One model for an integrated math/physics course focusing on electricity and magnetism and related calculus topics

American Journal of Physics

Volumn 68, Issue 8, 2000, Pages 749-757

  Dunn, Jason W ^a,b   Barbanel, Julius ^a  

^a UNION COLLEGE   (United States)

^b NORTHWEST NAZARENE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0034399560     PISSN: 00029505     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1119/1.19537     Document Type: Article

References (15)

1. See, for example, www.rose-hulman.edu/~froyd/ifyc.htm for a large list of integrated programs across the country.
2. Jeffrey E. Froyd, "An integrated, first-year curriculum: Results," Opt. Photonics News 51-53 (1998).
3. Andrew Rex and Martin Jackson, Integrated Physics and Calculus (Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1999).
4. See our internet web site, describing the course and cataloguing some course materials at http://www.math.union.edu/~barbanej/other/ past_courses/IMP13S99.
5. F. Richard Yeatts and Joan R. Hundhausen, "Calculus and physics: Challenges at the interface," Am. J. Phys. 60 (8), 716-721 (1992).
6. Joan R. Hundhausen and F. Richard Yeatts, "An experiment in integration: Calculus and physics for freshmen," J. Eng. Ed. October, 369-374 (1995).
7. A. B. Arons, "Structure, methods, and objectives of the required freshman calculus-physics course at Amherst College," Am. J. Phys. 27, 658-666 (1959).
8. For example, the integrated physics and calculus program at the University of Puget Sound requires one semester of calculus as a prerequisite (see Ref. 3), while the program at the Colorado School of Mines covers more calculus than physics in its two semester program (see Ref. 6).
9. Raymond A. Serway, Physics for Scientists and Engineers (Saunders College Publishing, Philadelphia, PA, 1996).
10. Howard Anton, Calculus (Wiley, New York, 1999).
11. Volumes I and II of Ref. 3 are presently available and a textbook by D. Mook and M. Groszek based upon the Integrated Introduction to Mathematics and Physical Science (IMPS) course at Dartmouth is presently under development; see the internet web site at http://www.dartmouth.edu/ ~matc/IMPS/IMPSpage.html.
12. For more details, see H. M. Schey, Div, Grad, Curl and All That (Norton, New York, 1973), pp. 36-39.
13. See, for example, David Griffiths, Introduction to Electrodynamics (Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1989), 2nd ed., p. 20.
14. For a typical derivation, see Ref. 10, pp. 1115-1116.
15. Many other well-known notational differences, related mainly to derivatives and seen earlier in an integrated math/physics sequence, will not be discussed. Some examples include the different emphases among physicists/mathematicians between Leibniz notation (dy|dx) and operator or prime notation (Dy or y′), or between unit vectors and ordered triples. These examples are also less severe than those we will mention concerning integrals, as these notation differences focus on separate preferences favored by one group or another, while the integral notation differences concern nearly identical notation which is much easier to confuse.