1. Honors Physics Agenda for Today Course Introduction
General Announcements
Structure of the course
Scope of the course
Begin chapter 1
Course Homepage: 1

2. General Announcements
Assignments:
Glencoe Physics and Principles
Reading Assignment: Chapters 1
Homework will do as Indicated on the Website and on the Board each day.
Lectures: (the PowerPoint component) will be posted at the course website
Videos: Selected YouTube videos will be available on line to help with learning the topics

3. Grading Several components: Assessments 50% Practice 20%
Tests,Projects
Practice %
Homework, Classwork,Small Projects
Quizzes/Labs % 2

4. Three main components:
Lecture
Three main components:
Discussion class material
Selected topics from text
Demonstrations of physical phenomenon
Physics is an experimental science
Interactive exercise with conceptual “Active Learning” problems
Critical thinking and problem solving
(Almost no memorization required)
Act

5. Course Objectives
To begin to understand basic principles (e.g. Newton's Laws) and their consequences (e.g. conservation of momentum, etc.)
To solve problems using both quantitative and qualitative applications of these physical principles
To develop an intuition of the physical world

6. Scope of Honors Physics
Classical Mechanics:
Mechanics: How and why things work.
Motion (dynamics), balance (statics), energy, vibrations, some thermodynamics
Classical:
Not too fast (v << c), c ≡ speed of light
Not too small (d >> atom), atoms  10-9 m
Most everyday situations can be described in these terms.
Path of baseball (or a ping pong ball)
Path of rubber ball bouncing against a wall
Vibrations of an elastic string (Vibration Demo)
(These reflect Newton’s Laws and forces)
Properties of matter; a roll of the dice (Thermodynamics)

7. This Week Position and Time (Chapter 1) What is Physics
Scientific Method
Vectors
Scientific Notation
Systems of units
Dimensional Analysis
Significant digits 1

8. Physics can also be described as the science of motion.
What is Physics…..

9. Laboratory Analysis and Errors
Lab Scientific Method
A step by step process where a scientist investigates a question by observing and performing experiments.
Step 1 -  State the problem or pose a question
Step 2 - Gather information                
Step 3 - Form a hypothesis
                           --  a possible explanation or answer

10. Step 4 - Test the hypothesis with an experiment
              Experiments have 2 variables
Independent variable - what you change                                
Responding variable (dependent) - what you measure
A control is something you do nothing to, used to compare your results

11. Organize data into charts or graphs that can be read by others
Step 5 - Conclusion
Organize data into charts or graphs that can be read by others
Step 6 - Draw Conclusions
                  Determine if hypothesis is supported or rejected
If hypothesis is not supported - modify hypothesis
If hypothesis is supported - repeat experiment

12. Quick Review
Experiment: an organized procedure for testing a hypothesis...typically has a control and independent and dependent variables.
Control: a standard for comparison
Independent variable: the factor (or variable) that is changed by the experimenter
Dependent variable: the factor (or variable) that responds to change in the independent variable?

13. • Fundamental or Base Unit:
Metric System
• Fundamental or Base Unit:
– a standard; a specific quantity
– only seven (7) needed to describe all of nature

14. Metric System • To convert between SI units, multiply or
divide by the appropriate power of 10.
• Prefixes are used to change SI units by
powers of 10, as shown in the table below.

15. Conversion Between Units
Choose a conversion factor that will make the units cancel, leaving the answer in the correct units.
For example, to convert 1.34 kg of iron ore to grams, do as shown below:

16. Proper format: M x 10n where M < 10
Scientific Notation
Physicists like to measure the very big, the very small and everything in between.
Earth is about 149,000,000,000 meters from the Sun.
Scientific notation expresses a quantity as a number times a power of 10.
1.49×1011meters =
14.9×1010 meters =
.149×1012 meters …. which is correct?
Proper format: M x 10n where M < 10
Power Of 10 Movie

17. Standard Scientific Notation:
A. Moving the decimal point to left
exponent is
___________
number
is _____ 1 5
= 6.16 x 10
positive
Shift ______
to here by
___ places
left
>
________ decimal pt.
implied 5
B. Moving the decimal point to right
exponent is
___________
number
is _____ 1 -3
= 7.0 x 10
negative
Shift ______ to here by ___ places
right
< 3

18. Convert to standard scientific notation
number
scientific notation
43000
0.0290
2012
0.5 80
80.
4.3 x 104
2.90 x 10-2
2.012 x 103
5 x 10-1
8 x 101
8.0 x 101

19. Measurements
• We measure things to know something about them; to describe, to understand
• Measurements must be accurate and mean the same to all
• include 3 pieces of information
– magnitude (how much)
– units
– uncertainty

20. Measurement Significant digits (sig figs)
Include all the numbers that can be read directly from the instrument scale plus one doubtful or estimated number.
Reflect the precision of the measurement.
Significant digits are considered only when calculating with measurements.
There is NO uncertainty with counting or exact conversions.

