Physics 132 Honors


Physics Department
Cal Poly
San Luis Obispo

Physics 132 - Oscillations and Waves, Sound and Optics; Thermodynamics

It is the most persistent and greatest adventure in human history, this search to understand the universe, how it works and where it came from. It is difficult to imagine that a handful of residents of a small planet circling an insignificant star in a small galaxy have as their aim a complete understanding of the entire universe, a small speck of creation truly believing it is capable of comprehending the whole.
- Murray Gell-Mann, Caltech physicist

Last updated: April 4, 2004

The second course in the General Physics sequence. This course extends the ideas of Newton's laws and energy concepts to oscillations and waves, including sound; to heat and temperature, the thermal properties of materials and the principles of thermodynamics; and to light, geometrical optics, and interference and diffraction. (It is almost like three short courses, rather than the continuous thread of related topics that was encountered in Phys 131.)

If the first course in the sequence dealt with the motion of objects - either single particles or collections of particles that can be treated as single objects (like balls or blocks), this course can be thought of as dealing with the collective motion of systems of particles. Liquids and gases are interacting systems of huge numbers of particles - but can be understood as systems without knowing how individual particles behave. Wave motion is a further extension of the ideas with the description of the motion of "disturbances" being the interest. All thermodynamic processes are ultimately related to the microscopic motions of the atoms that make up the objects or systems being described. And finally, the ideas of wave motion will be applied to light - with analogies to the discussion of sound being made where appropriate.

This course is a special section of the Physics 132 course for students enrolled in the Cal Poly Honors Program - and for Physics majors. The course will be offered with an integrated lecture/laboratory/workshop format. The course is cross-listed with the honors program course HNRS132.

[NOTE: To be enrolled in Sect. 70 you must also be enrolled in either Sect. 73 (Tues. 8-11) or Sect. 72 (Tues. 12-3) of Phys 132 Laboratory.]


Instructor: Dr. Ron Brown - Physics Department         Office Hours:  Mon 11-12 and 2-3; Wed 11-12 and 2-3; Thurs 10-11; Fri 11-12

Textbook:   PHYSICS for Scientists and Engineers by Randall D. Knight (Addison-Wesley, 2004)

Reference: Brown, Physics 132 SUPPLEMENTAL NOTES AND PROBLEMS, El Corral

  • NOTES FOR PHYS 132 Honors - SPRING 2004 - Look here for information for PHYS 132-70/HNRS132

  • Course Syllabus
  • Calendar
  • Physics 132 Assignment Sheet
  • Physics 132 Homepage - Homework hints and solutions.
  • Great Ideas that Have Changed Our Worldview - An essay
  • Physics Central - A great link!
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  • Resources
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  • Physics 132 Topics and Notes
  • Chapter 14 - Oscillations
  • Chapter 20 - Traveling Waves - Waves on Strings, Sound, Light
  • Chapter 21 - Superposition - Standing Waves and Interference
  • Chapter 22 - Wave Optics - Light and Optics, Interference and Diffraction
  • Chapter 23 - Ray Optics - Reflection, Refraction, Image Formation, Lenses and Lens Systems
  • Chapter 15 - Pressure
  • Chapter 16 - A Macroscopic Description of Matter - Solids, Liquids, Gases; Temperature and Phase Changes

  • Chapter 17 - Work, Heat, and the First Law of Thermodynamics
  • Chapter 18 - The Micro/Macro Connection - Pressure and Temperature, Entropy and the Second Law of Thermo
  • Chapter 19 - Heat Engines and Refrigerators - Thermodynamic Efficiency
  • This Week's Laboratory - Look here each week for information about that week's laboratory experiment.



    • RESOURCES:

  • Textbook: PHYSICS for Scientists and Engineers by Randall D. Knight (Addison-Wesley, 2004)

  • Required:   Physics 132 SUPPLEMENTAL NOTES AND PROBLEMS by Ronald Brown (El Corral) 
    •
    The supplement is intended to be used along with the text to help you relate the important ideas of the course.
    It is available in El Corral with the physics textbooks.

    This supplemental set of notes (about 60 pages) summarizes the important concepts of this course. The notes treat the material differently than the text - the focus is on the concepts, the underlying ideas, rather than on how to apply the ideas to problems. You should look at the Supplement and decide whether it would be helpful for you. Included are questions and problems to test your thinking.

  • Office Hours - Make good use of the access you have to your faculty in all courses. Don't wait until you are in trouble in a class to seek help. When you don't understand something, ask! If you just want to discuss the ideas or look for reassurance on your line of reasoning, make use of office hours. If you cannot get to office hours for some reason, contact your instructor after class or by email to set up a time to meet - or just stop by the office.
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  • Private Tutoring - Individual arrangements can be made with Physics majors available for tutoring in Sci. Bldg. room E-25 (known affectionately as "h-bar" - a physics in-joke)
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  • Drop-In Help - Those same tutors will also usually help for free if you just stop by "h-bar" or go to the Learning Center.
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  • Mathematics and Science Learning Center - The Learning Center will be open starting the second week of classes. - Faculty and student tutors from Physics department hold office hours in the Learning Center - Sci. Bldg. C-20. It is a good place to go to work HW (with help immediately available) or to ask questions of whoever is "on call".

    Learning Center Hours: Mon. 9 am - noon; Tues., Wed. 9 am - 2 pm; Thurs. noon - pm; Fri. 9 am - noon.

    NOTE: Hours may change when Center opens the second week of classes.

