THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
 
Physics 210 Assignment # 1:
 
INTRODUCTION - SOLUTIONS
 
Thu. 09 Sep. 2010 - finish by Tue. 14 Sep.

Note that all but the first task can be accomplished remotely at any time before next Tuesday. You are welcome to log in from home (or from any Public Library) to complete this Assignment; however, you may want to take advantage of the help available from me and your TAs in the Thursday Lab to make sure you are not lacking any of the knowledge required to complete all parts of this rather easy Assignment on time.

1. GET CONNECTED: Go to the Computer Lab in Hennings 205 and familiarize yourself with the workstations there. If you don't already have an account on the phas.ubc.ca computers (e.g. hyper.phas.ubc.ca), which you can test by sitting down at one of the workstations and trying to log in, then get one from Gerry Grieve in Henn 205 or one of the other sysadmins (system administrators) in Henn 203. Crank up the firefox Web browser when you get logged in.

   Note that this is the most essential part of the Assignment, but is also the only part that cannot be completed remotely over the Web from any browser. Considering the fact that our new workstations in Henn 205 were only commissioned a few days ago, I think the process went surprisingly smoothly. My apologies to anyone who got especially frustrated trying to log in for the first time.

2. BROWSE the PHYS 210 Homepage at  http://musr.physics.ubc.ca/p210/  and make sure you know what's there, how to get to it and what it's for. If you have any questions, ask us during class or Email me (jess@phas.ubc.ca) or your TAs any time. By next week we'll assume that this e-territory is familiar to you and that you have assimilated all the obvious information (like the Syllabus and the Course Outline).

   Obviously this is difficult to "mark", so I just gave everyone full credit on the assumption that you would not be silly enough to omit doing this.

3. LOG IN at http://musr.physics.ubc.ca/p210/peo/ and make sure there is one and only one entry for you in the PHYS 210 People Database. Please change your initial password (which everyone will know as soon as I announce it in class) and update your profile there so that we have your preferred Email address and any other information you are willing to share.

   This also seems to have gone fairly smoothly. I should have thought to ask you to enter your "Account name on phas.ubc.ca" on the Personal Profile Entry Form as soon as you log in; as it is, a few did, but I had to go use the "finger" command on hyper.phas.ubc.ca to recover this information (which is vital for marking). Similarly for your preferred E-mail addresses, which I'd rather not have to copy from your message in part 6 below. Fortunately, this can be done this week just as well.

4. JOIN THE wiki:  There is a link to the PHYS 210 wiki on the PHYS 210 Homepage. Go there and register yourself. Please use your real name, in an easily remembered form - it will be your ID. Your registration has to be confirmed (first by your answering an Email sent to the address you provide, and then by sysadmin approval). You are free to peruse this wiki any time; next week's Assignment will involve editing certain pages of the wiki and adding your own thoughts; this requires login to your approved account - so don't put this off!

   This, too, went pretty smoothly. A few people failed to give their names as their ID's, which will annoy their classmates (who like to know whose words they are reading) more than me. If you are one of those, you might want to get me to delete your cryptically-identified account and create a new one; but please don't just create a second account without discussing it with me first!

5. SUGGESTED READING: The famous author Neal Stephenson wrote a long essay in 1999 entitled, "In the Beginning . . . Was the Command Line". It is still surprisingly timely today, despite the rapid evolution of Information Technology; this may be partly becuse Stephenson is a brilliant writer of speculative fiction. Give yourself a present over the weekend: download the typeset version (a 480 kB PDF file) from this website or visit Stephenson's website and read it there. This is not required and you will not be tested on it, but it may help to explain the philosophy behind this course.

   Again I just gave everyone full marks for this, believing that it is more a delight than a chore. If I'm wrong in your case, well, you should probably read it anyway in the next week or two, so you'll understand my "politics".

6. WRITE ME A LETTER: Using any plain text editor¹ (or just the composition window of your favourite Email client), write a short essay outlining your experiences with computers and your expectations of this course. What are your goals in Physics 210? Then send it to me, either as a plain text Email message or as a (plain text) attachment to one. I will use your input in revising my own agenda for this course.

   I was delighted to find that most people are here to get what I am here to facilitate. There is a wide range of previous experience, as expected, but PHYS 210 is a great "equalizer" -- everyone will be marked partly on their "improvement" and partly on the ingenuity and creativity of their Project, for which enthusiasm and imagination are the most important prerequisites.