Class 8, 2/3/04
Highlights: Started the new chapter on light and discussed:

N1. What is light?
    Defined from two point of views: wave and particle.
N2. How does light work?
    ** Wave point of view,
    ** Particle point of view.
* Chau had many interesting animation to show, unfortunately, the Class Support Mac did not work the CD, provided by Chau. Although, Ken (who needed to be away for this class due to a family illness) did made sure that they worked. Well, we will show the next time.
* Graded Quiz 1, scores, statistics and curve, and solutions (including a detailed step by step illustration of the three problems involving computations) were distributed as planned.



Preview
* Due to a mix-up by the Physics Department, discussion session 4 is now moved to Roessler 158. Time stays the same.
* Quiz 1 has been graded and will be distributed at the end of the class. Statistic and solutions will also be attached. Please review carefully. Plenty of lessons can be learned. The results are very reasonable. I see many A's. I am sure all of you will continue to improve and more of you will become A's.
* HW4, Problem SA 4.4 will be postponed to be done in HW 5. So you will have more time in reviewing and learn from Quiz 1.
* Reminder of HW policy
    ** It becomes now clear that we need to encourage many of you to develop the  habit of laying out clearly your calculations, and do them in logical steps (although only a few steps are involved). As indicated in the Syllabus, you are asked to use the back blank page to document your computations. However, many of you scratch calculations in between gaps of the assignments. It is not clear how one can think clearly with such scattered about computations, not to mention to have train of logical thinking. I assure you that pros (professional scientists, including Mr.Tappel and I) do not do it that way. From now on, the assignment page should have only neatly written answers. All computations should be on the blank back pages, clearly marked which problem the computations are for and with a line separating different problems. To set an example, I have done so for the solutions to the three Quiz 1 problems: 1, 4, and 6, which involved calcuations. Please review carefully. I am sure that this way of setting up and executing the computations will
* Cultivate logical and creative thinking, and
* Develop the ability to do “back-of-the-envelope” numerical estimates (two significant figures),
the two of the four goals of this course. From now on, no scratch calculations scattered on the assignment page or unclear scratches on the blank back page will be looked at for partial credits for wrong results.
    ** Several students were late in handing HW3 last Thursday, 1/31/04, without the justifications as specified in the Syllabus. Mr. Tappel and I just did not have the heart to turn them away, so we accepted them. To be fair, we offer all the other students the same benefit, i.e., everyone can have a "no-justification-being-late" once, but no later than 2pm (i.e. 2hrs after the due time). Please slide it under Mr. Tappel's door. Please do not knock on the door, except for urgent matters. Mr. Tappel and other grad students are working there.
    ** From now on, absolutely no late HW will be accepted, after the one-time-only being late. So please hand in on time whatever you have. Actually, it will be better for you to assume that the due time is 8pm, Wednesdays. The advantage is that Mr. Tappel will still have office hour in case if you have last-minuet questions. How do you achieve that goal? Start early and get done as much as you can before the discussion sessions so you can ask what you need to, and then finish by 8pm, Wednesdays. [We have been putting the box out Tuesday nights, and will continue to do that. Much thoughts have been given to the due time. For all my courses, HWs were always due the day before a new class, around 6pm. This way, students have a chance to start the new material for the next class. Mr. Tappel knew about and agreed with this policy; he was the TA for a previous class of mine. For our course this quarter, since the last discussion session does not end till 7pm, it is too late to set Wednesday afternoons as due time. So Mr. Tappel and I chose the latest reasonable time before the next class starts, i.e., noontime, Thursdays. Hopefully, you will use that 3 hrs to start the new material (or at least just have a break from the HW and be ready) for the next class starting at 3:10pm.]
    ** Well, we have just had a full cycle of reading, lectures, HWs, and Quiz. Three more cycles more, we will be done. Let's do the best we can for the next three.

* Class 7, we will start Chapter 6 of TB1, and Week 4 reading assignment of TB2.

Sign-up items:
(1): Page number read of week 4 reading assignment of TB1.
(2): Page number read of week 4 reading assignment of TB1.
(3) Initial