Announcements for Rebecca Peebles's CHM5250 Fall 2007
12/4/07 - I have finished grading Exam 3 and you may collect your papers from me this afternoon or in class tomorrow. I have also posted the answers on the web page. I will try to get answers for Exam 2 posted in the next few days, as well as a few more of the ungraded homework problem answers. The final (Monday, 12/10, 8am) will be open book and open notes. It will be comprehensive (over the whole semester). Since there is a lot of material to cover and not much time, there will probably be a greater proportion of multiple choice, true/false, and other shorter answer questions on the final. You should study the homework, ungraded homework, and your other three exams (all of these also count as notes, so you may also have them in the final). For the paper, which will be the basis of some of the questions on the final, I have decided to use the same paper that we will be discussing in class on Friday. It addresses many of the different topics that we have discussed this semester, and it is plenty long enough for both a class discussion and for some exam questions. You should use the list of questions handed out yesterday (and posted on the handouts page) to guide your studying of the paper. You are welcome to write notes on this list of questions ahead of time, and you may want to get together with other members of the class to discuss the posted questions before the exam, since in your preparation for Friday's class you will all be focusing on different questions and different parts of the paper. Please let me know if you have any questions about the final.
12/3/07 - The list of questions to guide your reading of the paper in class on Friday has been posted on the Handouts page. The paper for you to read for your final exam will be posted later tocay.
12/2/07 - A sample presentation evaluation form has been added to the Handouts page.
11/28/07 - The answers to Assignment 6 have been posted on the Homework page.
11/28/07 - The exam tomorrow evening will be in room 4180. Room 4020 was already taken.
11/23/07 - I have updated the online syllabus with problems for Chapter 4. Solutions to these and the rest of the Chapter 10 problems should be posted in the next few days. A couple of new corrections have been added to the list of errors in Steinfeld, too (see Handouts page). Your exam on Thursday (11/29, 7pm) will cover the last part of Chapter 9 (experimental techniques) and the experimental parts of Chapter 3 that were covered in class as well as Chapters 10 and 4 (all in Steinfeld). As with exams I and II, it will be open book and open notes. Also, please note that there is a new homework assignment posted, which will be due at 9am on Wednesday (so I can try to get it graded and ready to collect by first thing Thursday).
11/13/07 - I have posted the first set of solutions for the ungraded problems from Chapter 10. The rest of the problems will come later.
11/8/07 - I will post a new homework assignment later this morning. It will be due next Thursday (11/15). Also, we will work on a problem in class tomorrow, so you should bring Steinfeld with you. You will need to refer to the book to look up partition functions, etc. Also, remember that your project topics are due tomorrow by 3pm.
10/29/07 - A couple of you have pointed out to me that I posted the answer to problem 8.3 from Steinfeld but not the answer to problem 8.5 (the syllabus gives 8.5 as an ungraded problem). You do not need to know how to do problem 8.3 - it is a very difficult quantum mechanics problem, dealing with a part of the chapter that we skipped. I will work on a solution to problem 8.5, but I'm not sure when I will finish it. I am going to post the answers to Homework #4 and grade your homework first because that is more important as far as understanding the material for the exam.
10/29/07 - The exam tomorrow evening will be in room 4020. It will cover everything since the last exam through the first part of chapter 9 (molecular beam experiments and the K + CH3I example). It will not cover the different spectroscopic techniques (starting with IR chemiluminescence). As with the last exam, you will be allowed to use your notes and textbooks.
10/22/07 - Assignment #4 has been posted on the Homework page. It will be due on Monday (Oct. 29) at 9am so I can get it graded before your exam. The exam will be on Tuesday, October 30 at 7pm. The room is still to be determined.
10/19/07 - The guidelines for the end of semester project have been posted on the Handouts page.
10/19/07 - The online syllabus has been updated to account for the fact that we were running about 3 weeks behind the listed schedule. I have dropped some material from the initial syllabus and rearranged some other material, and the listed dates should now be (more or less) correct.
10/14/07 - The questions to guide your reading of the paper for discussion in class on Wednesday have been posted to the Handouts page. The ungraded textbook problems have also been updated on the online syllabus.
10/7/07 - Assignment #3 has finally been posted to the Homework page. It will be due on Wendesday, 10/17/07. This assignment involves reading a paper and answering some questions on it. We will also have a class discussion of this paper on Wednesday, the 17th. I will post a list of questions for you to consider for the in-class discussion within the next day or two. As discussed in class on Friday, Exam 2 will likely be scheduled between October 24th and 31st. There will probably be one more assignment scheduled before the exam.
9/24/07 - The answers to Exam 1 have been posted. Please let me know if you have any questions.
9/21/07 - An initial set of ungraded homework problems for Steinfeld Chp. 7 has been posted on the online syllabus. More problems will be added as we go through the chapter. A new homework assignment will probably be posted in the next week. Also, Exam 1 will (hopefully) be graded by Monday, and at that point I will post your current course grades to WebCT.
9/14/07 - The first exam has been scheduled for Wednesday, 9/19, at 6:30pm. I will post the room number here when it is available. Please let me know as soon as possible if you have a problem with this exam time.
9/12/07 - The solutions to the unassigned problems in Steinfeld Chapter 2 have been posted. The solutions to the problems in Houston will be coming soon. For the homework assignment due Friday, we have not yet covered question #5 (Houston 1.14), so you can skip that question (although this material will be covered on the exam). You should go ahead and attempt question #4 (Houston 1.11) based on what we've already covered in class and reading the book. I will add the answer to 1.14 to the ungraded questions.
9/5/07 - Assignment #2 will be due on Friday, 9/14 at 5pm. The assignment and a new set of ungraded practice problems have been posted on the Homework page and on the syllabus, respectively. Solutions to the ungraded problems will be coming soon at the "Answers to Exams, In-Class Exercises, Quizzes..." link.
8/28/07 - There will be two optional calculus review sessions tomorrow (Wednesday, 8/29) from 12-1pm and 5-6pm. I will go over basic rules of differentiation and integration and have some examples for you to practice with. Because the review session may help you with your homework assignment, the due date for Assignment #1 will be moved to Thursday, 8/30, at 12noon. (Please note - I will be off campus from about 11:30 onwards on Thursday morning so if I'm not around please put the assignment under my door or in my mail box.)
8/22/07 - Assignment #1 has been posted on the Homework page. It will be due at 5pm on Wednesday, 8/29. Also, the ungraded textbook problems corresponding to Chp. 1 in Steinfeld have been added to the online syllabus. The solutions to these problems will be posted in the next day or two.
8/20/07 - Class will meet in room 4180 for the rest of the semester. The normal meeting times will be Monday and Wednesday 8-8:50am and Friday 12 noon.
8/17/07 - Welcome to CHM5250 - Kinetics and Reaction Dynamics. This graduate level course will build upon the basic principles of kinetics that are normally taught in a one year undergraduate physical chemistry course. The course will meet on Monday, August 20, at 8am in the Chemistry conference room (next to room 3409). The regularly scheduled meeting times will be on Monday and Wednesday 8-8:50am and Friday at a time that is still to be determined. We will figure out the Friday meeting time during class on Monday.