How should I prepare for the exam?

Read before the lecture. Try your best to figure out answers to quiz questions.

Ask any questions during the lecture.

Do your homework with emphasis on understanding the underlying principles. Avoid the "just plugging in numbers" way of doing the homework. Write down equations and know where they come from.

Get help with homework, and also give help. Form study groups and have fun exchanging information. Even if information may seem somewhat chaotic. All these interactions, if done correctly, will form the basis for the crystallization of your knowledge and understanding.

Strike while the iron is hot -- after each homework is due, solutions to homework will be posted right away. Review them and combine them with what you figured out to help make your knowledge crystallize as much as it can. Otherwise, your knowledge may evaporate into thin air. In the same spirit, check the blue "Notebook" FAQ link for the reading quiz section of the ILT web site, a day or two after the lecture.

Exams will consist entirely of write-up problems. No multiple choices. No conceptual questions. TAs and I will grade exams, completely manually. If you do not know the principles underlying the how-to's of homework problems, you will not do well in exams.

Keep in mind that while homework grade and quiz grade are important, there is not going to be much variation in those grades. It could be that many people will max out at them. The real difference in grades will be made in exams. How truthfully you understood homework problems and quizzes will be reflected in exams.

What should I be reading? In what order?

You should be reading my lecture notes (click HANDOUTS at the ILT site) and corresponding textbook sections.

As long as you thoroughly understand concepts described in my lecture notes, it does not matter which one you read first.

My lecture will follow the textbook, from Chapter 1 through Chapter 13 and maybe a bit of Chapter 14, if we have time. The order of my lecture will be almost identical with the order of book chapters, and so keep reading, as much as you are able.

Enrollment and labs

Hi, this is a note to clarify two things.

(1) All, or almost all, issues related to enrollment is best dealt with by the ever helpful physics undergraduate advisor, Teri Pennington. She can be reached at tapennin "at" ucsc.edu or at 383 Thimann Laboratories. I will not be accepting or dropping students at the first lecture. Please direct all your requests related to enrollment to Teri.

(2) Please note that the lab course (6L) and the lecture course (6A) are formally separate. I would not have any authority to answer any questions regarding 6L, so please do not ask them to me. I can say, however, that labs start from the week of October 5, according to what I learned from George Brown. I.e., there are no labs prior to October 5.

See you soon!

Sam