AP Physics C Electricity and Magnetism Course overview This is a calculus based course in physics. The course is the equivalent of an introductory engineering course in Physics. The main objective of the course is to teach students the concepts and how to apply them while solving Physics problems. At the same time, laboratory experiments will be an integral part of the course and they will serve the purpose of reinforcing the concepts that are thought during lectures. The students will be required to work in groups, and to do individual lab reports. In addition, the students will be asked to come up to the board to solve problems and to explain their solutions to the rest of their peers. Text Fundamentals of Physics, Halliday, Resnick, and Walker; 6 th Ed. New York: John Wiley Vols. I and 2 Final Grade Final grade will be determined from the combination of the following scores. Homework 5% Lab 20% Tests/Quiz 75% Labs Each laboratory will be done over a period of one to two days. The semesters at our school are sixteen weeks in length. This is the equivalent of 80 hours of instructional time. The students will be spending at least one hour each week doing a laboratory. That mean that the students will be spending at least 16 hours out of 80, which means that they will be spending at least 20% of the instructional time doing laboratory experiments. There is a one to two hour lab every week. The lab report will be graded on the student s participation in the actual experiment and the written report.
Students must save all the graded lab reports. They will be required to present the lab reports and a lab notebook as a proof of having done these labs when they seek credit for this course in college. 1. Polarization. 2. Electrostatics. 3. Capacitance and electrical energy. 4. Current and resistance. 5. Series and parallel circuits. 6. Magnetic field of a conducting wire. (Ampere s Law) 7. Electromagnetic induction. 8. Magnetic field lines. 9. RC circuit: building a circuit and finding the time constant. 10. Ohm s Law and internal resistance of a wire. Each lab will require: The formation of a hypothesis or hypotheses, based on in class discussion of the presented problem or focus of each experiment. Design of (an) experiment(s), also based on in class discussion, to test the hypothesis or hypotheses. Collection of data and observations. Calculations using the collected data. Conclusions about how well the hypothesis or hypotheses held up based on the experiment. Class discussion of variance and error analysis. Written report. Course Electric Charge Coulomb s Law Conductors and Insulators Conservation of Charge Electric Field (E) Due to a Point Charge Due to Charge Distribution Discrete
Continuous Electric Field Lines Electric Dipole Gauss Law Area Vector Electric Flux Gauss Law Applications Electric Potential Energy (UE) and Potential (V) Electric Potential Energy Two Point System Many Particle System Electric Potential (V) Point Charge Charge Distribution Discrete Continuous Relationship between V and E Electrical Properties of a Charged Conductor Capacitance Capacitor Capacitance of Parallel Plate Capacitor Cylindrical Capacitor Spherical Capacitor
Capacitors in Series and Parallel Energy Stored in Capacitor Energy Stored in Electric Field Capacitors with Dielectric
DC Circuits Electric Current Ohm s Law Resistors in Series and Parallel Energy Transfer Kirchhoff s Rules RC Circuits Magnetic Fields Magnetic Interactions Magnetic Poles or Lack Thereof Magnetic Force on a Moving Charge Circulating Charge Magnetic Force on Electric Current Electric Motor Magnetic Field due to Electric Current Long Straight Wire Circular Loop Solenoid Parallel Wires Biot Savart Law and Applications Ampere s Law and Application
Faraday s Law of Induction Electromagnetic induction Lenz s Law applications Electric generator Transformer Inductance Self inductance LR circuits Energy stored in a magnetic field LC circuit and electromagnetic oscillation Maxwell s Equations The basic equation of electromagnetism Displacement current and Ampere s Law Maxwell s Equations Review