News
Old news is now at the bottom of the page.- 12/20: Final grades online.
- 12/15: Exam is ready. The format is similar to 2007, with some minor exceptions.
Question 1 is again required and has ten sub-questions, but each sub-question is worth 3 pts.
The remaining 50 pts can be obtained by answering 5 of the remaining 11 questions.
This should give you a wee bit more time than was the case last year.
Also, the first equation in Repair that equation had two errors in it.
The cross product on the right should be
.
- 12/8: Let's play: Repair that equation!.
- 12/5: Final Exam Time According to the official schedule, the METR 3113 exam is Thursday, December 18, 2008, 8am-10am.
- 12/4: It's that happ-happ-happiest time of the year! The Annual 3113 SongFest will occur next Wednesday and Friday, 12/10 and 12/12. Students needing some or all of their 5 pts are encouraged to participate, in either an ensemble or a solo. Please bring a copy of your lyrics to submit to Dr. Fiedler, with the names of the performers listed on the lyrics. Performances will be judged on both artistic and technical merit. Technical merit assesses whether the concepts presented in the performance are useful to the 3113 students, as they approach their final exam. Artistic merit assesses the unforgetable nature and transformative impact of the performance.
- 11/30: Quiz #3 results online. Fiedler 40, Sooners 15. A blow out. BTW, only 46 students took the exam. The statistics that you see are only for the submitted exams. 15 is the average on the exams that were submitted. See the quiz 3 summary of student performance.
- 11/24: Quiz #3 grades won't be online until 11/30. BTW, no Jitt for 12/1.
Course Information
When, Where
MWF 10am NWC 1350
Textbook
None! Lecture notes will be distributed. (The syllabus is similar to last year. )
Grading
There will be NO graded problem sets this year. The final letter grade is computed from the total score t with:
- A: t≥80.
- B: 65.≤t< 80.
- C: 50.≤t< 65.
- D: 35.≤t< 50.
- F: t< 35.
The total score is determined by the highest score of the following two methods:
Conventional Method
The total score for the course is a weighted average of these scores:
- 60%: 3 quiz scores, with the JiTT score replacing the lowest quiz score, if it is greater.
- 35%: Final Exam
- 5%: Extra Points: (Presenting JiTT Solutions, Stand and Deliver, Dynamics Carols)
Alternative Method
The total score is based 100% on the Final Exam.
Important Dates for Graded Items
- Monday 9/29: Quiz #1
- Monday 10/27: Quiz #2
- Monday 11/24: Quiz #3
- Thursday 12/18: Final Exam, 8am-10am official schedule
Office Hours
Office hours will be 9:30am to 10:00am MWF in our lecture room NWC 1350. Or you may just drop by my office, NWC 5636. Or you may e-mail me to schedule an appointment.
Other office hours are online, the night before class: Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday at 9:30 pm. The subject of the online office hours is usually the JiTT questions, the answers to which are due by 8:00 AM the following morning. The "office hours" are in the chat room available for this course at learn.ou.edu, (use the password given to you by OU).
Answering JiTT Questions
Students may answer JiTT questions and check their grades at the secure student record page for this course, but they will need both the class password to view the page, and their personal password to interact with it. (Also, more details about the grading policy can be viewed in the above link). These passwords will be distributed by August 18. Your personal password is NOT your OU password.
You may find this useful: JiTT questions, answers and solutions for 2008. That page is usually updated within hours after the JiTT is graded.
Similar JiTT summaries are available for years: 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004. Those should be helpful to you as you attempt to answer this years questions.
Students are NOT required to work alone on the JiTT problems. It is not realistic to enforce that; only the honest people would suffer. So share the joy of your scientific and analytic inquiry with your peers! Obviously, quizzes and exams must be solely your own work, and they are proctored rather carefully. No calculators are allowed in quizzes or exams.
Goal Statement
The goal of METR 3113 is to develop the student's abilities in using knowledge of the fundamental forces in the atmosphere: the pressure gradient force, gravity and the Coriolis force. Analysis of atmospheric motion caused by these forces is done without recourse to the analysis of continuous vector fields. This means vector calculus is minimally employed. Aspects of fluid mechanics, for example changes in the pressure field resulting from "colliding parcels", is reserved for later courses.
