CHAPTER 1 Mathematics

^Full Chapter Menu

Welcome to AP Physics. We're going to plunge right in soon, but first we need to talk about how this course works. So we need to do one of those first day of school introductions.

Notes about this site:

Have a look at the layout of the browser window. At the very top, the browser may have several of its own bars with menus and other commands. Feel free to minimize these as we'll never use them.

At the top of each course page you'll see a "Interactive Panel" with areas for Bulletins from the teacher, Links to your homework, grades, mailbox, and two quick glance reference graphs showing your progress compared to the target chapter and your overall grade. There is also a link to Log in or out, as well as links to Distance Learning's, and Physics AP home page.

Navigating this site:

Navigate the site using the bars at the top and bottom of each chapter page. You can quickly access any chapter using three links on this page:

1. « Found in the top navigation bar to the left
2. « Found in the bottom navigation bar to the left
3. ^Full Chapter Menu « Found in the top navigation bar to the right, below the chapter title

Chapter Sections are linked at the top and bottom of every page like this »

Of course, the real action happens here. Just a little text to give you a quick idea of what each section is about. It's rarely this wordy.

More importantly it contains the lessons. Let's try our first one.

You can imagine what all this rather mundane info is about, but after today you'll see all sorts of new ideas, animations, movies, and example problems in this space. You'll use these for study and review; and you can print them out.

View the animation by clicking the a bunch of times. Notice that you can go forward and backward using the two buttons.

Enough reading. You should see a watch video link like this » below most of the Flash exercise lessons. When you click on it a new window will appear above this one. At the bottom of this new window you'll see a control bar with a button similar to our button.

When you press that button you should begin to see and hear me giving my introduction. You can stop and start me, and rewind and fast-forward me using the other controls in the control bar. If you notice the video and audio getting out of sync, stopping and re-starting should fix it. You'll figure it out. Go ahead and give it a try. After it finishes, just come back here to see what's next. That's the routine.

About the Math

Although the development of concepts is probably our most important goal we'll spend a lot of time solving problems mathematically. This problem-solving is actually key to the development of concepts.

In the first three sections of the text you get a quick review of some key topics that should already be familiar to you. Make sure that you check out these sections; and if you see anything that looks unfamiliar, be sure to do what's necessary to master it. I'll start my instruction with trigonometry.