Physical Science Survey I

Course Description

PSC 231, Physical Science Survey I (4).  A survey of fundamental principles of physics with emphasis on applications to the physics of familiar objects and events.  Atmospheric and astronomical phenomena are discussed.  Lecture and Laboratory.

Philosophy and Purpose

   This course is intended to give the student an understanding of the physical world conceived by scientists. The course is intended for the student whose primary interest is in a field other than science. All that is assumed that he/she has interest in the world around him/her. No special mathematical or scientific background is required. The course is, however, quantitative and analytical, and the student who has a natural or acquired facility for thinking in terms of numbers and quantities will follow the reasoning more easily.

    The laboratory component of the course consists of experiments in the areas of mechanics, properties of matter, heat, sound, light, electricity and magnetism, light, atomic and nuclear physics.  The experiments are detailed investigations about specific phenomenon and involve making quantitative measurements intended to enable students experience physics both as an activity and a process.   

               The main purpose of this course is to introduce the basic principles of physics to beginning college students who have not had special mathematical training and who take physics as a part of a general course in business, education, and arts & sciences. This course presents the basic areas of physics that emphasize an overall view of the scientific world; the concepts of motion and energy, astronomical observations and measurements, atmospheric phenomena, electricity, sound, light, gravitation, heat, and magnetism

Instructor: Oswald Tekyi-Mensah         Office: SB 101    Phone: 229-5118

Office hours: