All scheduled office hours will be help in Ph304F
Mon 3pm Natalie
Tues 2pm Jeff
Tues 3pm Lupe
Tues 4pm Nate
Wed 2pm Natalie
Fri 10am Brett
Fri 11am Jeff
Fri 4PM Nate

Contact Info:
Jeff Hazboun jeffrey.hazboun@oregonstate.edu
Brett Pentecost clarbret@oregonstate.edu
Natalie Rodgers rodgerna@oregonstate.edu
Nathan Hastings hastinat@oregonstate.edu
Lupe MacIntosh macintol@oregonstate.edu

Junior and Senior level courses for majors share textbooks. The text for this particular course is:

Taylor, Classical Mechanics, 1st ed. University Science Books, 2005, ISBN 13: 978-1-891389-22-1

I will also assigned readings from two (free) online textbooks:

The Physics of Waves, Howard Georgi (released to the author by Prentice-Hall).

The Geometry of Mathematical Methods, Tevian Dray and Corinne A. Manogue (under development).

If you would like a complete and published mathematical methods textbook, we recommend: Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences, 3rd ed., by Mary L. Boas, (Wiley, 2005. ISBN 978-0-471-19826-0).

• 1) Solve for the solutions and describe the behavior of a damped and driven harmonic oscillator in both time and frequency domains
• 2) Understand and implement Fourier series
• 3) Construct travelling and standing solutions to the wave equation
• 4) Describe the behavior of waves at interfaces (reflection, transmission, impedance) and their behavior in dissipative media (damping)
• 5) Collect and analyze experimental data
• 6) Write clear lab reports containing all necessary detail
• 7) Grad:Communicate graduate level understanding of mechanical and electrical waves and oscillations to both peers and instructors.

• 1.) Simple Harmonic Oscillator
• 2.) Damped & Driven Oscillations
• 3.) Mechanical Oscillators
• 4.) Oscillating Circuits: LRC Circuits
• 5.) Resonance
• 6.) Traveling & Standing Waves
• 7.) Attenuation of Waves
• 8.) Solutions of ODE's with Constant Coefficients

Your course score will be determined by:

1. Classroom Participation & Attendance (5%) Class participation is crucial for the activity-based teaching style used in the Paradigms classes. If you cannot make it to class please contact me or the GTA and let us know! We will provide you with any materials available so that you can stay up to speed on the topics in the class.
2. HW (45%)
3. Lab Reports (25%)
4. Final Exam (25%) 7-9PM May 5th, 2025

Grading Scale: Course letter grades will be assigned using the following lower bounds for each grade bin. These lower bounds may be adjusted down as needed.
A = 93%, A- = 90%, B+ = 87%, B = 83%, B- =80%, C+ = 77%, C = 73%, C- = 70%, D = 60 F = 0%

• Class Notes: The My (Jeff's) GoodNotes notebook that I use in class can be accessed online with OSU credentials.
• Mathematica: We use the computer algebra system Mathematica in several of the upper-division physics courses. Mathematica is available free to OSU students via a licensing agreement. Instructions for obtaining and installing Mathematica.
• Homework & Labs: The best way to learn the material of this course is to attend class and do the homework.
• Practice Problems: I will sometimes provide Practice Problems. These are meant to be review or relatively simple examples for you to check whether you understand the material. They will not be graded. Solutions will be posted at the same time as the practice problems. I recommend that you at least read each practice problem. If you don't know how to do it, ask for help.
• Required Problems: Required homework is due on Tuesdays and Fridays. Please submit via Gradescope by 8 pm on the due date. Some Required Problems will be graded for correctness; others will be graded for completeness. Solutions will be posted online after the due date.
• Late Homework: I really want you to do the homework, so I will absolutely accept late homework (with a penalty of 20% for work <48 hours late with higher penalties if the work is very late, 50% penalty for >48 hours). When you know that an assignment will be late, let me know as soon as possible. Turn in what you've completed at the due/date time (it'll help us with grading logistics). Any portion of the work that is turned in on time will not be subject to the late penalty. Please consult the instructor for extenuating circumstances.

Additional Guidance

• Collaborate You are strongly encouraged to work on assignments, including coding and plotting, collaboratively. Science is inherently a social and collaborative effort!
• Independent Write-Ups However, so that we can best support your learning, you are required to turn in assignments that you have written up independently.
• Do not copy from online solutions Appropriate resources on assignments include: working with each other, graduates of the course, the course TAs and LAs, or the course instructor; textbooks; other online materials, etc. Do not use homework solutions from previous years and do not share your completed homework solutions with other students (in other words, collaborate through discussion, not copying).
• Cite your sources Document your resources appropriately. If you find a homework problem worked out somewhere (other than homework solutions from a previous year), you may certainly use that resource, just make sure you reference it properly. If someone else helps you solve a problem, reference that too. An appropriate reference might be "Jeff Hazboun (private communication, 1/15/21)" or "I worked with Jeff Hazboun on this problem". Representing someone else's work as your own without reference - also known as plagiarism - is unethical, but collaboration and exchange of ideas is healthy. You can avoid having collaborative efforts take on the look of plagiarism by acknowledging sources as described above and by writing up your work independently.
• 1/2 Hour Rule The problems in this course will likely take longer than problems you've seen in previous courses. If you find that you have worked on a problem for 1/2 hour without making forward progress, it's time to pause, take a break, sleep, and seek help from classmates or the instructional team.
• Workload Since this is a short 5-week course for 3 credits, think of this as a 6 credit course. I expect that students will be working 12-18 hours per week outside of class for this course (2-3 hours per credit hour per week). Plan your schedule accordingly, particularly around homework due dates. If you're spending more time than this, that is not my intent; please come and talk to me.
• “Back Flip” course structure I do not expect students to learn new topics by reading before class -- I will introduce new topics during class through activities. Instead, I expect students to read the textbook, review notes, and consolidate their understanding after class.