Course Content
- Units, dimensional homogeneity and dimensional analysis.
- Vectors and rotational invariance. Vector products.
- Elementary functions and elementary differential equations.
- Newton's law of gravity.
- Newton's laws of motion.
- The equation of motion in one-dimension and its solution. Conservation of energy.
- Pressure. The pressure gradient force. The buoyancy force.
- The vector equation of motion. Coordinate systems, Cartesian and polar.
- Centripetal acceleration. Conservation of angular momentum. Cyclostrophic wind balance. Tornadoes.
- Inertial forces in accelerating reference frames.
- An equation of motion for meteorology. The Coriolis force.
- The tidal force.
- The gradient wind.
- Conservation of angular momentum with the Coriolis force.
- An introduction to continuum mechanics. Simple forms of the continuity equation. More about pressure and buoyancy. Bernoulli equation. Vorticity.
- The thermal wind.
Physlets
Java-animated demonstrations of some physics is found at my physlets page. (Some of these are used in problem sets or JiTTs).
Lecture Summaries
Summaries of lectures (in pdf files) will be linked here. A draft may appear before the lecture is presented. A final version will appear after the lecture is presented.
| date presented | file | subject | date uploaded |
| Monday, August 25 | 08_25.pdf | Equations, Units and Dimensions | August 25 19:51 Z |
| Wednesday, August 27 | 08_27.pdf | The Dimension Extractor | August 27 16:27 Z |
| Friday, August 29 | 08_29.pdf | Dimensional Inhomogeneity: Filtering Out Nonsensical Equations | August 29 16:11 Z |
| Wednesday, September 3 | 09_03.pdf | Why Vectors are Useful | September 03 16:34 Z |
| Friday, September 5 | 09_05.pdf | The Dot Product and Cross Product | September 05 16:44 Z |
| Monday, September 8 | 09_08.pdf | Vector Identities | September 26 16:27 Z |
| Wednesday, September 10 | 09_10.pdf | Exponential Function | September 10 16:23 Z |
| Friday, September 12 | 09_12.pdf | The Trig Functions Revisited | September 12 16:28 Z |
| Monday, September 15 | 09_15.pdf | Review of Basic Newtonian Mechanics | September 15 16:06 Z |
| Wednesday, September 17 | 09_17.pdf | Newton's Law of Gravity | September 19 02:27 Z |
| Friday, September 19 | 09_19.pdf | Equation of Motion in 1-D | September 21 00:29 Z |
| Monday, September 22 | 09_22.pdf | More Equation of Motion in 1-D | September 24 14:10 Z |
| Wednesday, September 24 | 09_24.pdf | Pressure | September 25 16:11 Z |
| Friday, September 26 | 09_26.pdf | Stand and Deliver 1 | September 25 16:08 Z |
| Wednesday, October 1 | 10_01.pdf | Pressure, the Great Communicator | October 06 01:14 Z |
| Monday, October 6 | 10_06.pdf | The Continuity Equation and the Venturi Tube | December 01 12:51 Z |
| Wednesday, October 8 | 10_08.pdf | Buoyancy | October 08 17:09 Z |
| Monday, October 13 | 10_13.pdf | Buoyancy Driven Motion | October 13 19:51 Z |
| Wednesday, October 15 | 10_15.pdf | Choosing A Coordinate System | October 18 03:42 Z |
| Friday, October 17 | 10_17.pdf | Dynamics in Polar Coordinates | October 22 17:26 Z |
| Monday, October 20 | 10_20.pdf | Noninertial Reference Frames | October 22 17:33 Z |
| Wednesday, October 22 | 10_22.pdf | Rotating Reference Frames | October 22 17:32 Z |
| Friday, October 24 | 10_24.pdf | More Rotating Reference Frames | October 30 15:28 Z |
| Wednesday, October 29 | 10_29.pdf | The Coriolis Force for Meteorology | October 30 15:35 Z |
| Friday, October 31 | 10_31.pdf | A physical explanation for the Coriolis Force | October 31 16:10 Z |
| Wednesday, November 5 | 11_05.pdf | More About the Pressure Gradient Force | November 05 19:30 Z |
| Friday, November 7 | 11_07.pdf | The Tidal Force | November 08 13:53 Z |
| Monday, November 10 | 11_10.pdf | The Gradient Wind | November 13 12:47 Z |
| Wednesday, November 12 | 11_12.pdf | More About The Gradient Wind | November 13 12:47 Z |
| Friday, November 14 | 11_14.pdf | More About The Equation of Motion for Horizontal Wind | November 14 17:41 Z |
| Monday, November 17 | 11_17.pdf | Introduction to Vorticity | November 17 17:57 Z |
| Wednesday, November 19 | 11_19.pdf | Vorticity with the Coriolis Force | November 27 03:12 Z |
| Monday, December 1 | 12_01.pdf | Vorticity and the Bernoulli Equation | December 03 14:41 Z |
| Wednesday, December 3 | 12_03.pdf | Introduction to the Thermal Wind | December 03 18:20 Z |
| Friday, December 5 | 12_05.pdf | Veering and Backing of Wind with Height | December 06 03:55 Z |
Archive of problem sets, quizzes, solutions, etc.
