Physics 223B, Fall 2006      Teacher: Professor Ling-Lie Chau
    
Homework Guidelines

Clear, succinct and logical writing leads to clear, succinct and logical thinking, and vice versa. To gain maximum benefit from doing homework, your homework ought to be a succinct description of your computations and results in an optimal combination of equations and words. Therefore, neatness, clarity and succinctness in presentation count. (What is imprinted in the brain can not be better than what is presented in the homework.) Bonus points will be given for excellent and creative solutions.

Making a bullet-point list of the main lessons learned after you have done the  homework helps you to get the maximum out of the homework. (Writing the list on a separate page attached at the end of your homework helps the ease of grading as well as for your own review.) Bonus points will be given for an excellent one.

All homework do not need a calculator or computer. You can use them to verify your results, but you must show important key steps and reasoning.

Please always staple the assignment page, clearly marked with your name, in the front of your homework.

Please always list references used: author(s), title, and pages for book; or web sites. Getting info from the web is useful. However, be always aware that it is your responsibility to make sure the correctness of the info.

Solutions to homework are chosen from students’ solutions. Please begin each problem on a new page. Professor Chau would like to distribute the honor (and the bonus points) for student’s homework being chosen as class solutions as widely as possible among the students. A new page for each sub-problem is even better if it won't consume too much paper. This will make it easier to choose sub-problems from different students.

Please always review the homework solutions, even if you got a full (or more than full) score or if some of your solutions were picked as class solutions. It is always helpful to see a different way of doing the same problem, especially those picked.

Homework is closely related to the lectures. Start your homework as early as possible. The human brain has the amazing capability of solving problems without the person’s conscious awareness (but one needs first to put in the problem clearly). So, input the homework problem early and take advantage of this capability of the brain.

As soon as you have a question, a comment, or a suggestion, please send Professor Chau an e-mail, or attend the office hours, or make an appointment early enough for getting it set up in time.  Good questions and comments will get bonus points.

For policies about homework, please see Syllabus .