There are four serious problems with the first calculus-based physics course most science and engineering students take in college. 1) Research has shown that even students who do well in a traditional mechanics course emerge from the course unable to apply basic principles in reasoning qualitatively about physical problems. 2) Most students have studied mechanics in high school, and resent having to study the same material again (although their understanding of mechanics may be weak). 3) Both students and physics teachers are dismayed by the lack of modern physics in the introductory course. 4) The intellectual coherence of the subject matter is obscured when mechanics and thermodynamics are treated as two separate sciences. We propose to develop a fundamentally new course that emphasizes atomic-level description and analysis and unifies mechanics and thermal physics by examining both macroscopic and microscopic viewpoints. As we have done in our work on electricity and magnetism, we will place heavy emphasis on teaching students how toconstruct rigorous, qualitative explanations of physical phenomena in terms of a small set of powerful fundamental principles. The fundamental physical understanding that results from this qualitative work will form the foundation for the more quantitative components of the course. As in E&M, we will stress the nature of the assumptions and approximations made in analyzing physical problems, and the limitations of a classical viewpoint. Theory and experiment will be integrated by creating "just-in-time" desktop experiments that can be done in the lecture hall, recitation room, or at home. We will draw on existing research on effective teaching of mechanics, and will adapt successful strategies where we can to the context of this course. The textbook we produce will have the same workbook format as our electricity and magnetism textbook, Electric and Magnetic Interactions (1995, John Wiley and Sons), and we expect to write computer programs to aid in v isualization.
