New podcast

There is a new podcast concerning universal gravitation and the variation of g with altitude.

Look in our iTunes U area.

Participation pointage

When you score at least one question correctly on a mini-quiz before its deadline, it shows you have done a bit of studying by the deadline. This earns you 4 points on your semester grade. The first twelve modules each have a mini-quiz, for which participation pointage accrues to your semester grade; the last module, Module O for Oceans, will generate some bonus points.

I just posted the participation points for this week's modules, A and B. (Oceans 1 was just a practice mini-quiz.)

Transcripts; Monday office hours online

We had six or seven students in office hours last night, and we talked over a LOT of exercises and calculation techniques. Excellent. You can probably see all the chat transcript and some of the audio in the "Office hours: recordings, transcripts" page in Webcourses 2.

We will have online office hours on Monday next week, 8:00 - 9:30 AM.

Recording and transcripts of office hours

I just set up a page with links to the recording and transcript of office hours. We had a decent session tonight on how to install and use iTunes U.

The recordings and transcripts page is in the right sidebar of Webcourses2.

More office hours for Wednesday evening

We will have online office hours tonight, through the link in Webcourses2.

Office hours online

Start: 800 PM

End: 9:30 PM

Drop in and discuss the course with Dr. Brueckner.

Friday due dates for mini-quizzes

You may have noticed that the due dates for mini-quizzes are always Friday. But because it is summer, no final exam period, the three exams this summer are also on Fridays, every two Fridays, starting July 5.

My ordinary procedure is to open the exam availability at 10:05 AM, before which I always deactivate the mini-quizzes.

That being the case, the mini-quizzes are due at different times:

1. on 1st, 3rd and 5th weeks of Summer B, mini-quizzes are due at 5 PM, Friday, but
2. on exam weeks, 2nd, 4th and 6th weeks, the mini-quizzes must be due at 9 AM and must go off the air at 9:30 AM.

By the way, the 4 points you receive for doing your mini-quiz and getting at least one question correct, is my way of encouraging students to keep and even pace of studying a little bit each week.

Office hours tonight!

I am holding office hours until 9:30 PM tonight. Use the link inside Webcourses 2.

Finished

I finished this interesting biography of Rosalind Franklin.

Her famous x-ray image of the DNA molecule is one of the most famous scientific images ever. But she died young and was not given the Nobel Prize with the others, Wilkins, Crick, Watson, even though her images were they key information for them in building the double helix model of DNA!

Very sad in the end, but she lived lived a good life.

Any PSC1121 student who got this book and read it would really learn about life and even a bit of physics!