Welcome to Crazy Ideas and Scientific Theories! This course is an opportunity to help you develop reasoning skills that are important in all aspects of life. It should help you to be less gullible and better able to determine if someone's opinion is credible. This goal will be accomplished by considering ideas about the world and universe that we live in. Since science is concerned with the world and universe, the course will also review and increase your science knowledge base.
The site is organized into two main groupings: Syllabus, Etc. and Content. Under Syllabus, Etc. are the class administration tools. The syllabus, course schedule, introduction page, homework due dates, and other details will be found in this section.
All of the resources for learning the science and other content of the course are under Content. Some of the material from the printed texts, but only a small fraction of what you will need, is summarized on the web pages. Homework and paper assignments are also given under Content.
A quick note about the content menu. These online pages are part of your textbook reading and you are expected to read them in sequence as they are presented. Do not skip any menu items! If your browser doesn't accomodate hovering, you can click on a menu item to get to another menu where all of the links are visible and can be clicked on. If you are trying to use a mobile device, use the Limited Browser Menu. In the limited browser view links to all of the pages on this site are visible and they come up one page at a time.
In addition to our announcement page on Canvas, a "Class Notes" page is found in the Syllabus, Etc. menu. The instructor will save questions that need more work on this page. They may require a longer reply, need to be incorporated into the pages in the web site, or they may just be particularly good questions that should be saved for future reference. This is like a Frequently Asked Questions page.
As you can see the main menu also has a link to our Email Form and to the Homework Due Dates. All homework will be submitted using the Email Form on this website. The form sends information with the homework that facilitates grading. I suggest you type your homework into a word processor and copy it into the form. That way you have a copy if something goes wrong. I will not accept homework from your normal email, but I will respond to questions, etc. when you email me. Be sure to put PHY105 in the subject line so that I will recognize that it belongs to this class. The homework due dates are found in the syllabus and the main menu link is just for your convenience.
The course will proceed as suggested by the Content menu. The menu items (and sub-menu items) should be studied from left to right and from top to bottom without skipping. Depending on your background, you may be able to go quickly through some of the sections, but each section should be read and understood before going on to the next section. Do not skip any pages or the homework can be pretty hard to figure out! Below this paragraph I have provided the complete content menu in outline form (at the beginning of the semester you may not be able to see all of the menu items). Again, you should look at each of these pages from top to bottom as written.
A note about how I will markup assignments. I will color code homework feedback as follows:
Blue: Emphasizing what you wrote (not edited). Usually means I question it. Could be spelling, grammar, or just not clear.
Green: Comment/question about something you have written. Sometimes I highlight with blue and then comment on the blue text in green.
Red: Grade. This is after each problem or at the bottom of a paper. The total for each assignment is recorded in my grade book.
On the due date I will mark the homework and send the marked homework with feedback and a grade back to you using email.