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(Click on an image to view a larger version.)
Light entering a glass prism from the lower left
demonstrates the three phenomena of reflection,
refraction and dispersion. Through evolution, animals
have developed different strategies for using these
phenomena to form images. The human eye and the
dragonfly eye use refraction of light but in different
ways, for example the dragonfly eye uses hundreds of
small immobile optical units called ommatidia to form
an image while mammals use a single large
lens. Scallops have eyes (the blueberry-like object on
right) that instead use reflection of light by a curved
spherical mirror to form an image. These pictures raise
many interesting questions that are addressed in
Physics 54: What is light? Can we understand
quantitatively how light reflects and refracts?
How does the scallop produce a mirror out of soft
non-metallic tissue? What determines the quality of an
image formed by these and other optical devices?
Answers to these and related questions help us
understand how biology and physics interact to produce
eyes, and often suggest inventions to help people and
machines to see better.
Welcome
Welcome to the home page for Physics 54, the second part of the Physics Department's two-semester introductory survey course that is taken especially by students interested in the life sciences (although we certainly welcome students of all interests). Many of the lectures and labs discuss applications of physics to medicine and biology, and nearly all of the material is extremely useful for understanding how biological organisms function or how the many experimental devices used by life scientists work (electrodes, microscopes, telescopes, digital cameras, voltmeters, ammeters, motors, spectroscopes, antennas, telemetry, polarizers, optical tweezers, defibrillators, etc). Many 54 students are pleasantly surprised to find that the course is genuinely interesting and rewarding in its own right, with many neat insights. For example, it is satisfying to understand "what is light", especially light's unexpected connection to oscillating electric and magnetic fields.Topics Covered in Physics 54
Topics discussed include electrostatic forces, fields, and potentials; capacitors; simple circuits consisting of batteries, resistors and capacitors; magnetic forces and fields; how electrical currents produce magnetic fields and how time varying magnetic fields produce currents (magnetic induction); Maxwell's equations that unify all electrical and magnetic phenomena; light as electromagnetic waves; wave properties of light including interference, diffraction, and polarization; ray properties of light including reflection and refraction; and geometric optics of mirrors and lenses with applications to optical devices such as magnifiers, microscopes, telescopes, cameras, and biological eyes.In spring 2006, the course will use the text Physics for Scientists and Engineers with Modern Physics, Third Edition by Douglas C. Giancoli (Prentice Hall, 2000).
Course Components
The course encourages mastery by giving students multiple opportunities to use their knowledge:- Lectures provide an expository survey of the material and help the ideas come alive by using demonstrations and by asking interactive in-class questions during which students figure out the questions in collaboration with their classmates.
- Weekly recitations give students the chance to learn physics by doing physics in a small-class environment of about 20 students. During recitation, the class breaks up into groups of three to four students who work collaboratively to solve assigned problems. Members of each group take turns presenting solutions to the class.
- Weekly homework assignments and quizzes encourage students to keep up with the material and provide rapid feedback about how well they understand the material.
- Labs give students the opportunity to test their understanding of basic material through carefully designed hands-on experiments that encourage students to take, analyze, and evaluate data, or to explore qualitatively the properties of various devices and objects.
Further details of the course are available through the 2006 course overview.
Time and Location of Lectures
Spring semester of 2006, lectures are held on Tuesdays and Thursday from 10:05-11:20 am and from 11:40-12:55 pm in Physics 128 (which was previously room 114). Labs and recitations are held at various times throughout the week.Professor Werner Tornow will give all lectures during the first half of the course while Professor Henry Greenside will give all lectures for the second half of the course. Professors Werner Tornow, Bill McNairy, Henry Greenside, George Rogosa and Dipangkar Dutta will be teaching recitations. Professor Mary Creason will be in charge of the 54 labs.
Prerequisites
A C- grade or better in Physics 53 or an equivalent approved course. Students enrolled in Physics 54 must also enroll in a weekly recitation and weekly lab.Questions?
Questions about this course should be forwarded to the course coordinator Professor Henry Greenside (email hsg@phy.duke.edu) or to the Director of Undergraduate Studies, Professor Calvin Howell (email dus@phy.duke.edu).
Further information about the course, especially
documents such as homeworks, quizzes, and exams, is
available through the course's Blackboard webpage. This
can be accessed by logging in to Duke's Blackboard
system. If you are not a member of the Duke community,
you can use the login "guest" with password
"guest". After logging in as "guest", select the
"Courses" tab from the top of the Blackboard menu, then
search for the course "Physics 54". You can then select
the course site for the current semester.