Spring 2024

College Physics II (PHY 131)

This course is the second semester of a year-long sequence intended for life science and liberal arts majors. The sequence also fulfills the physics requirement for pre-professional programs in the medical sciences. Topics: Electricity and Magnetism, Modern Physics, Nuclear Physics

University Physics II (PHY 146)

University Physics II is the second semester of the introductory calculus-based physics sequence. Topics: Temperature, Heat, Laws of Thermodynamics, Electricity and Magnetism, Optics

College Physics Laboratory I (PHY 170)

PHY 170 is the first half of the laboratory portion of the two semester sequence in College Physics. Pre/Co-requisite: PHY 130. Experimental techniques of physics introduced by studying quantitative situations using linear measurements, graphical analysis, small calculator calculations, and error analysis.

University Physics Laboratory I (PHY 175)

PHY 175 is the first half of the laboratory portion of the two semester sequence in University Physics. Pre/Co-requisite: PHY 145. Experimental techniques of physics introduced by studying quantitative situations using linear measurements, graphical analysis, small calculator calculations, and error analysis.

Computation in Undergraduate Physics

PICUP I am a member of the PICUP community ("Partnership for Integration of Computation into Undergraduate Physics"). The goal is to make computation an integral part of the education of every undergraduate physics student.

There are significant barriers to teaching computation as part of a "normal" class (that does not specialize on computational physics):

  1. Lack of computer rooms within the department
  2. Most students own laptop computers; however, these computers do not have programming environments pre-installed
  3. Supporting software installation in large courses is very time consuming

New tools, such as Jupyter, JupyterHub and nbgrader, allow students to learn computing on any device that has a web browser. I am currently deploying these tools in the University Physics I lab (PHY 175), Modern Physics (PHY 247QR) and in Electricity & Magnetism (PHY 332).

 

Contact Info

Axel Mellinger
Department of Physics
Central Michigan University
223 Dow Science Complex
Mount Pleasant, MI 48859
USA

Phone: +1-989-774-3336
Email: