Lectures on Introductory Physics I.Acknowledgment. M. Agrest

Lectures on Introductory Physics I ACKNOWLEDGMENT M. Agrest

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

It is my pleasure to express my gratitude to a large number of people without whom this edition wouldn’t be possible.
First of all I thank my parents, who gave me the courage to get my education, supported me in all achievements. My father, Dr. Matest Agrest was always and is now an example to follow as a scientist and educator. My mother, Mrs. Riva Agrest was also my first English teacher in our past life in Russia many years before we could immigrate to the US. Also my siblings Raisa, Emmanuil, and Alex, who contributed to teaching a lot in their lives, were always encouraging me to succeed in achieving high goals.
I am grateful to my children Arkady and Inga who experienced my teaching method and have exiting memories about this experience. Especially Inga, whom I had a pleasure to teach Physics at the College level and who took my side in numerous discussions of my method with my friends and colleagues such as Dr. Alex Pecheny of the Johnson and Wales University.
I also thank my wife, Marina Agrest, who sacrificed some success in her career in piano performance to give me the opportunity to work on this book.
Another person who greatly influenced my life and career is my professor at the St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia, Dr. M. Z. Solomiak, now professor of Weizmann Inst., Rehovot, Israel. It was in his class when the thought of such edition came to my mind.
I am very grateful to my College of Charleston Physics and Astronomy Department colleagues, the family, which accepted me in 1993. I express my gratitude to all College of Charleston faculty and staff with whom I have a good fortune to interact, particularly to the CETL Board of Directors who awarded me a grant to complete this work.
The list of names would take pages, nevertheless I feel the need to mention some names and the first is Dr. Dukes, who was the Department Chair for most of my years at the College. Dr. Dukes was the first who believed in my ability and willingness to be a good teacher at the College. He taught me a lot not just in terms of our profession, but also about the American life style, colleague and student-professor relation and interaction. This helped me to find better approach the needs of students at an American Liberal Arts College.
I worked together in Labs with Dr. L. Mills, Dr. J. Halford, and Dr. F. Watts, attended some lectures of my colleagues Dr. D. Hall, Dr. L. Mills, Dr. F. Watts with pleasure, and I learned a lot.

I often have long discussions –“ Informal Teaching Seminars” with them as well as Dr. B. Kubinec, Dr. J. Wragg, Dr. L. Lindner, Dr. L. Jones, Dr. J. Neff, Dr. N. Preyer, James Frysinger and Terry Richardson.
Special thanks to Al Rainis and my wife Marina Agrest for their patience while helping me with the photographs for this edition.
My gratitude to my colleagues Professor James Frysinger who was my first follower and started using this book in his Physics 102 class in the Spring of 2002 and his feed back and Dr. Jake Halfrod for using it in Summer of 2002, both at the Physics and Astronomy Department of the College of Charleston.
My special thanks to our new Chair of the Physics and Astronomy Department Dr. Jon Hakkila who already impressed me with his experience and opened mind for the strong spiritual support of my work on this edition, as well as permission to use Departmental facilities.
I am also very grateful to Dr. E. R Jones of the University of South Carolina, Columbia, the author of the Contemporary College Physics – the textbook I had pleasure to use in classes I taught, and Dr. J. Safko of USC, who supported my idea of this edition.
Dr. Saul Adelman and Dr. Pat Briggs of The Citadel have brought some very important suggestions to my attention. Great thanks to Dr. Pat Briggs for using the book for his class at The Citadel and Dr. Peter Rembiesa, the chair of the Physics Department at The Citadel for his support
The last, but not least, is my gratitude to all students whom I taught and will teach Physics. Those were words of my student’s parent who watched me teaching her daughter that made me choose teaching as my profession.
You, my dear students, (especially students of the College of Charleston) inspired me to compile this edition and more, you were, are and will be my co-authors: I always intend to find ways to approach you, to find ways of better explanation the fundamentals of Physics, way to help you remember these fundamentals as well as some important details.
This is possible because of the wonderful interaction process we have in class: you always trigger my ideas.

Mikhail M. Agrest
Charleston, SC
August 19, 2001
January 03, 2002
June –August 2002

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COVER

Contents

Acknowledgment

Preface

Exsample 1

Exsample 2

Epilogue