FRESHPHYS is a mailing list. What this means is that everyone who subscribes to FRESHPHYS (this includes all the faculty involved: Dunning, Pattanayak, Dodds and all the students who care to belong) can send a single email message that will reach eveyone else on the list.
The point is that it is email-driven (and hence asynchronous); you can send email at any time and someone can answer you at any other time (well, normally they will answer you in the future.. but what about relativity ?!).
We hope that this list will be used to discuss matters related to Phys101 in a broad-ranging and constructive way.
One thing we will do on this list is to use it for simple administrative issues, such as notifying everyone about a class being cancelled (!) or delayed, or about possible corrections to class handouts and so on.
However, we also hope that this list is used to discuss Physics.
It seems a little hard, because Physics sometimes seems to consist mainly of figures and equations, and it is little difficult to write some of those figures and equations in email. But we think that we can try to talk about Physics intelligently on this list without getting stuck in trying to write the equations.
Does it have to be about the Physics that we talked about it in the classroom ? No. If you've got a question that seems to be related to what we talked about in any of the Physics 101 classes, feel free to speak up.
In case the list gets too distracted or crowded, however, we reserve the right to ask everyone to stay `on-topic', so that it is relevant to most of the class.
What is not appropriate ? Well, if it something very particular, like you want to talk to a Professor about how your pledged problem was graded, this is probably not a good way to communicate. Write to your Professor directly or call or go by your the office.
Think of it this way -- writing email to your Professor is like calling on the phone, while writing to the FRESHPHYS list is like standing up in class and talking about something. And unlike standing up in class, everyone will hear you.
We know that you can excercise your own judgement about what is appropriate. Sometimes it is not clear whether you want to send the message to everyone or just one person. It is probably safer if you send it to a couple of people and ask if it is a message that might be useful to the entire list. But if you send it to the whole list, it is probably okay, and we will forgive you.
It's just like being in a class where we encourage you to discuss things out loud -- most of the time it is great if you speak up and speak up often.
We are sure that makes complete sense.
Follow the weblink: https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/freshphys
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That should do it. For more detailed information, look here.
This page will be updated periodically to answer your questions, and with more notes on the correct information and so on. But for the moment,