FY527: Physics A

Students taking the course are expected to:

• Have basic knowledge of vectors and calculus.
• Be able to use the fundamental laws of arithmetic on abstract symbols (do calculations using letters rather than numbers)

The
course builds on the knowledge acquired in high school and forms the
foundation for their future studies in chemistry, biochemistry and
molecular biomedicin.

In relation to the competence profile of the degree it is the explicit focus of the course to:

• Give the competence to create mathematical models of physical systems.
• Give skills to solve physical problems using mathematical tools.
• Give
  knowledge and understanding of classical mechanics, electromagnetism
  and optics. Including the concept of energy, angular momentum,
  electrical charge and conservation laws.

The learning objective of the course is that the student demonstrates the ability to:

• Perform simple mathematical derivations.
• Identify the most relevant components of a physical system.
• Describe a physical system with a mathematical model.
• Apply Newton’s laws to predict the future behaviour of a physical system on the basis of a
• mathematical model.
• Compute the electric and magnetic fields from simple charge distributions and currents.
• Analyse the motion of charged particles in electric and magnetic fields.

• Physical quantities and units.
• Motion and kinematics.
• Newton’s laws, forces and momentum.
• Mechanical energy, work and power.
• The motion of rigid bodies and rotation.
• Basic electromagnetism.

Eric Mazur: Principles and Practice of Physics, Pearson, 2015.
See itslearning for syllabus lists and additional literature references.

At the faculty of science, teaching is organized after the three-phase model ie. intro, training and study phase.
These teaching activities are reflected in an estimated allocation of the workload of an average student as follows:

• Intro phase (lectures, class lessons) - 20 hours
• Training phase: 26 hours, including 26 hours tutorials

The intro phase consists primarily of lecture with a focus on involving the students through questions and discussions. 
In the training phase, the students will solve and review problems based on the theory introduced in the intro phase.

Activities during the study phase:
In the study phase it is expected that the students work independently with the material including examples and problems in the book and to study the study phase notes that will be distributed. It is also expected that the students will study the take-home problems that are all important elements of the study phase.
The students can expect to receive feedback from an instructor. Finally it is expected that the students will spend part of the time to catch up and refresh their minds on the problems they have solved in the skills training phase.