Program Overview

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GENERAL PHYSICS - MODULE 2

Course Details

• Code: 80528
• Academic Year: 2025/2026
• Credits: 6 cfu anno 1 INGEGNERIA BIOMEDICA 11878 (L-8 R) - GENOVA
• Scientific Disciplinary Sector: FIS/01
• Language: Italian
• Teaching Location: GENOVA
• Semester: 2° Semester
• Modules: This course is a module of GENERAL PHYSICS

Overview

The course aims to provide students with a basic knowledge of thermodynamics and electromagnetism in a vacuum.

Aims and Content

Learning Outcomes

To provide the basic knowledge about the mechanics of a material point and of a system of particles as well as of rigid bodies. To make the student able to describe the motion in classical mechanics.

Aims and Learning Outcomes

The course is a basis course: the learning outcomes are therefore aimed to give to the students the instruments to elaborate models of physics phenomena and to extract from those models the relationship between the physics quantities involved. The basic concepts - heat, energy, charge, electric and magnetic field, and so on - are therefore defined and so are the basic physics laws governing them. Simple evolution of models in time is also studied.

Teaching Methods

• Blackboard lessons with possible support of audio/visual material, Remote teaching if required by the safety rules.
• Guided solution to exam exercises.

Syllabus/Content

Classical Thermodynamics

• Principle of thermodynamics
• Cyclic machines
• Carnot theorem
• Entropy
• Reversibility and lost work

Electro-magnetism in Void

• Electric charge
• Electric Field
• Coulomb's force
• Gauss' theorem
• Conservativity of electric field
• Electrostatic energy
• Potential
• Insulator and conductors
• Capacitance
• Electric current
• Ohm's Law
• Resistance in series or parallel
• Kirkhoff's Laws
• Charge/discharge of a capacitance
• Magnetic field
• Lorentz force
• Magnetic moment of a coil
• Torque on a coil in magnetic field
• Magnetic energy
• Force on a coil in magnetic field
• Biot-Savart Law
• Ampere's Law
• Solenoid and toroid
• Faraday's law
• Inductance and mutual inductance
• Energy of magnetic field

Recommended Reading/Bibliography

• W. Edward Gettys, Frederick J. Keller, Malcolm J. Skove: Fisica classica e moderna Volume 1 (Meccanica termodinamica onde) Edito da McGraw-Hill
• Any other university-level textbook can be used.
• There will be some material on Aulaweb and an exercise collection, including the previous exam texts.

Teachers and Exam Board

• Guido Gagliardi
  • Office hours will be communicated at the beginning of the course. The teacher is always at disposition by prior appointment.
• Andrea Celentano
  • All days upon e-mail arrangement.

Exam Board

• Guido Gagliardi (President)
• Andrea Celentano
• Enzo Franco Branchini (President Substitute)

Lessons

Lessons Start

The timetable for this course is available here: Portale EasyAcademy

Exams

Exam Description

Final examination is made of a written essay and an oral discussion on the arguments of the course.

• The written essay is made of four exercises: two on mechanics, one on thermodynamics, and one on electro-magnetism in the void. Students have four hours to finish the exam.
• All written exams can be parted in a mechanics and a thermodynamics/electromagnetism in void part; the student can choose to build its admission with two half parts, both passed with an evaluation greater or equal to 12, and whose mean is greater or equal to 15. For each part, the time for finishing it will be two hours.
• No textbook or other material is allowed on the written essay - there will be a formulary downloadable from Aulaweb.
• Students failing the oral examination must redo also the written essay.

Assessment Methods

The students need to be able to:

• Model cyclic machines and other simple processes with regard to heat/work exchange with sources and efficiency
• Model a thermodynamic process and assess the entropy variation and reversibility of it
• Model electrostatic interactions between conductors/insulant objects in the presence of unbalanced charge
• Model simple electrical circuits with linear elements and stationary or quasi-stationary currents
• Model interactions between currents and magnetic field and current-current interactions
• Model electromagnetic interaction between conductive/insulant objects in quasi-stationary field flux variations

Exam Schedule

Date	Time	Location	Degree Type	Note
08/01/2026	09:00	GENOVA	Scritto	Aula B1 Opera Pia - dalle 9:00 alle 13:00
05/02/2026	09:00	GENOVA	Scritto	Aula B1 Opera Pia
04/06/2026	09:00	GENOVA	Scritto	Aula B1 Opera Pia
02/07/2026	09:00	GENOVA	Scritto	Aula B1 Opera Pia
03/09/2026	09:00	GENOVA	Scritto	Aula B1 Opera Pia