Builds on concepts introduced in PHYS-120. Topics include wave motion, electricity, and DC electrical circuits, atomic physics, and nuclear physics.
Goals, Topics, and Objectives
Technical physics is a course designed for the needs of students working in a technical physics job. The overall goal is to provide career education students with a knowledge of physics and work habits that will serve them when they take a position of a technical nature.
- Simple Harmonic Motion
- Waves
- Sound
- Electrostatics
- DC Circuits
- AC Circuits
- Light
- Reflection
- Refraction
- Diffraction
- Dispersion
- Ray optics
- Atomic and Nuclear Physics
- Radioactivity
- Fission
- Fusion
Upon successful completion of this course, students should be able to:
- Describe objects undergoing simple harmonic motion using the appropriate vocabulary.
- Explain why objects oscillate back and force.
- Describe a wave using the terms wavelength, frequency, amplitude, and speed.
- Illustrate how different properties of a medium affect the speed of a wave.
- Explain why people hear different frequencies of sound if the source or listener are moving.
- Categorize the interference between two waves as constructive or destructive.
- Demonstrate how beats are created by wave interference.
- Explain how standing waves are produced.
- Explain the concept of electric charge.
- Describe the motion of charged particles in electric fields.
- Explain the difference between conductive materials and insulative materials.
- Explain the concept of electrical current and describe the motion of charge carriers in electrical circuits.
- Determine the current through and the voltage drop across resistors in a DC circuit.
- Categorize a circuit as either a series circuit, a parallel circuit or a combination circuit.
- Determine the equivalent resistance of series circuits and parallel circuits.
- Demonstrate the correct and appropriate use of the digital multi-meter.
- Categorize mirrors as either flat, concave or convex.
- Categorize lenses as either converging or diverging.
- Apply ray-tracing rules to determine the location, orientation and magnification of images produced by mirrors and lenses.
- Determine the location, orientation and magnification of images using the thin-lens formula.
- Explain how light waves interfere with one another.
- Explain how diffraction patterns are produced from single and double-slit configurations.
- Determine the location of fringes produced in a diffraction pattern.
- Calculate the speed of light in various materials for light of various wavelengths.
- Describe the 'Bohr Model' of the atom.
- Explain the difference between Protons, Neutrons and Electrons.
- Describe the basic structure of an atom.
- Explain how the atomic nucleus is held together.
- Describe the process and products of radioactive decay.
- Explain how radioactive decay is used to determine the age of archeological and geological samples.
- Predict the outcome of an experiment.
- Analyze experimental data using graphs and/or calculations.
- Predict the outcome of a related experiment using data from an experiment already performed.
Meeting MTA requirements: Course transfers as an equivalent to similar courses at Eastern Michigan, UM-Dearborn, Lawrence Tech, Wayne State and other colleges and universities.
Assessment and Requirements
Student learning will be assessed through classroom examinations including a cumulative final exam. Students will submit a written lab report for each experiment performed. The lab report will be used to determine if the student followed instructions, collected the data correctly, analyzed the data, and was able to draw the correct conclusions from the analysis. Problem solving skills will be evaluated using assigned problems turned in by hand or using an online homework site and on the class exams. Conceptual understanding will be evaluated through classroom discussions and on the class exams.
This is a four credit course with three hours of lecture and two hours of laboratory per week. A student is expected to attend all class sections.
Outcomes
- Natural Sciences
- Scientific Reasoning
- Category 6: Natural Sciences (Lecture and Lab)