Physics is like SCUBA diving -- it requires
participation and practice and learning from your own
errors..
There simply is no other way to learn
Physics.
Diligence with the homework will make the exams
easy but ignoring the homework
will make the exams
impossible!
You must do the
homework--just to survive. Solutions will be posted
on the world wide web or the internet. Homework will not be
turned in and graded; this requires
great maturity and responsibility on your
part!
Homework is vital in Physics!!!! I can not stress that
too much. Physics is like SCUBA diving -- it requires
participation and practice and learning from your own
errors. You may be able to understand the Civil War by
listening to lectures. But you can not successfully learn to
SCUBA dive only by listening to lectures --
you have to get wet! Physics,
too, requires that you "get
wet", that you get your hands messy in the mire of
homework problems. Most of the exams will not be strikingly
different from the homework. You
must do the
homework -- just to survive!
I love to watch old Jacque Cousteau specials on
television. Cousteau makes scuba diving look so easy (after
all, he invented scuba diving!). But I would
(literally!) die if I tried to scuba dive. Learning
how to scuba dive is not the same thing as
watching Cousteau while he scuba dives! Homework is
like that. You have to do the homework yourself!
A common and reasonable "rule of thumb" for any
three-semester-hour course is that you must put in
six to nine hours a week reading the
material and thinking about and working on and answering the
homework.
It is probably not
possible to survive (or pass) this course with a smaller
time committment.
|