21. Figures (numbers) are significant if they are:
Non-Zero numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
Any zeros that are:
a. between any significant numbers: 509 or 5.009
b. between a non-zero number and the decimal point : 10.
c. which are BOTH to the right of the decimal and at the end of a number are ALWAYS significant Ex (4 sig figs or (5 sig figs)
NOTE: only 1 sig fig zeros are to the left of the number
NOTE: We use scientific Notation to help out with sig figs!!!!
Ex:
number
# sig. figs.
# sig. fig.
5.3
6.6070
202900
3.00 x 108
0.008 40
0.67
40. 2 5 4 3 1 1 2 2

22. Ex 1: Measure the length of a box:2 3 4 5 6
L =
4.7 cm
= 4.7 ±
0.1 cm
last digit is
_____________
estimated

23. Ex 2: Use a “better” ruler:1 2 3 4 5 6
L =
0.01 cm
4.67 cm
= 4.67 ±
last digit is
______________
estimated

24. Sig. figs. when multiplying or dividing:
answer has
the _________
number of
sig. figs., in this
case: ____
____ sig. figs. 3
lower
3.73 x 5.7 = 21 2
____ sig. figs. 2
Sig. figs. when adding or subtracting: 3
18.541
+106.6
125.1
___ decimal places 1
lower
answer has the _________
number of ___________________ ,
in this case: ____
decimal places 1

25. Measurement • Precision:
Precision of a measurement is how closely a number of measurements of the same quantity agree with each other.
The precision of a number is limited by random errors
Limited by the smallest division on the measurement scale
Precision describes how close several measurements are to each other. The closer measured values are to each other, the higher their precision.

26. Measurement • Accuracy: – closeness to a standard
Accuracy describes how close a measurement is to a known or accepted value. Suppose, for example, the mass of a sample is known to be 5.85 grams. A measurement of 5.81 grams would be more accurate than a measurement of 6.05 grams.

27. Measurements can be precise even if they are not accurate.
Consider again a sample with a known mass of 5.85 grams. Suppose several students each measure the sample's mass, and all of the measurements are close to 8.5 grams. The measurements are precise because they are close to each other, but none of the measurements are accurate because they are all far from the known mass of the sample.

29. Types of Errors Systematic Errors
Occur when there is a flaw in the procedure, an incorrect assumption or a flaw with an instrument used to take the measurement (calibration error)
Example 1: Measure the period of a pendulum with a stop watch that is running slow. All results will be shorter that they should be. Tough to estimate this error.
Example 2: Measuring acceleration of a car on a tack and you assume no friction. Acceleration will be less than the theoretical acceleration.
Systematic errors always shift the results one direction

30. Types of Errors Personnel Error Random Error
Errors Due to improperly performing the experiment
Effects both the accuracy and precision of data.
Random Error
Errors that can not be predicted.
Include errors of judgment in reading a meter or a scale and errors due to fluctuating experimental conditions.
Example: Suppose you are making temperature measurements in a classroom over a period of several days. Large variations in the classroom temperature could result in random errors when measuring the experimental temperature changes.
Note: If the random errors in an experiment are small, the experiment is said to be precise.

31. Statistics and Physics
Mean & Standard Deviation (σ) (few data points…σ may be suspect!!)
We can use σ to calculate precision.

32. Statistics and Physics
2. Percent Error:

33. Graphs Graphs should include the following items.
Labels on each axis, including units
Each axis will contain a scale and evenly-spaced tick marks
A meaningful Title
The Graph should fill the space given for it. If you are doing a graph for a lab or test you should fill the grid provided to you.
DO NOT LEAVE EXTRA SPACE. PLAN AHEAD DECIDE THE UPPER LIMITS OF THE GRAPH FOR EACH AXIS THEN DECIDE ON THE APPORPRIATE INTERVALS!!!
BE NEAT!!!!

34. Graphs
Dependent and Independent variables...what graphing axis goes with what variable…
Note: We vary rarely use x and y as our axis in this class like you do in math. Physics is the real thing not a example like a math homework problem. THIS CLASS ACTUALLY USES THE CONCPETS YOU HAVE LEARNED IN THE MATH YOU HAVE BEEN TAKING FOR YEARS!!!!!!!!

35. Graphs Regression Analysis (Curve fitting/line of best fit)
We are going to plot our data points…a lot
It ain’t going to look pretty so we use a graphing calculator, computer, or our eye to find the line of best fit so we can determine the model/equation (linear, quadratic, exponential) that best fits our data
If we use the calculator or computer we will use the coefficient of determination (r2 in stat calc) to determine how good our data was (precision and accurately)
Finally, when we conduct analysis of our data we will use the line of best fit/model/equation NOT THE DATA POINTS USED TO DETERMINE THE line of best fit/model/equation