GENERAL PHYSICS I (PHY 2020)
Prince George's Community College
Fall 2025
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NEWS
- Final exam grades are available on Canvas.
- An optional Homework #9 (celestial mechanics) is now available on the Homework page. If you wish to do this project for extra credit, please let me know that you plan to do this, and get any results to me by email no later than Saturday, Dec. 6 at 11:59pm. If you want to do this for fun, there is no due date; I'll be glad to answer any questions you may have by email.
- There will be no class on Wednesday, November 26. The college will be closed for the Thanksgiving break.
- The final exam will be on Monday, December 1, 6:00pm - 8:30pm.
- The exam will be comprehensive, and cover the entire course.
- You may bring a calculator (not a cell phone app), pencil, and eraser.
- You will be asked to put away cell phones during the exam.
- Remember to memorize the Greek alphabet and SI prefixes (exa- through atto-).
- Click here for Final Exam Formula Pages. These pages will be included with your exam, so you should not make copies to bring with you.
- A good study aid is the Khan Academy.
- The Demonstrations in Physics videos are now available through the “Demos“ link on the left-hand side of each Web page.
- For a mathematics review, you may have a look at the book
Introduction to College Mathematics - If you wish, you may send your name to the Moon on Artemis II.
- See: Physics is Phun. Coming up: The Physics of Fluids, December 5 and 6.
- If you're interested in an internship with NASA, see this link: NASA Internships
To Learn More
To learn more about classical mechanics, I suggest:- An Introduction to Advanced Dynamics by S.W. McCuskey (Addison-Wesley, 1962). A clear and readable intermediate text, at about the college junior level.
- Mechanics (3rd ed.) by Keith R. Symon. Another standard junior-level intermediate mechanics text.
- Classical Mechanics by Herbert Goldstein (3rd ed.) (Addison-Wesley, 2001). The standard graduate-level text on advanced mechanics.
For some fun physics-related reading for the winter break, I suggest:
- The Science of Interstellar by Kip Thorne and Christopher Nolan. Thorne is a well-known physicist who was involved in making the movie Interstellar from its beginning. In this book he and film director Nolan describe the physics shown in the movie.
- Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku. A noted physicist discusses the possibility of time travel, force fields, invisibility cloaks, transporters, etc.
- The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean. A very entertaining collection of stories surrounding the periodic table of the elements.
- Mr. Tompkins in Paperback (and an updated version, The New World of Mr. Tompkins) by George Gamow. A famous Russian physicist wrote these stories of a world in which the speed of light is just 30 mph so relativistic effects are visible, and more stories of a world where Planck's constant is so large that quantum effects are visible.
Here's an interesting article on the physics of skipping stones from Physics Today: Water-Skipping Stones and Spheres
Physics News
- The 2025 Nobel prize for physics has been awarded to physicists John Clarke (USA), Michel H. Devoret (USA), and John M. Martinis (USA) “for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit.”
Other News
- No news yet.
Contact Information
Dr. David G. Simpson: