PHYSICS 117
Electronics for Physics Measurement
Description: Lecture, three hours; laboratory, two hours. Requisites: courses 1A, 1B, and 1C (or 1AH, 1BH, and 1CH), Mathematics 32B, 33A, 33B. Hands-on experimental course to develop understanding of design principles in modern electronics for physics measurements. Broad introduction to analog and digital electronics from practical viewpoint, followed by examination of typical circuits for scientific instrumentation and study of methods of computer data acquisition and signal processing. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
-This evaluation is for Astro 117- Professor Jura is a smart, nice guy, but he's a little scatter-brained. The first half of lecture he derives equations, and the second half he goes off on tangents talking about applications of the equations he just derived. Because of this, it's a little difficult to conceptually understand what's happening with all these equations. His homework was challenging. The problem was that many problems very vague, or he would make assumptions in his solutions that you didn't know you could make. However, the homework is great preparation for the midterms/final. Many times, his tests will reuse homework and old test questions, so make sure you know those problems inside and out. One drawback is that you aren't allowed a cheat sheet, so you have to memorize pages and pages of equations. Even still, I got 83 and 81 on the midterms, 88 on the final, and ended up with an A in the class. (He method of curving is that ~80+ is in the A-range, ~70-80 is a B, etc.) Also, don't buy the book. He gives you an online copy anyway, but I never found it helpful. His lecture notes are more than enough. tl;dr: Hard to follow as a professor, so you'll lose track of concepts, but if you do the homework, you should do well in the class.
-This evaluation is for Astro 117- Professor Jura is a smart, nice guy, but he's a little scatter-brained. The first half of lecture he derives equations, and the second half he goes off on tangents talking about applications of the equations he just derived. Because of this, it's a little difficult to conceptually understand what's happening with all these equations. His homework was challenging. The problem was that many problems very vague, or he would make assumptions in his solutions that you didn't know you could make. However, the homework is great preparation for the midterms/final. Many times, his tests will reuse homework and old test questions, so make sure you know those problems inside and out. One drawback is that you aren't allowed a cheat sheet, so you have to memorize pages and pages of equations. Even still, I got 83 and 81 on the midterms, 88 on the final, and ended up with an A in the class. (He method of curving is that ~80+ is in the A-range, ~70-80 is a B, etc.) Also, don't buy the book. He gives you an online copy anyway, but I never found it helpful. His lecture notes are more than enough. tl;dr: Hard to follow as a professor, so you'll lose track of concepts, but if you do the homework, you should do well in the class.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2022 - Professor Saltzberg is very approachable. He is assumed to be very busy as the chair of Physics department but he replied to any messages in Slack very fast. If you want to get along with any experimental physics, take this class as early as possible. I took it during the second quarter of sophomore and I wish to take it earlier. By the way, don't worry about the grade. Try to understand each lab in every step and you will be fine.
Winter 2022 - Professor Saltzberg is very approachable. He is assumed to be very busy as the chair of Physics department but he replied to any messages in Slack very fast. If you want to get along with any experimental physics, take this class as early as possible. I took it during the second quarter of sophomore and I wish to take it earlier. By the way, don't worry about the grade. Try to understand each lab in every step and you will be fine.
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Fall 2019 - I have mixed feelings about this class. On one hand, yes, this class is probably one of the most useful and practical classes you will ever take in your life, beyond that of just physics but real life. It is mostly handholding as you learn the techniques, components, and basic theory of electronic circuits each week in lab as a typical "experiment" a week until you do your final project. On the other hand, this class is a time sink. I had little to no experience with circuit building and it took a very, very, very long time for me to get the hang of it, in terms of troubleshooting, using an oscilloscope, what the hell ground means. My weekends and afternoons were largely dedicated to finishing labs and getting stuff to work so I can put it on my lab report. The final project took up a lot of time to figure out how to get some components to work and solder the damn thing. On top of that, the prelabs I found to be very challenging. The written midterm is fine, the lab practical was a disaster. The lab reports are very reasonable once you get the damn circuit to work and probably took less time than the prelabs themselves. In terms of the class structure, there is a significant spike in difficulty once you get to Week 4 with Transistors and it basically stays that way the rest of the time as you learn how to use IC chips etc. The professor's lectures were garbage and pretty useless, the books are amazing and the help received from TAs and professors was also very valuable.
Fall 2019 - I have mixed feelings about this class. On one hand, yes, this class is probably one of the most useful and practical classes you will ever take in your life, beyond that of just physics but real life. It is mostly handholding as you learn the techniques, components, and basic theory of electronic circuits each week in lab as a typical "experiment" a week until you do your final project. On the other hand, this class is a time sink. I had little to no experience with circuit building and it took a very, very, very long time for me to get the hang of it, in terms of troubleshooting, using an oscilloscope, what the hell ground means. My weekends and afternoons were largely dedicated to finishing labs and getting stuff to work so I can put it on my lab report. The final project took up a lot of time to figure out how to get some components to work and solder the damn thing. On top of that, the prelabs I found to be very challenging. The written midterm is fine, the lab practical was a disaster. The lab reports are very reasonable once you get the damn circuit to work and probably took less time than the prelabs themselves. In terms of the class structure, there is a significant spike in difficulty once you get to Week 4 with Transistors and it basically stays that way the rest of the time as you learn how to use IC chips etc. The professor's lectures were garbage and pretty useless, the books are amazing and the help received from TAs and professors was also very valuable.
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