MODERN PHYSICS
Phys 225, Autumn 2007.

Instructor: Aurel Bulgac


Office: PAB B478
Phone : 685-2988
Email: bulgac@phys.washington.edu

TA: Jong Wan Lee

Email: jwlee823@u.washington.edu


Some interesting sites

http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000 
http://www.almaden.ibm.com/vis/stm/gallery.html 
http://physics.syr.edu/courses/modules/LIGHTCONE/index.html 
http://wham.ph.utexas.edu
http://www3.adnc.com/~topquark/quantum/quantumapplets.html


The class will meet MWF 12:30 - 1:20 pm in PAB A110.


OFFICE HOURS

  WF 2:30-3:20 pm my office or by appointment, starting Friday 9/28.

TEXTBOOK

 Randy Harris, Modern Physics (Pearson Addison & Wesley).
 See also companion website

ALTERNATE TEXBOOKS

  Kenneth Krane, Modern Physics (John Wiley & Sons)

  Paul Tipler and Ralph Llewellyn, Modern Physics (W.H. Freeman & Co.)

HOMEWORK

  There will some suggested minimal homework, but it will not be graded. Solutions will be provided after some reasonable waiting period. 

EXAMS and QUIZZES

  Every Wednesday (except on exam days) there will be a 15-20 minutes quiz.           
  Two midterms: Wednesday, October 24 and Wednesday, November 28.
  Final: Thursday, December 13, 8:30-10:20 am in PAB A110.

There will be no make-up exams.

Each midterm will emphasize the material covered prior to that exam, but it may include earlier material as well. The final exam is comprehensive.  The exams will be closed book and only one sheet of handwritten notes (not printed or photocopied, etc.) will be allowed. No devices of any kind, except a calculator, will be allowed.

 
GRADING

Quizzes 25% + First Midterm 25% + Second Midterm 25% + Final exam 50%= 125%. The lowest (or half of final exam) grade will be dropped.


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Syllabus (tentative)


The amount of material and detail I shall cover will depend very much on how fast we shall proceed. I plan to cover Special Relativity (chapter 2), Waves and Particles I: electromagnetic radiation behaving as particles (chapter 3), Waves and Particles II: matter behaving as waves (chapter 4), Bound states: simple cases (chapter 5), Unbound states: obstacles, tunneling and particle-wave propagations (chapter 6), and, if time allows, Quantum mechanics in three dimensions and the hydrogen atom (chapter 7) .  The material in appendices A-D will also be covered.
Date
To Read 
Tentative Topics 
Homework
Solutions appear as links
     
 Sep. 26, 28
  Ch. 2.1-2.2
  Appendix A 		  Einstein's postulates, Simultaneity,
  Length contraction, time dilation. 		  2.17,  2.20, 2.26,  2.30,
  2.34, 2.38
 Oct. 1, 3, 5
   Ch. 2.3-2-5
  Appendix B
   Lorentz Transformation, Twin paradox
  Doppler effect. 		  2: 70, 2.78, 2.86, 2.93, 2.94
  2.105, 2.108, 2.113, 2.114
 Oct.  8, 10, 12
  Ch. 2.6-2.7
   Velocity transformations, dynamics,
  momentum and energy, massless particles.
  Oct. 22
   Ch.  2.9-2.10
   The light barrier,The fourth dimension .
  Oct. 24
    Exam 1

  Oct. 26
    Ch. 3.1
   Appendix  C
  Blackbody radiation
  Oct. 29, 31
  Nov. 2
  
Ch. 3.2-3.6
     
    Photoelectric effect, X-rays,
   Compton effect, Pair production
 3.20, 3.22, 3.32, 3.49,  3.52
  Nov. 5, 7, 9
  Ch. 4.1-4.4
    Duble-slit experiment,  matter waves,
    Free particle Schroedinger equation
  Nov. 14, 16
   Ch. 4.5-4.7
  Appendix D
   Fourier transform - another example
  Uncertainty principle, Bohr model
 4.5, 4.34, 4.36, 4.37, 4.53, 4.67, 4.65
  Nov. 19, 21
  Nov. 28 		  Ch. 5
  Exam 2 		 
   

 
5.24, 5.28, 5.38, 5.40, 5.46,
5.49, 5.56, 5.64, 5.66,  5.71
  Nov. 26, 29
    Ch. 5
   

  Dec. 3, 5, 7    Ch. 6
  
   
 6.20, 6.21, 6.22, 6.24, 6.35, 6.36
  Dec. 13
   Final Exam   Thursday, 8:30-10:20 am,
  PAB A110.


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