General Physics with Calculus II

Course Description

General Physics with Calculus II completes the calculus-based physics sequence. The statewide record describes a continued study of mechanics, heat, sound, light, electricity and magnetism as the second of a two-semester sequence — in current Florida practice the course is dominated by electricity and magnetism, with optics and modern-physics topics where time allows.

It is carried by 26 Florida public institutions as a lecture, with 13 running the integrated PHY2049C.

⚠ The statewide entry for this half is thin and old — a single sentence, where the first course was rewritten recently with explicit learning outcomes. The outcomes and topics below therefore reflect what Florida institutions actually teach in the second course rather than quoting the state.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Apply Coulomb’s law and the concept of the electric field.
• Use Gauss’s law and electric potential to analyse charge distributions.
• Analyse DC circuits: resistance, capacitance, Kirchhoff’s rules, RC behaviour.
• Analyse magnetic fields and forces, and apply Ampère’s law.
• Apply Faraday’s law of induction and analyse inductance and AC circuits.
• Describe electromagnetic waves and apply the principles of optics.

Optional Outcomes

• Introductory modern physics — relativity, photons, atomic structure.
• Laboratory measurement with uncertainty analysis (in the laboratory half).

Major Topics

Required Topics

• Electric charge, field and Gauss’s law.
• Electric potential and capacitance.
• Current, resistance and DC circuits.
• Magnetic fields and sources of magnetic field.
• Faraday’s law, inductance and AC circuits.
• Maxwell’s equations and electromagnetic waves.

Optional Topics

• Geometric and physical optics.
• Thermodynamics, where not covered in the first course.
• Introductory relativity and quantum ideas.

Resources & Tools

• The same text as the first course; OpenStax University Physics Volume 2 is the free option.
• Online homework systems are common and often a separate purchase.

Career Pathways

Required by every engineering discipline. ⚠ It matters most to electrical and computer engineering, where it is the direct foundation of circuits, electronics and electromagnetics — a student heading that way should treat this course as a major course rather than a general-education requirement.

Special Information

Two packagings, and they are equivalent

Florida teaches the calculus-based physics sequence both ways. 26 institutions run PHY2049 as a lecture alongside PHY2049L, a separate laboratory carried by 24; 13 run PHY2049C, one integrated course. The outcomes are the same and transfer works either way — lecture plus laboratory completes exactly as the combined course does. Institutions are given this latitude deliberately.

⚠ Get the registration right: where your institution splits the course, enrol in both halves. They are normally corequisites, and an engineering or science programme that requires a laboratory will not accept the lecture alone.

⚠ Credit values differ

About 15 institutions carry the lecture at 3 credits and 13 at 4; the integrated form runs 4 or 5. ⚠ Gulf Coast State College publishes 4 credits here against 3 for the first course — so the two halves are not always the same size even within one institution. Check both against your degree audit.

⚠ Dual enrolment: the high-school credit runs opposite to expectation

Across this gateway the recently revised General Education Core entries record ELECTIVE high-school credit, while their unrevised second halves record the subject credit. Physics with Calculus I records ELECTIVE; Physics with Calculus II records SCIENCE. The same inversion appears in the anatomy sequence and in calculus. So the first course — the one most likely taken in high school — carries the weaker high-school credit. The college credit is unaffected. Confirm with your counsellor and district articulation agreement before relying on it.