Syllabus:

Electromagnetism and Optics (PHYS 142)

Instructor: Guillaume Gervais

Rutherford Physics 412

email via MyCourses

Office hours: to be communicated later.

Course Lectures: MWF 1:35–2:25 PM, Leacock 132

Course Book: Knight, “Physics for Scientists and Engineers: A Stragegic Approach”

Chapters 25-35, 20-24

Course Grade: 15% Homework (CAPA online system)

20% Labs [Must pass labs (50%) to pass course]

15% Midterm (24 Feb. 6:00-8:00PM)

50% Final Exam

In converting to letter grades I will not round: A starts at 85.0%

not 84.5% and so forth. No alternative is available to improve

grade with extra work

Material covered: Electrostatics (Forces, Fields and Potentials, Gauss’ Law, Dielectrics and

Capacitance), Current and resistance, Magnetic fields (Magnetic force law, origin of magnetic

fields, inductance), Faraday’s law, Electric circuits, and Optics.

Prerequisites: Physics 131 (or Physics 101) and Math 140 (or 150) are prerequisites. We

will use the material learned in these courses extensively, so a student who has not passed

these courses or equivalents will find the course extremely challenging. Math 141 (or Math

151) are co-requisite, meaning students must either have taken the course or be taking the

course at the same time they take Physics 142.

• Homework will be via the online CAPA system. Each student will see the same

problems but with individually tailored numbers. You can try each problem up to 6

times; so with effort it should be possible to get almost all the points in the homework

part of the course. You may talk to other students or work in groups, but I strongly

advise you to attempt most or all problems by yourself.

• Tutorials: Tutorial sessions, led by graduate student TAs, occur Monday, Tuesday,

Thursday from 3:00-5:00PM in Wong room 1070. They are intended to provide assis-

tance in understanding the course material. They will be operated on a drop-in basis;

you can go to any tutorial section without prior arrangement.

• Labs: The labs start meeting in the 19 Jan week of the course. All students must

register in a lab section [students who previously passed the labs but not the course can

get an exemption by seeing Ms. Engelberg, Rutherford 216, edith.engelberg@mcgill.ca].

You can change the lab section on Minerva; if the section you want to move into is

full, post a request to trade lab sections with someone on the MyCourses discussion

board; when you find someone, contact the Senior Demonstrator (Edith Engelberg) to

finalize the exchange. Lab manuals and other information will be made available on

MyCourses. Lab attendance is mandatory; absence will result in a zero grade. If you

know of a conflict ahead of time, arrange with Ms. Engelberg to substitute into a

different lab section. Just showing up to a different section results in a 0 on that lab. If

you are sick or have another unforeseen valid reason for missing a lab, we will average

your lab grade over the remaining labs. While everyone works with a lab partner, your

lab report must represent your own work; turning in a lab report which is copied from

or identical to your lab partner’s report will be treated as cheating.

• The Midterm will take place on 24 February from 6:00 to 8:00PM. Students with an

excused reason which makes them unable to attend the midterm (such as a conflicting

midterm or class, illness, or family emergency) will have 65% of their grade determined

by the final exam.

• Midterm and Final: during exams you are allowed pencil/pen and dumb (not graph-

ing) calculator. No scrib sheet. The final will be comprehensive, but with more emphasis

on the material from the second half of the course (so that all course material is tested

equally). No cell phones or graphing calculators are allowed into any exams.

Integrity: McGill University values academic integrity. Therefore, all students must un-

derstand the meaning and consequences of cheating, plagiarism, and other academic offences

under the Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures:

see www.mcgill.ca/students/srr/honest/ for more information.

Languages: In accord with McGill University’s Charter of Students’ Rights, students in

this course have the right to submit in English or in French any written work that is to be

graded.

Force majeure: In the event of extraordinary circumstances beyond the University’s

control, the content and/or evaluation scheme in this course is subject to change.