- 3113syl.pdf, the paper syllabus (redundant with this page)
- numval.pdf, useful numerical values and unit conversions
- q1.pdf, Quiz #1
- q1sol.pdf, Quiz #1 Solutions
- q2.pdf, Quiz #2
- q2sol.pdf, Quiz #2 Solutions
- prac3.pdf, Practice Problems For Quiz #3
- q3.pdf, Quiz #3
- q3sol.pdf, Quiz #3 Solutions
- final.pdf, final exam
- fsol.pdf, solutions to the final exam
- METR 3113 home page from: 2007 2006 2005 2004. JiTTs, Problem sets and quizzes are relevant to year 2008.
Useful external links
Main source of links for Fall 2008: An older link list:- Knowledge Expectations for Undergrad Courses (we stray from this a bit)
- What is JiTT? Learn about "Just-in-Time Teaching".
- Conversion of Units from the Wikipedia.
- units of measure, conversion table
- Engineering Conversion Factors
- dimensional analysis some elementary aspects of dimensional analysis.
- cleonis.nl A site with excellent pedagogy about the Coriolis effect.
Old news
- 11/16:Practice problems for Quiz #3. Also of potential use: 2007 Quiz #3. You probably will want these too: 2007 Quiz #3 solutions.
- 11/12: The scaling coefficients a and b are now shown in your Student Record page (click the link "Grade Policy"). You may now calculate your "letter grade" at this point in time.
- 11/12: Career fair tomorrow, Thursday November 13.
- 11/06: Please be aware that there are two JiTTs for 11/07. One was mistakenly not unlocked earlier. :(
- 11/03: Quiz #2 grades are online.
- 10/27: Quiz #2. The grader is attending the Severe Local Storms Conference, so the graded quizzes will not be returned until November 3.
- 10/25: As promised, here is a final news item about the quiz on Monday. The four topics are exactly as in 2007. There is a choice between two questions in each topic. I hope all the problems that I have hinted at during lecture are actually in the quiz!
- 10/22: Quiz #2 defined The end of today's lecture defines the end of the material needed for Quiz #2 on Monday. Having looked at the Quiz #2 from 2004 to 2007, it appears all of the questions from those quizzes are fair game for the 2008 Quiz #2.
- 10/19 I need a single volunteer to present both 10_20_a and 10_20_b on Monday.
- 10/8: Preparing for Quiz #2. Quiz #2 is two weeks from next Monday. At this
point in time, the question numbers in bold from the previous Quiz #2 should be doable by you.
After we study Buoyancy Driven Motion on 10/13, the question numbers in plain text should also be doable:
- 2007: 1,2,3,4
- 2006: 1a, 1b, 1c, 2,3,1h,1i,1j
- 2005: 1, 2, 4,3
- 2004: 1, 2,3,4
- 10/5: Volunteer needed The volunteer will need to do both A and B and answer a few questions about this video.
- 9/30: Grades online. See your quiz grade at the secure student record page .
- 9/29: For your enjoyment.
