PHYS 2320: Physics IV – Modern Physics
term: S15
General Information
Instructors:
R Michalak
PS 215 email: rudim@uwyo.edu
Office hours:
T 12-1 pm, W 3-4, F 3-4 pm or by appointment
Course webpage: www.physics.uwyo.edu/~rudim
Lecture:
MWF 2:10 - 3:00 pm, CR 215
Required Text: ‘Modern Physics’ 3rd edition, Kenneth Krane
Recommended text:
and
AP French ‘Special Relativity’
Max Born ‘Atomic Physics’
Course pre-requisite: Phys 1220. In order to make the course accessible as an elective for the largest
possible number of students, we have kept the pre-requisite low. However, all of physics is inter-connected,
and all of math is going to be used in physics at some point or another. One cannot delay taking physics
courses until one has gone through all 7 math courses, which our major requires. Consequently, there may
be a few rough edges. The same holds true for the content of Phys 1210 (Dynamics and Statics do formally
deal with the same material, but they do usually not put the same focus on modeling) and 2310 (Optics and
Waves).
Whenever we will reach such a cross road, I will try to ease you into any material that the average student
has not yet mastered, but from a certain point onward, you will have to do remedial work to catch up on
your own. It is perfectly fine to carry any remedial questions into office hours. It is not a bother when
students come by with questions about the material.
All following information is tentative and subject to revision at my discretion. Any changes will
be announced during lecture. It is your responsibility to keep up to date with such announcements:
Course Content:
This course is an introduction to modern physics.
We cover the fields of Relativity, basic Quantum Mechanics, Atomic and Nuclear Physics. Time permitting
we will look into the fundamental concepts of Statistical Mechanics, Solid State Physics, and Particle
Physics (sub-nuclear), leading to the Standard Model of Physics.
Key concepts:
Inertial Frames of Reference and Lorentz Transformation, Simultaneity, Space-time
Michelson-Morley Experiment, double-slit interference
Mass/Energy Relation
Dynamics in Relativity
Geometry and General Relativity
Atomic Nature of Matter
Photoelectric Effect, Millikan, Rutherford, Compton, Franck-Hertz, and Thomson e/m
Landmark Experiments
Quantization of Light and Atomic Energy Levels, the hydrogen atom
Blackbody Radiation
Wave Nature of Matter, de Broglie waves, and Uncertainty Relation
Schroedinger Equation
Spin and Angular Momentum of Elementary Particles
Zeeman Effect, Pauli Principle
How to create the Periodic Table of Elements
Nuclear models
Nuclear decay law, half-life time
Radioactivity and radiation penetration into matter
Optional:
The Particle Zoo & the Standard Model of Physics
Quarks and Quantum-Chromodynamics: a qualitative first introduction
Maxwell-Boltzmann Distribution vs. Quantum Statistics
Electrons in Metals and Semiconductors
Band Theory of Solids
Lecture
The lecture will roughly follow the required book. Some chapters will be left out and others will be
expanded on beyond what the books present. Thus, taking lecture notes is important. Announcements
pertaining to the course will be made in lecture. If you cannot attend any particular lecture, make sure to
catch up with your peers on announcements that have been made.
During my time of teaching at UW it has increasingly become clear to me how much of a key role it plays
to get students to do academic level reading. In the lab course, which builds on our course (Phys 3650), and
in Phys 4510, Thermo & Stat Mech, students find it quite impossible to rely just on what is being said in
lecture. There just is not enough time to cover all aspects of the material in lecture. A short glance at a
Physics-GRE exam will convince anyone that ALL material must be covered. About 25% of the GRE
material is ONLY presented in this course of the physics curriculum. But asking students to do significant
academic reading (aka working through a text) is too much when it has to happen all at once. Our course
will serve as a bridge in this respect.
This term, I have decided to offer two recommended texts in addition to a standard textbook. The two
additional texts are comparatively cheap and they have been written by people who were eminent in the
field when it was new. I have made sure that the texts are not too difficult mathematically, not too behind
the times (after all, the inventions of ‘modern’ physics that we will talk about concluded in the 1930s!), and
are giving sound explanations conceptually. I hope that you will find, too, that no one can tell a story better
than someone who has lived through it! These authors know WHY work was done and why it was done in
a certain sequence or with certain methods and their writing reflects it. The recommended texts will serve
you for a variety of upper level physics courses, especially Born’s text; so hold on to them.
In lecture, I plan to build on some pre-reading that you will have done before lecture. Check the tentative
schedule at the end of the syllabus for what is up next, and come prepared enough so that we can deal with
the more complicated aspects of a topic in lecture, and can lead you to your post-reading, which must be
done with these difficult concepts to get a lasting understanding. I show a variety of video excerpts during
lecture time. Many of these videos are accessible for free online at
http://learner.org/resources/series42.html . This is not a required source, but if you want to review a video
you can find it here. I will mostly draw from units 41 to 44. Other videos may also be helpful.
Let’s not forget the most important aspect of our course: For a physics and astronomy major this should be
pure fun! It is the stuff that made you want to become one of us in the first place! No more boxes sliding
down inclines – let’s find out about the more interesting things like why something as solid as a table is in
reality a wave!
And if you are taking this course as an elective in your major, let us find out whether a double major in
physics can possibly interest you – this course will definitely tell you! And let’s keep an open mind when I
will tell you that mass is not mass, space is not space, and time is not time; at least not in the way how our
trusty Newtonian Mechanics and Maxwellian Electromagnetism have always told us. And while we’re at it:
Let’s convince ourselves why those older fields are not completely obsolete either.
How real physics courses are different from what you are used to:
In physics, we are at least as interested in the evaluation of core conceptual questions, and the evaluation of
landmark experiments and their consequences for theory, as we are interested in solving numerical
problems. And we do also hold stakes in our students being able to derive why certain equations hold true
and to discuss the range of validity for which they are true. This lecture and the tasks I will set in hw and
exam will reflect that interest. There will be certain points, especially in Relativity and in the basic
Quantum Mechanics of the hydrogen atom, where this will ring particularly true. It is here where you will
have to be most diligent with the reading of the texts. The texts have been chosen to that end.
Grading
Details of grading (subject to revision):
Exams:
Homework:
Letters
3
7
3
72 %
28 %
bonus up to 3%
_____
100%
Scale:
A > 93.3%
A- > 90.0%
B+ > 86.7%
B > 83.3%
B- > 80.0%
C+ > 76.7%
C > 73.3%
C- > 70%
D+ > 66.7%
D > 63.3%
F < 60%
GPA
4.0
3.67
3.33
3.0
2.67
2.33
2.0
1.67
1.33
1.0
0.0
Expect the percent grades on assignments to shift accordingly. Note that the old expectations for curving,
rounding up, etc. will shift to accordingly smaller margins. Being ‘just 1%’ below the next grade level is
now a much larger gap than it was before.
I reserve the right to curve the exams and the final grade.
Exams
The exams will contain both quantitative and conceptual problems. The exams will be closed book and
closed notes. I will provide certain formulas, but will expect that you can derive certain others from them.
Expect to find questions about landmark experiments and conceptual aspects of the material in the exams.
None of the grades will be dropped or replaced. The exams will be held at the following times and cover
the following topics:
Exam 1 –
Exam 2 –
Exam 3 – final
R 26 Feb CR103
R 2 Apr NN
F 10 May CR215
5:00 pm
5:00 pm
1:15 pm
topics: Relativity
topics: Atomic and Basic Quantum
topics: cumulative
Homework
A typical homework will consist of four to six problems. Students are allowed to work in hw groups of up
to three students. A group hands in one solution and every student is only allowed to put their name on the
hw if they actually participated actively in it. It is every group member’s responsibility to see to it that the
credits are awarded correctly! No student can be part of more than one hw group. Students can change
groups from hw to hw.
Most hw (and exam) problems will require a certain amount of verbal explanation or discussion of the
result, even when not explicitly stated. In particular, you are expected to explain what the result actually
means.
The deadlines are indicated for each homework in the tentative schedule below. To receive full credit,
your homework must be legible, on time, and the logic must be easy to follow.
Incomplete work will receive reduced credit. A penalty of 20% applies, if homework is turned in late, but
not later than one week after the deadline. After this extended deadline, no late submissions will be
accepted.
Academic honesty
In short: Don’t cheat. In the long run you are only hurting your chances at succeeding in college because,
within the required courses of a major, courses tend to build onto each other. Finally, cheating is of course
dishonorable behavior.
The actual university rules:
Academic dishonesty is defined in University Regulation 802, Revision 2 as “an act attempted or
performed which misrepresents one’s involvement in an academic task in any way, or permits another
student to misrepresent the latter’s involvement in an academic task by assisting the misrepresentation.”
and there is a well-defined procedure to judge such cases and serious penalties may be assessed. A shorter
common sense interpretation could sound something like this: If it’s not your work, don’t pretend that it is.
Special accommodations
If you have a physical, learning, or psychological disability and require accommodations, please let me know
as soon as possible. I will try to accommodate your condition as best as circumstances allow. You will need
to register with, and provide documentation of your disability to, University Disability Support Services
(UDSS) in SEO, room 330 Knight Hall, 766-6189, TTY: 766-3073.
Tentative Class Schedule Spring 2015 – 2320
Week
M
W
F
1 Jan 26 – Jan 30
Intro
R1
R2
2 Feb 2 – Feb 6
R3
R4
R5
3 Feb 9 – Feb 13
R6
R7
R8
4 Feb 16 – Feb 20
R9
R10
R11
5 Feb 23 – Feb 27
A1
A2
A3
Notes
Homework #1: F 5pm Rel.1
Homework #2: F 5pm Rel.2
Exam 1 CR103 R Feb26, 5pm
Homework #3: F 5pm At.1
6 Mar 2 – Mar 6
A4
A5
A6
7 Mar 9 – Mar 13
A7
A8
A9
8 Mar 16 – Mar 20
-
-
-
Mid semester: Mar 7 (grades due on the ##th)
Spring break
Homework #4: F 5pm At.2
9 Mar 23– Mar 27
A10
A11
A12
Last day of withdrawal from courses: 27th
Advising week – get your Perc
10 Mar 30 –Apr 3
A13
A14
A15
Exam 2 tentatively CR215 R Apr2, 5pm
Homework #5: F 5pm At.3 /Nuc.1
11 Apr 6 –Apr 10
N1
N2
N3
12 Apr 13 –Apr 17
N4
N5
N6
13 Apr 20 –Apr 24
Stat1
Stat2
Stat3
14 Apr 7 –May 1
Sol1
Sol2
Sol3
15 May 4 – May 8
Sub1
Sub2
Sub3
Homework #6: F 5pm Nuc.2
Homework #7: F 5pm Stat/Sol/Sub
May 11 – May 15
14M 14W 14F= 42
W
1:15-3:15
Dead week: last day of classes 8th
Finals week
All final exams are in the regular class rooms unless
otherwise arranged
Tentative material list per lecture: with future relevance commentary for majors
Text reference: K = Krane, F = French, B = Born (old term: T = Taylor)
Intro K 1.1-1.4 review classical physics, letter to self
R1
K 2.1, 2.3, 2.4 suppl: F chapter 1 p.3-12 B: very dense overview app. V
R2
K 2.2
suppl: F chapter 2
rel: interference for QM, atomic
R3
K 2.5, 2.6
suppl: F chapter 3, p.74-82 rel: foundational for laws transferring to atomic etc.
R4
spacetime diagrams , skateboard videos
suppl: F p.82-94
R5
proof of time dilation, meson video
suppl: F p. 101-109
R6
clocks, light-clock video
suppl: F p.111-116
R7
T 1.13, 1.14
suppl: F chapter 5 p.125-131
R8
Doppler Effect suppl: F p.134-146
rel: cosmology, study of galaxies
K 2.8
suppl: F chapter 1 p.16-29 rel: radioactive decay, nuclear processes
R9
K 2.7space billiard suppl: F p.167- 176
rel: atomic and nuclear experiments
suppl: F p.176-180, 184-191
R10 E = mc2
forces and accelerations suppl: F p.214-219
R11
GR (after Rindler)
4-vectors, curved spacetime, field eqn rel: cosmology, black holes
Note below: I will update the list of lecture topics and continue the change from Taylor to Krane at a
later time:
Leave T 3.1-8 basics of the atom to student reading, B 1.1-5
A1
T 3.9+10 Brownian motion, discovery e- (Thomson e/m), B1.5-8, app.IV, B 2.1
A2
T 3.11+12 Millikan, Rutherford, B 1.8, 3.3, app. IX
A3
T 4.1 Quantization of the atom, B 4.3
A4
T 4.2 Planck and Blackbody, B 7.1+3, app. XXVIII
A5
T 4.3, 4.4+5; 5.9 Photoelectric Effect; x-rays, B 4.2, 8.8; 2.3, 4.1, p.167+171
A6
T 4.6+7 Compton Effect, wave – particle duality, B 4.4, app. X, 4.5-7
A7
T 5.1-4 Bohr model basics, B 4.3, 5.1
A8
T 5.5-8 Bohr model details, B 5.2, app. XIV
A9
T 6.1-5, 8-10 Matter waves, basic quantum language, B 4.1, 4.5-7, 5.4 without the math
A10 T 7.1-8 (in excerpts) examples of quantum wells, B 5.4 with math ,app. XVI, XXV (for a taste)
A11 T 7.9-11 Schrodinger eqn, B see above, app. XVIII
A12 T 8.1-5 toward 3-dim wells, B 5.5, app. XIX
A13 T 8.6-10 angular momentum, hydrogen atom, atomic shells, B 5.7+8
A14 T 9.1-6 spin, B 6.1-3, app. XIX
A15 T 10.1-8 building the periodic table, Pauli principle, B 6.5-8
N1
nn
N2
N3
N4
N5
N6
N7
N8
N9
Sub1
Sub2
Statistics: T 15.3,.4,.5
Nuclear T 16.2, .3 nuclear properties and force
Nuclear T 16..4, .5, .6 nuclear properties and some models
Nuclear T 16.7
binding energy
Nuclear T 16.8
shell model
Nuclear T 17.2, .3
radioactivity, general
Nuclear T 17.5, .7, .8 natural decay series, fission, fusion
Sub-nuclear T 18.1-.7 (not exam material)
Sub3