me in class the next day.
  

Grading:

• Grades in PHYS 77031-77032 will be based on attendance, and will not be dependent on a pass of the exam(s). The courses are graded on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory scale.
  

Qualifier Exam:

• The two examinations administered as part of this course will be Part I and Part II of a departmental qualifier exam. The Department Qualifier Examination Committee will write, administer, and grade both exams.
• A pass of an exam will count as a pass of that portion of the qualifier exam. But taking the exam does not count against the "4-try" rule.
• Only official registrants for the course will be allowed to take either of the two exams (see above for how to register). The names of those allowed to take the exam will be given by the instructor to the Qualifier Examination Committee.
  

Dates:

Post-class Notes:

The following was written on August 4, 2003, at the end of the first teaching of the course (updated on March 18, 2005). Here I list some of the things we learned in going through the courses. These notes may also be helpful for those self-studying the material!

• We generally likely the exposition in Halliday, Resnick, and Krane. We all tended to agree, these texts are useful first references when starting to study a physics topic at higher level. The authors do not "talk down" to you; they also work quite hard to explain concepts in a clear way. Problems are carefully chosen to help explain concepts in depth. Finally, we all learned to respect the difficulty of some problems; the mathematics was rarely difficult, but at conceptual level, we often found ourselves challenged.
• The unusual order followed in Part I (going in the order, Chapter 15-24, then Chapter 2-23) was judged to be useful. (We were fresh in the more difficult material, and tired by the time we reached the more familiar material.)
• The unusual order picked the first year for Part II (starting in optics, then doing modern physics, then finishing with electricity and magnetism) was less successful. Year 2 and 3 of Part II thus went in traditional chapter order.
• The group decided to deviate from the original schedule in one important way; two days are now allowed ("free") for final review of material before the exam.
• Invention of a problem rating system. After working problems and exercises, we rated certain problems as "classics" -- ones that we agree should be done as practice for a qualifier. The "classics" are now marked with *'s. Note, this rating reflects mostly the opinion of the instructor, with feedback from the class... and has had no input from other faculty! This list is thus rather incomplete; others will likely choose other problems as classics. Thus, I strongly advise that next year's class read through all problems in a chapter, adding their own input on the "classic" problems. So, use the * rating system at your own risk!
• The class evolved quickly to become a group that worked semi-collaboratively on problems. Problems were discussed prior to class; then the list of hard problems was generated; then volunteers would often (80% of the time) put problems up on the board for all to see. This very active participation on the part of the majority of the class was very helpful!!!
• Extra "problem solving sessions" were added to the course about halfway through Part I and halfway through Part II. The problems for these sessions are generated as follows. First, the exercises and problems are copied from the book. Then, a selection of problems to be solved is made. The problems are then "cut and pasted" from the copied pages onto a blank page, making a test problem to solve. We then randomly mix up the problems. (The advantage of this is that we lose the helpful references to material that might help us solve the problem. It also gives us practice in handling test situations.) Note, a subgroup of students use this technique for their final review in the two days before the qualifier.
• PHYS 77031-77032 started primarily as a qualifier review class. Because of the high-level discussion of problems and active focus on problem-solving techniques, the class also served for many as a preparation class for future teaching.
• A lot of work went into picking the subset of useful equations for Parts I and II of the course. These equations are listed on the equation sheets on the course home page.
• I will be very interested in hearing feedback from those who use this web site for self-study of the qualifier material.