New podcast about subterranean mammals

New podcast on our alternate podcasting site. It concerns exercises 9 and 10 on p. 225, which some of you have queried in discussions.

Some podcasting

I have restructured my old Uvision podcasts website to accommodate visual podcasts for you. Due to service and account issues and software versioning, the old pages are shaky -- but the new ones are fine.

Right now there are

1. Chapter 12 podcasts for this week's learning module and
2. Chapter 11 podcasts for last week's learning module.

I will be setting up more podcasts, some for earlier chapters and some for later chapters, plus some digital videos. But it is a pain in the neck, so it will happen gradually over the next week or so, not all at once.

I have a few more wrinkles in store, so we are not done yet, but this is a good start.

Wrinkle, curve ball and brainiacs

Some of you have been asking for additional study helps. I am entirely sympathetic. The trouble is the institutional structure of these online courses, so it will take some brainiac moves to out-maneuver the powers that be.

But I have thought of a few new wrinkles to try out. Time for a few curve balls. Keep an eye here on Announcements.

Angular; writing assignments

I am still working on the technical re-grade of the angular conversion item on Exam 2. I hope to finish tonight.

Due to changes in Webcourses this semester, and the accompanying difficulties integrating TurnItIn.com and Webcourses, I must now cancel our writing assignments 1 and 2. I am awarding full points to everyone, 20/20. I think this is fair, although I like the writing assignments, so it burns my grits to cancel them.

Angular, part 2

I started re-grading the angular conversion item on Exam 2. I am about halfway through it, up to students with last name beginning with L. And I am glad I took a look at this, because I did find a handful of students whose response ought to have been counted as correct. Good.

I am giving midterms today for my lecture sections, so I will be busy with that until supper time. So I will probably get back to the angular re-grade tonight or tomorrow.

Learning module for this week is now UP.

The week 9 learning module is now UP. The concept guide contains a link to some visual podcasts on a variety of exercises in chaapter 11 and elsewhere.

NOTE: We skip forward to chapter 11 now.

Angular

I think a few of you have typed in a valid answer on one of the angular conversion test questions on Exam 2, but Webcourses might not consider that answer valid. So I am going to go look through everybody's exams and see if there are any valid answers wandering in cyberspace. Most of you will see no change to your score, but a few might see it go up by +1.

When I finish this chore, I will announce it here immediately.

Exam 2 bonus question

I actually used FIVE of the bonus questions from the Discussions. Those five students now have two bonus points to add onto the top of your top exam score. So even if this is your low exam score that gets dropped, and we keep your other two exam scores, these bonus points will not go away.

Nice work, you five!

Exam 2 scores are UP.

Your exam 2 scores are UP. I know that many of you guys worked your you-know-whats off to prepare, so it is good to see you bring your grades up.

Statistically, the most difficult question was one that I used from the bonus question discussion area. So students that used that discussion to prepare for Exam 2 were prepared to tango with the toughest question on Exam 2. Good.

Exam 2 is running.

Your Exam 2 is running.

There are 28 questions, some of which are worth more than one point. But the test total is still 40 points.

You have 50 minutes. Start sometime before 11:09 PM to get your full 50 minutes.

Bonus points questions

I just opened up a discussion area for you to create multiple choice questions for tomorrow's midterm exams. Type in a question, and if yours is good enough to use on the midterm, I will give you two bonus points.

Exam next Monday

I notice this morning that a small number of students are working on mini-quizzes. This surprises me.

It is one week until Exam 2.

Concept guide with extra instructional blurb

Your week 8 learning module is now UP. It contains the primary item, the concept guide, plus an extra two-page blurb about rotation and angles. Make sure to read the blurb before you grapple the mini-quiz.

Learning module for this week is UP.

In all the excitement of giving exams last week for you all PLUS my lecture sections, I thought I had set up your week 6 learning module. Instead, you had an unplanned vacation from studies.

But NOW there are some concept guides up, along with mini-quizzes.

6. Momentum, the dynamic quantity that controls tackling and other interactions between two objects. The tackler with more momentum "wins" the interaction. Momentum is a vector.
7. Energy, the directionless quantity that measures capacity for doing work. A moving object can be described with a momentum and an energy.

The quantities energy and momentum go together, and they are concepts that we use all the way up to advanced research in the theory of relativity and quantum theory. For instance, a photon of light technically has zero mass, but it still interacts with the gravitational field of the sun and curves out of its normal straight line path -- because the photon carries momentum and energy!

To make up for the forced vacation, I will set up a bonus podcast for you and a bonus quiz with a few brain burners. The bonus points will go on top of your exam total. Nice.


Light cones near the event horizon of a black hole.