tutorials in introductory physics homework solutions pdf

tutorials in introductory physics homework solutions pdf

Tutorials in Introductory Physics Homework Solutions

1. Introduction

“Tutorials in Introductory Physics Homework Solutions” is designed to supplement a first year calculus-based physics course. It is based on a workshop-style, peer-instruction learning method and is designed to be used as a guide for both students and instructors. Each of the tutorials progresses at a different pace, so personal supervision from the course instructor is important. This workbook is also not a substitute for good teaching and is based on the understanding that the best way to learn physics is to work through the material carefully and think about it. The workbook engages students in the use of a powerful set of learning tools, not merely conveying information but engaging in action and reflection. These tools include predicting the outcomes of one’s actions, interpreting the success of one’s actions, physical experimentation, and cognitive experimentation. In class, students will be doing a problem and checking whether the advice is right, which is a good model of the scientific process. This is opposed to the commonsense view of science where knowledge is looked upon as something that is transmitted to a student from a teacher. Here, with a cognitive view of learning, students act on objects and by doing so, they gain knowledge. That is, knowledge is built up from students’ actions on the material. By teaching in a workshop style, the course will allow students to confirm and correct their knowledge by monitoring their understanding and hearing their own explanations. Also, the teacher should not leave students to drown in each other’s ignorance, as the idea of construction and collaboration of knowledge can be successful only if all the students understand and are trying to find out the answer. The idea of a science that is fixed knowledge with the result of conveyance will not be developed thoroughly with cognitive action. In reality, the transfer of knowledge is considered to be an inert action, something that is just going on. And learning, in this view, is merely a process of having a teacher actually mapping or transferring this given knowledge in the inert mind of a student. Instead, this view suggests that each student is engaged in an ever-continuing process of research and discoveries. And knowledge is not a fixed object but an ongoing project. This is closely related to both the history and theory of constructivism, which was developed in the late 19th century and stresses the active role of a student in building understanding and knowledge of the world. Especially, the philosophy holds that constructivism is to build knowledge on the part of a learner and is stressed as cognition in terms of its function of orientation and selection of action.

2. Chapter 1: Kinematics

Chapter 1, on kinematics, explores the study of motion, including concepts such as displacement, velocity, and acceleration. The chapter is organized into three main sections that progress in a logical manner. First, students examine the concept of “average” and “instantaneous” velocity through a “Representational Task.” Then students discover that the slope of a displacement-time graph is velocity through a “Pencil Drop Activity.” After taking the students through an in-depth exploration of two-dimensional kinematics, the text invites the students to use the newly acquired kinematics skills in a two-step problem-solving procedure. This method is used to solve various problems at the end of the chapter. At the end of each section, there is a “Close Teacher-Student Physics Encounter” which makes the learning process more interesting. These “encounters” are written in the form of a dialogue between the teacher and the student. They may address some historical facts and common student misconceptions. This chapter seems very academic. Each section is well divided, and the different learning tasks are clearly explained. Also, the technique of using students’ own intuitive ideas to start a new topic may be beneficial to the student learning process because it can help trigger their previous knowledge. I think the use of the “close teacher-student physics encounters” also provides the students with additional information and further enhances their understanding of a particular topic. Overall, it is a very detailed chapter. Students are guided through the learning process by various activities. Additionally, the different ways of thinking and the skills being utilized in each exercise are clearly explained, which may help the students develop confidence while applying their knowledge.

3. Chapter 2: Forces and Newton’s Laws

The focus of chapter 2 is forces and Newton’s laws of motion. The aim of this chapter is to allow you to begin making the steps away from understanding what causes an object to move and how it moves to how its motion can be described and why certain states of motion are preferred. Newton’s laws of motion are three physical laws that directly image people’s fundamental understanding of the mover of the physical world. In particular, the second law proposed by Sir Isaac Newton established a specific quantitative cause for motion. It describes how a force not only causes an object to move but also how its motion changes. It is the law that introduces a new property called the linear momentum of an object (that will be studied in chapter 4). To illustrate certain important concepts of Newton’s laws and motion, lots of different daily phenomena such as car accidents, forces on internal organs, motion of an ice hockey puck, moving a very heavy furniture, a fall from a bike, forces on particular parts of the car during car crashes and bouncing of car during car crashes etc. Some important daily examples in our daily life will also be shown such as tension, normal force and force of static friction when Newton’s laws are discussed. Also, by using free body diagrams, we have better visual concept and so that we can predict and solve the unknown motion by using Newton’s second law in the form of ways. A free body diagram is essentially a representation of an object as a point particle and all the forces that are acted upon it. These laws describe the relationship between the body and the forces acting upon it. Isaac Newton formulated three laws to provide a quantitative description for the complex and interrelated set of physical ideas. Students will be introduced to many different physical concepts and topics like introduction of rigid body; how the static (if the body is not moving) and dynamic (the body is accelerating) condition of equilibrium will be set. And also how to deal with the vector nature of forces and understanding and application of the common forces that exist in our physical world. With this in mind, many new terms and units such as mass, weight, the normal forces and tension and springs will be encountered throughout the chapter and also in the assignments.

4. Chapter 3: Energy and Conservation Laws

In “Chapter 3: Energy and Conservation Laws,” students learn what forms of energy exist, how to define work, which energy principles and conservation laws govern our ability to do work, and what happens when not just all things but energy is shifting and changing in a system too. These latter principles yield the law of conservation of energy, the most powerful law in physics. Energy can shift and change from kinetic energy to potential energy and back, devising a second principle that commands what can be foreseen in which way energy will transform. It also showed how to beware of potential energy principles so as to be on the lookout for conditions which dictate what happens and what does not happen when things in that system start changing. And of course, using this principle turned out to reveal a new kind of energy and a new way that energy can change, a topic which is the last thing of the chapter. Students learn to manage energy data in two ways, what to put for the final and the initial in those energy equations to make good use of the equations. And these are the most contemporary brackets of physics: grouping all sorts of types of energy and invoking the law of conservation of energy to foretell how energy will transform in a system. The chapter wrapped up with a project to work on. By now I would call that project as unleashing the power of calculus, that’s what really is. Because the chapter includes quite a few calculations of work and energy, so students should be able to foster it by using int and summation through calculus. However, no sizable class plan for chapter 3 in abundance with projects at the final right now. But as we consider how things will change and as we make it work, then we shift to calculus-based physics for the second semester, I am sure that it will be a possibility to base some of those projects on independent research.

5. Conclusion

The conclusion section of the book describes some of the main points that can be gained from different parts and successes of following the tutorials in introductory physics, i.e., transferring from mainly force and vector-based study of physics to the description of nature and real practice. Also, it includes the explanation of how the different types of homework asked the pupils helping the teacher’s course improvement. In this book, all the example exercises in each topic are explained in detail with easy understanding. By providing such type of knowledge, students in the algebra-based physics are able to understand the movement and the differences about matrix in mathematics. The knowledge helps them in calculating in the dynamics without considering the detailed forces: when they start to study the calculus-based physics, they have the ability to demonstrate the class and the experimental phenomena in the lab session. It is crucial that every single chapter’s exercise must be consistently and repeatedly asking for them helping the tutorials in introductory physics I and II. All these required homework really bring the class into a real improving atmosphere. Firstly, the peers as well as teachers have to mutual and proper resources whereby every side can benefit; the students’ criticism and approval also directing the teacher to enhance the teaching methodology and materials; finally, such type of collective strategy will drive the class into a deep and efficient progress and improvement instead of a solution. By the conclusion of the section, there are reflections of how students’ important new inquiry for the last exercise. After finishing the space and space satellites in modern physics, they are waiting for practitioners in the young. This book gives them preliminary practice for that. It is a comprehensive practice throughout about two years of physics. Of course, this will indirectly prove the success and help of this online homework at the end of the semester. All in all, the conclusion sections reflect the students’ progress both in knowledge and in strategies he or she learned from the transfer. It illustrates the great success and improvement as a preview in the undergraduate study. Last but not least, its detailed and comprehensive support such as homework and examples already firm the results from every side – especially in the course which uses the studying of tutorials in introductory physics. It also reported if a teacher who used the tutorials in introductory physics for the curriculum for about half a year. The scores indicated students generally have improvements in kinematics, dynamics, and energy studied in the start of various exercises. And his reports showed consistently higher marks at the end compared to previous years. The student interviews commented that the comprehensive and detailed literature about this book already providing them a good resource for learning, both for the calculus-based physics and the future study.