INSTRUCTORS:

Lectures: Carlo Piermarocchi, room 4263 Biomedical & Physical Sciences, Telephone: 5-2231 Email carlo@pa.msu.edu.   Office hours: Tuesday 9:30am-11:00am/4:00pm – 5:00pm, Thursday 9:30am-11:00am/5:30pm – 6:30pm. Call or email to schedule an appointment at other times.

Labs: Stuart Tessmer, room 4237 Biomedical & Physical Sciences, Telephone: 5-2210 Email tessmer@pa.msu.edu. See labs syllabus for more details.

Text:

Fundamentals of Optics by Francis A. Jenkins and Harvey E. White ( published by McGraw-Hill, fourth edition, 1976).

Course Structure:

2 lectures per week in room 1308 Biomedical & Physical Sciences– some of these lecture periods will be used for problem solving – Tuesday and Thursday; 3:00pm – 3:50pm. One lab. of about 3 hours every week starting September 2

Homepage:

http://www.pa.msu.edu/courses/current/PHY431/

Course Content:

We will be using Fundamentals of Optics by Francis A. Jenkins and Harvey E. White ( published by McGraw-Hill, fourth edition, 1976) and cover just over half of the book, although not in the same order and emphasizing some parts over others.

Grading:

Homework:

We will give out homework problems during the semester - 10 in total. There will be credit for the homework - normally problems should be handed on a Tuesday - problem sets will be available at least a week before they are due. There will be 10 homeworks altogether of which the best 8 will count at 10 points each towards your final grade. We will discuss the homework in class and I will ask for volunteers to go over a problem on the blackboard. The first homework assignment is due on Tuesday 9 September in class.

Midterm Exams:

There will be two midterm exams, on Tuesday 7 October and on Tuesday 11 November. You should bring a calculator and you may bring a 3" x 5" card with anything written on both sides that you might find useful. If you miss either or both the midterms and provide a valid excuse (a written note from a doctor, dean etc.) your final exam will be multiplied by 1.75 if you miss one midterm, and by 2.5 if you miss both midterms.

Final Exam:

The final exam. will be on Wednesday 10 December in room 1308 Biomedical & Physical Sciences. from 3:00pm until 5:00pm. The final exam. will cover everything we have done, but with a slight emphasis on the last third of the course. You should bring a calculator and you may bring a 3" x 5" card with anything written on both sides that you might find useful. You must take the final and if you miss it due to a valid excuse (see above) you will have to take a make-up, otherwise you will get a 0.0 for the course.

Optics Lab:

The lab. will be run by Stuart Tessmer with help from TA's in room 1250 Biomedical & Physical Sciences. The final grade on this course will be 40% on the lab. and 60% on the class. The first lab. will be on September 2. There will be a total of 11 labs. See labs syllabus for details.
 
Please familiarize yourself with University policies concerning academic integrity www.vps.msu.edu/SpLife/rule32.htm as they will be applied.

Final Grades:

The final grades will be posted outside my office (4263 Biomedical & Physical Sciences) at 5:00pm on Friday 12 December

Grades are based on the following formula:

The guaranteed scale—may be lowered in your favor but not raised is:

Extra credits:

You will have the possibility to gain extra credits up to 5%, which corresponds to about 0.5 in the final grade, by reading an article on Optics from "Scientific American" and give a presentation in class of about 20 min on the subject of the article. Contact your instructor for the list of articles available. The work has to be done in groups of three. The grade will be the same for the three students in the same group.