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Program Overview
Program Overview
The university program provides a comprehensive education in various fields, including physics, mathematics, and more. The program is designed to cater to the needs of students with different interests and career goals.
PHYS 1203: General Physics II
This course is an introduction to electricity and magnetism, optics, and modern physics at a first-year university level. The laboratory component of PHYS 1203, PHYS 1205, is usually offered once per year in the summertime in Kamloops BC.
Delivery Methods
- Online, self-paced
- Print, self-paced
Credits
The course is worth 3.0 credits.
Recommended Requisites
- PHYS 1103
- MATH 1157
- MATH 1171
- MATH 1141
Note
The combination of PHYS 1103 and 1203, with their corresponding laboratory courses PHYS 1105 and 1205, provides the equivalent of a full first year of university-level physics.
Exclusions
- PHYS 1200
Course Duration
The course duration is 30 weeks.
Learning Outcomes
Upon completing this course, students will be able to:
- Describe the relationships that hold for electricity and magnetism and the interactions between them.
- Apply Coulomb's Law, Faraday's Law, Ohm's Law, Kirchhoff's rules, and Lenz's Law to solve problems in electromagnetism.
- Calculate current, potentials, resistances, and electromotive forces for simple AC and DC circuits.
- Describe the magnetic fields, forces, and potentials involved in the interaction of point charges and of currents.
- Describe how devices such as inductors, capacitors, resistors, and measurement devices such as ammeters, ohmmeters, and galvanometers are used.
- Understand the principles of geometrical optics and physical optics.
- State and apply the laws of reflection and refraction and the Fresnel-Huygens Principle to problems involving optics and lenses.
- Solve problems using the lens-mirror equations.
- Describe Young's two-slit experiment and the diffraction grating and understand its relevance to the wave theory of light.
- Discuss the dual nature of light with reference to diffraction, interference, and polarization.
- Explain the physics principles behind the workings of a camera, simple magnifier, the human eye, a microscope, and a telescope.
- Understand the principle of relativity as it is applied to particles moving at close to the speed of light.
- Discuss the relationship between the Bohr quantum condition and the de Broglie wave picture.
- Understand the terms used in describing radioactivity, such as neutrino, radioactive series, decay constant, activity, half-life.
- Solve problems involving half-life and the decay constant.
- Complete equations for nuclear processes and solve problems related to radiation doses and radiation exposure.
Course Topics
The course covers the following topics:
- Unit 1: Electricity
- Unit 2: Electromagnetism
- Unit 3: Optics and Light
- Unit 4: Atomic and Nuclear Physics
Required Text and Materials
Students are responsible for purchasing the required materials on their own:
- Serway, R.A., & Vuille, C. (2018) College Physics. 11th edition, Vol. 2. Cengage Learning.
- Type: E-Textbook
- ISBN: 978-2
Additional Requirements
A scientific calculator capable of scientific notation (10x), logarithms, ex, yx, and trigonometric functions including inverse functions is required. The calculator must be capable of working in radians as well as degrees. Students will also need a set of simple drawing instruments (i.e., ruler, protractor).
Assessments
To successfully complete this course, students must achieve 50% or higher on the course overall and 50% or higher on the final mandatory examination. The assessment breakdown is as follows:
- Assignment 1: Electricity | 12%
- Assignment 2: Electromagnetism | 13%
- Assignment 3: Optics and Light | 13%
- Assignment 4: Atomic and Nuclear Physics | 12%
- Final Examination (mandatory) | 50%
- Total | 100%
Open Learning Faculty Member Information
An Open Learning Faculty Member is available to assist students. Students will receive the necessary contact information at the start of the course.