HOME PAGE: Physics of Energy & the Environment- PHYS 161- Autumn 1999

Administrative:

• Course Overview
• Course Information
• Course Outline
• Printing the Web Pages
• Network Access for Students
• See what's on Reserve in the Library for this class
• Glossary of Physical Terms
• How to launch netscape from Gladstone
• Add your General comments about this class
• Physics 162 Class

The Final Exam Is Tuesday, December 7 at 13:00 (1 PM)

Current Events in the News:

• Electric Hybrid Cars: BS or not?
• Clinton and Global Warming
• Low-pollution Cars
• China's Three Gorge Damn Project

Internet Resources For This Class

• Statistical Abstract of the United States 1994
• Sustainability Examples
• Energy Information Administration
• Tennessee Valley Authority
• Financial Times Energy Newsletter
• The Greenhouse Effect
• Fossil Fuel Production and Consumption
• Remote Sensing Resource
• Environmental Protection Agency
• Energy Information Highway
• Guide to Internet Resources on Environmental Issues
• Fossil Fuels Server
• Energy News Stories
• International Petroleum and Technology Journal
• Acid Rain Resource
• Methane in Ice-Covered, Continental Shelf Waters of the Beaufort Sea, Alaska
• Methane from Rice Production
• Methane from Livestock
• Methane and Gas Hydrates in Arctic Sediments and Permafrost
• Good Energy and Alternative Energy Fact Sheet
• NOAA's National Climate Center: Historical and Global Temperature and Precipitation Information.
• Facts about Hurricanes, Typhoons and Tropical Cyclones
• U.S. Energy Information Agency Home Page.
• A Web Page about the Carbon Cycle.

Exams and Homework

Homework 1- Assigned, Thurs, 30-September, due Tuesday, 5-October in class.

Homework 2- Assigned, Thurs, 14-October, due Thursday, 21-October in class.

Quiz 1 key can be found here.

Homework 3 assigned Tuesday, 2-November, due Thursday, 11-Nov.

Quiz 2 key can be found here.

Quiz 3 key can be found here.

Homework 4- Assigned, Tuesday, 23-November, due Thursday, 2-December.

Lectures

Lecture 1- Introductions, course questionaire, and an introduction to motion.

Lecture 2- More motion- acceleration, force and mass. Interactive Lecture Demonstration (ILD). Application: the ubiquitous automobile.

Lecture 3- Gravity, work, and energy. Application: hydroelectricity.

Lecture 4- Well, it actually was a lab, Lab 1. If you missed it, see the instructor ASAP.

Lecture 5- Problem-solving examples, Quiz 1, introduction to electricity.

Lecture 6- More electricity fundamentals-- current, circuits, resistance and Ohm's law.

Lecture 7- Resistance, Ohm's law, power, magnets, motors and electrical generators.

Lecture 8- Magnetic and electric fields, waves, electromagnetic radiation, the solar collector.

Lecture 9- Lab Day!

Lecture 10- Quiz 2 on electricity, magnetism and waves. The Science of Spectra. Intro to Heat and Temperature.

Lecture 11- Review of black body radiation, heat, temperature, work on gases, First Law of Thermodynamics.

Lecture 12- Adiabatic compression, absolute zero, First Law of Thermodynamics, heat transfer, Heat Capacity, Heat Engines and Efficiency.

Lecture 13- Heat transfer, energy conservation in the home, specific heat, heat engines and efficiency.

Lecture 14- Heat heat redux, climate and weather, the hydrological cycle.

Lecture 15- Quiz on Heat and Temperature, Climate and Weather and the Hydrological Cycle, feedback loops in nature, combustion and fuels.

Lecture 16- Exponential Growth and its Implications.

Lecture 17- Energy Use Patterns and Fossil Fuels in the Mix.

Lecture 18- Atoms and Chemistry.

Lecture 19- Global Warming Redux 

Send comments to Dean Livelybrooks, Instructor