Dis-Service Courses

Abstract

For many years the traditional engineering physics course was the pivotal subject in the engineering curriculum. It provided an adequate basis in macrophysics to support traditional engineering. The course is still offered, virtually unchanged for the past forty years except in minor details; the evolution of microphysics, structural chemistry, and physical metallurgy has made little impact upon this course. Engineering physics is now a sacred cow a dis-service course. This course has been cancelled at the University of Arizona and classical macrophysics is taught by the engineering departments in the various and usual subdivisions of mechanics, thermodynamics, electric and magnetic fields, and electric circuits. A new course, at the junior level, has been introduced by the Physics Department to cover Microphysics. It is offered under the title of "Structure of Matter" and covers electrons, atoms, chemical bonds, crystals, the energy band theory of crystals, and other topics from wave, statistical, and quantum mechanics. The course has been offered for three years. While it is under constant revision there is little doubt now that this represents a positive solution to a part of the problem posed to engineering educators by recent advances in contemporary science.