Course Information

3.00 Staff

Instructor W. Craig Carter Associate Professor 13-5018, x3-6048 ccarter@mit.edu Office Hours: Mon 1-2PM

Teaching Assistant Rajesh Raghavan Postdoctoral Associate, Course 3 Office 13-5114, 258-0222 rajeshsr@mit.edu Off. Hours: Th 2-3PM in 13-5002

Administration Rachel Kemper 13-5026, x3-6936 rkemper@mit.edu

Email questions will be answered as much as possible--I will often copy the answer to the entire class.

Please see http://pruffle.mit.edu/3.00 for updates to this document.

Appointments can be made in addition to office hours.

Exams

There will be two midterm exams, one hour each on Friday, October 4 and Wednesday November 13. There will be a final exam during exam week.

Homework

Homework assignments will be posted almost every Friday and will usually be due the Monday of the following week (i.e., you will have about 10 days to complete each homework, although on three of those days you will have two different assignments. The intent is allow you a bit of flexibility so that you can budget your time accordingly.) No homework can be assigned that will be due after Friday, Dec. 6. You are encouraged to work in groups and turn in a single homework for the entire group. Group homeworks¹will receive a 5% bonus score. In other words, if the homework score is 73, then everyone in the group will receive a 77.²I hope that you will use the group homeworks as a vehicle for cooperative teaching and learning as well as a time-saving device. Regarding the group homeworks--some students fall into a trap of letting other members of their group do the hard intellectual work and think that they can catch up in time to take the exams. Of course, this is not only a mistake and not an effective way to learn--it is also bad manners.

Homeworks will be due the following Monday at 5PM in the designated box outside of Dr. Raghavan's office: 13-5114. If you choose to work in a group, it is each group member's responsibility that the group's homework is turned in on time.

You will be allowed one and only one late homework.³No exceptions.

Final Grade

The grade in 3.00 will be determined by:

10%

Class Participation Records will be kept for good questions and comments during lectures--you must raise your hand so we can maintain some order in the classroom. You will also need to state your name when asking a question. Students will also be asked randomly about the current lecture topic. You are allowed to pass on making a comment twice during the semester. Not being present at a lecture in which you are asked a question counts as two passes, unless you have informed the TA or professor that you cannot attend a particular lecture by sending them email.

Students will not get credit for showing off--only productive comments or genuine questions will receive credit.

If you are curious whether you are getting credit--please ask. However, if you are unsure, then you are probably not participating actively.

Asking questions during recitation or coming to office hours also count as participation. If you fear that you are getting very far behind in class participation, it is possible to get some credit for creating web content to add to the 3.00 website.

20%

Homework You are allowed to turn in one homework up to a week late. Otherwise, homework is due by 5pm on the assigned day with no exceptions except your one free late homework. Homework will tend to test problem solving ability.

You can turn in homeworks as a group--in other words, if you choose to work as a group, you only need to turn in one problem set for the group.⁴There is no limit on the number of people of homework group. However, if you turn the problem set as a group then each member of the group must turn in a confidential report of the fraction that each member contributed; the sum of fractions will be unity. We will assign credit based on all the confidential reports.

20%

Exam I Friday, Oct. 4 will cover only material from the beginning of the semester to week before Exam I.

20%

Exam II Wed, Nov 13 will cover only material from the week before Exam I up to the week before Exam II.

30%

Final Exam: Date TBA will cover all lecture material.

There are exams from last year on the web. It would be wise to look at them as this year's exams will follow a similar format. You should expect conceptual questions on exams--the kind you should read very carefully because they can be tricky. For instance, a typical question may be: Explain whether and why the following statements are true or false. ``The entropy of an isolated system can never decrease.'' ``If the Gibbs Free energy of two bodies are equal, then the two bodies are in equilibrium at constant pressure.'' There may simple questions that require symbolic computation--you definitely won't need a calculator, but bring one with you if it helps you feel more comfortable. No notes or open book exams.

Thermodynamics is a subject that must be digested slowly. Please try to keep up and work at a constant rate. Cramming for a thermodynamics exam is usually a recipe for poor performance.