Syllabus:

Electromagnetism and Optics (PHYS 142)

Instructor: Guillaume Gervais
Rutherford Physics 412
email via MyCourses
Office hours: to be communicated later.
Course Lectures: MWF 1:352:25 PM, Leacock 132
Course Book: Knight, Physics for Scientists and Engineers: A Stragegic Approach
Chapters 25-35, 20-24
Course Grade: 15% Homework (CAPA online system)
20% Labs [Must pass labs (50%) to pass course]
15% Midterm (24 Feb. 6:00-8:00PM)
50% Final Exam
In converting to letter grades I will not round: A starts at 85.0%
not 84.5% and so forth. No alternative is available to improve
grade with extra work
Material covered: Electrostatics (Forces, Fields and Potentials, Gauss Law, Dielectrics and
Capacitance), Current and resistance, Magnetic fields (Magnetic force law, origin of magnetic
fields, inductance), Faradays law, Electric circuits, and Optics.
Prerequisites: Physics 131 (or Physics 101) and Math 140 (or 150) are prerequisites. We
will use the material learned in these courses extensively, so a student who has not passed
these courses or equivalents will find the course extremely challenging. Math 141 (or Math
151) are co-requisite, meaning students must either have taken the course or be taking the
course at the same time they take Physics 142.
Homework will be via the online CAPA system. Each student will see the same
problems but with individually tailored numbers. You can try each problem up to 6
times; so with effort it should be possible to get almost all the points in the homework
part of the course. You may talk to other students or work in groups, but I strongly
advise you to attempt most or all problems by yourself.
Tutorials: Tutorial sessions, led by graduate student TAs, occur Monday, Tuesday,
Thursday from 3:00-5:00PM in Wong room 1070. They are intended to provide assistance in understanding the course material. They will be operated on a drop-in basis;
you can go to any tutorial section without prior arrangement.

 Labs: The labs start meeting in the 19 Jan week of the course. All students must
register in a lab section [students who previously passed the labs but not the course can
get an exemption by seeing Ms. Engelberg, Rutherford 216, edith.engelberg@mcgill.ca].
You can change the lab section on Minerva; if the section you want to move into is
full, post a request to trade lab sections with someone on the MyCourses discussion
board; when you find someone, contact the Senior Demonstrator (Edith Engelberg) to
finalize the exchange. Lab manuals and other information will be made available on
MyCourses. Lab attendance is mandatory; absence will result in a zero grade. If you
know of a conflict ahead of time, arrange with Ms. Engelberg to substitute into a
different lab section. Just showing up to a different section results in a 0 on that lab. If
you are sick or have another unforeseen valid reason for missing a lab, we will average
your lab grade over the remaining labs. While everyone works with a lab partner, your
lab report must represent your own work; turning in a lab report which is copied from
or identical to your lab partners report will be treated as cheating.
The Midterm will take place on 24 February from 6:00 to 8:00PM. Students with an
excused reason which makes them unable to attend the midterm (such as a conflicting
midterm or class, illness, or family emergency) will have 65% of their grade determined
by the final exam.
Midterm and Final: during exams you are allowed pencil/pen and dumb (not graphing) calculator. No scrib sheet. The final will be comprehensive, but with more emphasis
on the material from the second half of the course (so that all course material is tested
equally). No cell phones or graphing calculators are allowed into any exams.

Integrity: McGill University values academic integrity. Therefore, all students must understand the meaning and consequences of cheating, plagiarism, and other academic offences
under the Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures:
see www.mcgill.ca/students/srr/honest/ for more information.
Languages: In accord with McGill Universitys Charter of Students Rights, students in
this course have the right to submit in English or in French any written work that is to be
graded.
Force majeure: In the event of extraordinary circumstances beyond the Universitys
control, the content and/or evaluation scheme in this course is subject to change.