[MUSIC PLAYING] Hi, I'm Dr. Criss, and I'm in the physics department at the University of South Florida. And I'll be your instructor for this course. Behind me, the pendulum you see is seven stories tall. It's one of the largest pendulums of its kind in North America. 

If you were patient and watched this pendulum throughout the day, you would see that the plane in which it swings, rotates. If you were really patient and watched this pendulum for several days, you would see a pattern in that rotation that repeated every 24 hours. 

A pendulum like this was installed in 1851, in France, by a Frenchman by the name of John Foucault. This was considered the first laboratory demonstration that the Earth indeed rotates on its axis. This is physics. It's clever. It's exciting. It's inspiring. It's frustrating. And yes, it could even be boring. Well, maybe sometimes. 

What you'll find in this course is that you'll see a lot of information, some of which you might encounter in your junior and senior year courses in unexpected ways. Since it is a general education course for most of you, this will be your only shot at it. And even this might be more than you want. I certainly hope not. 

The story of physics is the story of human development and understanding. What we try to do in this course is select the physics that is most central to that story, the physics that you're most likely to encounter in your everyday life and experience. Now as a science course, this is a difficult course, but you can do well. And there's a couple keys to your success in this course, and let me outline for you. 

First of all, you need to keep up. There are weekly deadlines that have to be met. And we do not accept late work in the course. Second of all, you need to make an honest effort with this course. Now I certainly hope that by this time in your academic career, you know what an honest effort means. You have a week's worth of work, and if you wait until 3 o'clock on a Sunday afternoon to complete it, that doesn't constitute an honest effort. 

There are readings and videos that we expect you to watch and we expect you to do those in sequence before you attempt the quiz. When you're doing your reading or watching a video, we expect you to be engaged in what's going on. Connect with the readings. Connect with your classmates. When you have questions, send emails. That is what makes an online course successful. 

Well, with all of that said, I think you're ready to begin. You can look at the buttons on the first page of this course, and you'll see a button that says learning module. If you click on that button, you'll see that there are two learning modules to due during the first week. 

The first one is labeled start here. This is how we take our first day attendance. You need to start that module as soon as possible. And you must complete it by noon on Friday of the first week or you'll be removed from the course. All of that said, enjoy. Have fun. Physics is really cool. And you'll be hearing from me soon. Thank you.