Giancoli Chapter 1 Guide & Recommended Problems
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This semester we will cover most of the first 11 chapters plus parts of 3 others. This amounts to more than 300 pages of the textbook.
The first chapter is relatively short: 13 pages divided into 7 sections. Sections 1.1 and 1.2 give an over-view of physics, and should be read carefully, since I will refer all semester (now and again) to material in these sections, but there are no problems. Section 1.3 explains "significant figures." I am not going to stress this section, but I will want you to know what significant figures are, and to know how to "round off" your answers on test and homework problems. Unless otherwise specified, I will want answers to have two significant figures. The statement toward the bottom of p. 4 is important: "you should normally keep an extra significant figure or two throughout a calculation, and round off only in the final result." Scientific notation (p. 5) will be used routinely in the course.
Sections 1.4, and 1.5 present the three "basic" quantities of length, mass, and time, and discuss various units in which they are measured. The worked-out examples in Section 1.5 illustrate how to systematically change units, and I will expect you to be able to do this. Although I will usually give all test (& miniquiz) problems in SI units, you will definitely need to change units in working the homework and in lab.
Section 1.6 is very interesting and useful: it is what physicists and engineers do frequently, and it is one of the habits that I hope you will develop as we go through the year. Getting comfortable with "estimating" answers to problems which have incomplete data is the goal. Several end-of-chapter problems are recommended. Clearly, there is no precise "right" answer; rather, there is a correct "order-of-magnitude" result.
Section 1.7 is important, mostly as a way of checking whether an answer makes sense or not. If an equation is to be correct, each side must have the same dimensions. An equation that says "x = y" with x in meters and y in kilograms cannot possibly be correct.
The test of understanding physics is being able to answer the questions and work the problems at the end of the chapters. There are roughly 850 problems (not counting the "questions"!) in the first 10 chapters - CLEARLY more than I can reasonably expect you to do in one semester. The author intends that the instructor be selective in assigning them. The first sets of problems are grouped by sections, and coded with a [I], [II], or [III] to denote the level of difficulty (in the judgement of the author); these are followed by a set of "General Problems" which ask you to use information from more than one section. The answers to the odd-numbered problems are in the back of the book.
If you come to every class and are alert/awake and take good notes, you will have a very good idea of which portions of the book are to be emphasized, what is to be omitted, and what will likely show up on the tests! On tests I will concoct a "mixture" of easy, medium-level, and challenging questions/problems. Variations on problems I do in class are likely to show up on tests! (I encourage you to consult former students of mine for confirmation of this.)
Recommended Questions (Q) and Problems (P) for Chapter 1:
NOTE: These "Chapter 1" problems are NOT very similar to ones I would put on tests. That is, I will NOT use test problems that deal strictly with unit changes, or that simply ask you for "estimates," or that question you about "significant figures." Nevertheless, I will ASSUME that you know something about these concepts, and they will be used in the homework. The following list is not an assignment, and I do not assume that anyone will do ALL of them, but it would be a really good test of your understanding to try a few and see if you are getting the correct answers (answers to the odd-numbered ones are in the back of the book).
Questions: Q4, Q10
Sections 4 & 5: P15, P16, P17, P21
Section 6: P29, P32
Section 7: P36, P37
General Problems: P43, P48, P55, P56, P65