An art attack: OU, what you do to me....
Your quiz results might be available as early as Wednesday. He are Quiz #1 questions and answers. - 9/24: One volunteer for Wednesday
I need a volunteer for only 09_24_b. - 9/21: One volunteer for Monday
I need a volunteer for only 09_22_b. - 9/19: One volunteer for Friday
I need a volunteer for only 09_19_b. - 9/16: One volunteer for Wednesday
I need a volunteer for only 09_17_a. - 9/14: One volunteer for Monday
I need a volunteer for only 09_15_b. - 9/12: TOTUM COMPRENDERE CAELUM
It seems to be a partial quote from the Roman Marcus Manilius' "Astronomica" Book I, 106-108 meaning "to understand all of the heavens".quae postquam in proprias deduxit singula causas,
vicinam ex alto mundi cognoscere molem
intendit totumque animo comprendere caelum,
- 9/11: Let's skip the presentations on Friday
If we have time, we will find another way to entertain ourselves. - 9/9: One volunteer for Wednesday
I need a volunteer for only 09_10_b. I will present 09_10_a. - 9/6: No volunteers needed for Monday
- 9/6: Helpful for you:2008 Quiz 1 Preparation
- 9/4: Need only one volunteer for Friday
Need a volunteer for only 09_05_b. - 9/2: Need two volunteers for Wednesday
Let's have presentations for both a and b. - 8/28: Need a volunteer for Friday
I need a volunteer to present the solution for Jitt 08_29_b tomorrow. Don't worry about not eventually scoring your 5 Extra Points for the semester. You can always sing a dynamics carol, like this one from 2007, duing the last week of class. - 8/26: Need a volunteer for Wednesday
I need a volunteer to present the solution for Jitt 08_27_b tomorrow. Check your Jitt answer online after 8 am to be sure you have the correct answer. In the case of multiple volunteers, the winner will be the volunteer with the last digit in their 4+4 closest to the last digit in the date (in this case, 7). You may register your intent to volunteer, by speaking with me before class, up to 5 minutes before the start of lecture, at which time the winner will be determined. Digits are compared cyclically. For example, 1 is 4 digits away from 7. In case of a tie, the second to last digit on the 4+4 is compared to the last digit in the date. A successful presentation earns your entire 5 Extra Points for the semester. - 8/24: Class begins tomorrow
"Innocence, properly conceived, is a positive attribute. It is the ignorance that comes from a voluntary decision not to engage (or not to engage yet) with a particular area of complex knowledge. Innocence in that sense is essential for all genuine learning. Compulsory teaching is the destruction of innocence, forcing the victims to waste the opportunity, which comes only once in each lifetime, to encounter that knowledge for the first time. It is no wonder, then, that pumping information prematurely into people's minds simply triggers emergency procedures that do everything in their power to shield the recipient from engaging with that information, and that the usual result is the permanent destruction of the recipient's ability to engage with information of that type. How many people have a feeling that there is something rich and wonderful in science, or in mathematics, or in Shakespeare, but that it is somehow inaccessible to them? Is that not a tragedy? If they could have acted on that same impulse innocently, at the moment when they were ready, what then could possibly have spoiled those rich and wonderful areas of knowledge for them?"
-David Deutsch - 8/14: Students enrolled for Fall 2008
Today, you should be receiving an email with a password for answering JiTT questions, which you may test immediately. If you have difficulty with it, contact me at bfiedler@ou.edu .
Some of you have asked about what you can do to prepare for METR 3113. I recommend that you first learn about how humans learn science:
- Go to learner.org and register for an account. The registration process is simple. The account is free.
- Watch A Private Universe. (20 minutes).
- Watch at least the first two of the three videos at Minds of Our Own. (55 minutes each).
You may also find this lengthy video series helpful: The mechanical universe...and beyond.
Some of you may be expecting advice about the math methods that you should learn, or practice problems that you should attempt. But my experience is that many students have their success in METR 3113 limited by misconceptions about the physical world, and the difficulty in letting go of misconceptions.
A classic example of being unable to let go of misconceptions is the Monty Hall Paradox. Read the original learned opposition to the truth.