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summaries and thanks



I have double thanks and summaries:

(1) I only read this list in digest form and even then don't get to it
everyday. But I read them eventually and I thank everyone for their
insights on the series capacitor issue. I especially appreciated David
Bowman's point about the need to miminize the electrostatic potential
energy and John Mallinckrodt's comments which very accurately addressed my
questions about when the underlying approximations break down. If you wish
to revisit the discussion, I have culled together the messages into one
HTML document linked near the top of my home page (a la Kowalski), ending
with Leigh Palmer's call to embarrass ourselves if necessary in the cause
of scientific understanding. (I'm slightly misrepresenting his words, but
this is the way *I* try to approach the great subject of physics. Hey,
professor or not, I feel I'm only barely beginning to understand some basic
concepts.)

(2) And here is a summary of the responses I got to my survey about intro
physics. This summary is somewhat simplified, so I may have mangled some of
the data. Some of the courses use texts or have math prereqs/coreqs
involving calculus, so those are rather more advanced than the simple
non-majors intro course for which we're trying to change the math prereqs
to coreqs. Further thoughts on this latter issue are welcome.

course math prereqs. math coreqs. textbook is lab required?
------ ------------- ------------ -------- ----------------
104 C none Young yes
120 A+T none Cutnell+Johnson yes
211 none none Van Heuvelen no
111 A none Beiser yes
11 none none Miller yes
101 A+T none Giancoli yes
6A none C Giancoli yes
101 none none Serway+Faughn yes
130 A none Giancoli yes
191 none C Serway yes
111 A none Serway+Faughn yes
201 A+T none Giancoli yes
203 none none Kirkpatrick+Wheeler yes
120 A none Giancoli yes
103 A+T none Giancoli yes
201 A+T none Jones+Childers yes
1310 none C Young no

codes:
A = algebra
T = trignometry
C = calculus

ps: I am surprised some people are using Giancoli without any calculus
coreqs or prereqs. Or have they eliminated calculus in the most recent
edition? I'm also surprised that there aren't more folks making lab
optional, to attract distribution students who may not need a lab, only a
science lecture course. But maybe most of you can afford to run a separate,
conceptual-type course for such students. We can't.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Carl Mungan, Assistant Professor http://www.uwf.edu/~cmungan/
Dept. of Physics, University of West Florida, Pensacola, FL 32514-5751
office: 850-474-2645 (secretary -2267, FAX -3131) email: cmungan@uwf.edu