This is meant for the incoming juniors for 3 Chem/Phys Mechanics. For those who want to see the slides from our Chem/Phys Boot Camp, here they are.
I can only hope you've had a wonderful, restful and fun summer! We are so looking forward to meeting you and working with you this year. We tend to have a lot of fun as the next two years progress!
While we have no summer assignments for the course, some students like to get a preview of the first week or so of the course, and in particular reviewing some of the mathematical concepts and topics we will need from here on out. This generally boils down to remembering how to do vector algebra, and starting the process of learning basic calculus (derivatives and integrals). Just about everyone will be in the same boat if you have not yet had any calculus, whether in BC/AB calculus or Pre-calculus. Don't worry, if you know how to graph and find slopes, you can begin to understand and do calculus!!
Below are some links to videos that introduce some of the math, as well as a welcoming video for the program.
Vector addition is most important for vectors. Vector multiplication we won't need for a while.
Derivatives are important in STEM from now on. These re-define things like velocity and acceleration, and MUCH more as time goes on. We'll worry about integration once school starts.
Here's a summary of the program. And for anyone who might have an interest in independent research, this summarizes our CABS site. We'll talk about this and so much more the first couple days of school!
All our videos are listed at http://docvphysics.blogspot.com/p/list-of-all-how-to-videos.html. If you want a sense of how I think about education in general, feel free to check out my new TED Talk, released a couple weeks ago (we'll talk a lot about this over time, as well as SO many other topics!). Here's my experiment from back in graduate school, one of the giant detectors at Fermilab:
