Why Prepare for Class?
It really is a good question. We've all been in classes where preparation didn't seem to be critical to our success. Textbooks, particularly in science, are often very hard to read and understand. Perhaps our instructors make more sense than the text or other resources. Its not even clear that the research can convincingly demonstrate a strong connection between reading and success in your classes. Makes it seem like a waste of time.....
So here's what we're going to try this time. Walter Lewin at MIT created videos of all his classes for calculus based physics as part of MIT's Opencourseware project. These are brilliant examples of a traditional physics class. That doesn't mean they are easy to learn from but within their own genre that are the work of a master who has a deep love and appreciation for physics. What I will do is extract small clips from his presentations that I want you to watch. I will then pose some questions or challenges about those clips that I hope will prepare you for class. In class we will be working collectively on homework problems or relate problems but I will not be going over the material from scratch. I will certainly answer questions about the videos if you have them.
Acknowledgement and thanks: You will notice that the Opencourseware materials are licensed under the same Creative Commons license as my materials. You can find this information here.I am personally grateful to both MIT, the Opencourseware Consortium, and to Walter Lewin for their comittment to open source education for the world. The work I have excerpted here comes from one of these courses: Physics 8.01 Newtonian Mechanics; Physics 8.02 Electricity and Magnetism; and Physics 8.03 Vibrations and Waves.
Preparation
Text Links
- Differential Equations
- Periodic Motion
- Damped/Driven
- Waves
- Standing Waves
- Interference
Reading Resources
- Differential Equations
- Periodic Motion
- Damped/Driven
- Waves
- Standing Waves
- Interference