  • Useful Links: The following are links to three very helpful discussions on how to approach studying physics and the necessary problem solving that goes with studying physics, written by Dr. Dan Styer, Physics Dept., Oberlin College.


  • Tips for Studying Physics

  • The Whys and Hows of Physics Problems

  • Solving Problems in Physics


  • HOMEWORK: The questions, exercises, and problems on the assignment sheet are to help you understand the material. You should do the problems systematically and carefully in a HW notebook - and ask questions about problems you have difficulty with. Solutions will be posted on the web: Problem Solutions


  • Posted Solutions and Hints - Selected problem hints and/or solutions will be posted on the bulletin board just outside room E-47 in the Science Bldg (Bldg.52).

    • PHYS 132 HONORS SECTION NOTES:

    [Look here for comments related to the Honors Section of Physics 132.]


    This class is scheduled to meet three times per week for lecture and once for a lab. To be in the Honors section, you must be enrolled in one of the honors labs - either 8 -11 or  12 - 3 on Tuesdays. The format will include some lecture and some discussion each day - with occasional problem solving workshops in both the lecture and lab meetings.  It will be expected that you will come to the class having read the related material in the text and the supplemental notes and that you will have attempted some of the problems - so that the work done in class is not your first exposure to that material. There will be laboratory reports - either individual or group reports for each of the lab experiments.  Quizzing and testing may be done in the more relaxed laboratory environment to leave more class time for discussion of the material.

    Week No. 2
  • HW Prob. Set No. 1 due Monday

  • We will continue the discussion of harmonic oscillators - and especially deal with the energy of oscillating systems. That will lead to the discussion of damping and the effect of non-conservative forces acting on a harmonic oscillator. Although we will not deal with the details of the solution of the damped oscillator problem, we will interpret the effect of the damping on the motion. Either in lab on Tuesday - or in class on Wed., we will talk about resonance - the effect of a sinusioidal driving force on a system which has a natural frequency of oscillation.

  • We may have a short quiz in lab - just to see where you are with the ideas of simple harmonic motion at this point.

    • PHYSICS 132

    Chapter 14 - OSCILLATIONS

    This important chapter is the basis for understanding many natural phenomena involving oscillatory behavior - from atoms in crystals to Cepheid variable stars. The ideas follow directly from Newton's laws and must be understood well in order to understand the descriptions of mechanical wave motion - the material that follows in the next chapter. Harmonic motion is ultimately a consequence of the natural tendancy of things to seek their lowest potential energy, "overshoot", and then oscillate around their equilibrium positions. The discussion will lead to the idea of resonance - a phenonomenon which occurs throughout nature.

    Chapter 20 - TRAVELING WAVES

    The general discussion of wave motion is important because the ideas of wave propagation are ubiquitous. In nearly all areas of science (and therefore real life) energy is transferred via the vibrations that make up waves. Examples of wave motion include waves on strings, water waves, earthquakes, sound, all electromagnetic radiation including light, heat, x-rays, etc. There are many common elements to all the various types of wave motion that can be described - and these will be pointed out. There are also some differences - especially between the mechanical waves such as waves on strings and sound and all electromagnetic waves - which will be important in some discussions. What is common to all forms of wave motion is the idea that a disturbance is being propagated from one place to another without the necessity for the medium through which the disturbance is being propagated to itself be transported.

    After the general description of the motion of harmonic oscillators is understood, it is not difficult to extend the ideas to allow for the description of waves propagating along a taut string. That description will be mathematically identical to the very wide variety of wave motions - including water waves, seismic waves, sound waves, and even electromagnetic waves. A consequence of the way waves propagate through a medium (string, air, water, it doesn't matter), is that waves can also interfere. And wave interference can be either constructive or destructive - with the consequence of either enhancing or suppressing the wave amplitude - an important idea.

    Chapter 21 - SUPERPOSITION - Interference of Waves - Standing Waves

    The main ideas of this chapter are that sound is a longitudinal wave (as opposed to the transverse waves on a string). The speed of sound in air depends on the "bulk modulus" and mass density of the air - and can ultimately be expressed in terms of the absolute temperature (ie, T in kelvins). The apparent loudness of a sound can be expressed in terms of the intensity of sound in decibels - which is a logarithmic scale. The equations that describe sound waves are essentially the same as those that describe waves on strings. You should look carefully at the sections that deal with interference from two sources - as that can lead to constructive and destructive interference - and to the beat frequencies associated with two sources whose frequencies differ slightly. Standing wave resonance is as important in sound waves as it was in the waves-on-a-string discussion. But while the most common problems with waves on a string had nodes at each end (as in lab), the sound wave resonances discussion will commonly involve tubes with either one or both ends open - which means antinodes occur at the end - and that changes the relationship between tube length and wavelength. And finally, you should look carefully at the Doppler effect - the apparent shift in frequency of sound due to motion of either the source of the sound or of the observer (listener).

    PHYSICS 132 LABORATORY

    Look here each week for a brief description of the laboratory experiment.

    Week 2: Exp. 10 - HARMONIC MOTION

    This week's experiment deals with a mass-spring system. The purpose is to verify the relationship between the period and the mass. The experiment has two parts: You will first suspend weight from a coiled spring to determine the spring constant (by plotting the force required to stretch the spring vs the extension - then taking the slope of the graph). In the second part of the experiment, you determine the period of the mass-spring system as a function of the mass in order to experimentally verify the equations used in describing simple harmonic motion.

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