Download Modern Physics for Scientists and Engineers

Physics 2213A Modern Physics
Professor Rick Trebino
Howey Physics Building
Room N011
rick.trebino@physics
Class time: MWF 2-3
Office hours: after class,
especially Wed. & Fri.
Or email me.
In a crisis, call my cell
phone 404-510-1690.
Class TA: Patrick Chang (404)403-9485; [email protected]).
TA Office hours: 2-4pm the day before each homework due date
and quiz in Howey Physics Building E05.
Modern Physics is awesome!
Now that you’ve gotten
the boring physics
courses out of the way,
we can do the fun stuff!
Modern Physics will
take you from the 19th
century up to the 21st!
It’s all the great ideas
that have changed the
way we look at the
world!
But Modern Physics is very difficult!
We’ll be studying
Special Relativity,
Quantum Mechanics, and
General Relativity.
The great scientific
revolutions of the 20th
century!
Guess who was responsible
for them...
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
Bedtime reading
Course required texts:
Modern Physics for Scientists
and Engineers (3rd or 4th ed.)
by Thornton & Rex
Schaum’s Outline: Optics
by Eugene Hecht
Other helpful books:
Optics, 4th ed., Eugene Hecht
Introduction to Modern Optics, G.R. Fowles (~$15)
A Student’s Guide to Fourier Transforms, J.F. James (about $3 if used!)
Modern Physics, Bernstein, et al. (Prentice-Hall)
Modern Physics, Krane (Wiley)
Modern Physics for Scientists and Engineers, Taylor, et al (Prentice Hall)
Physics for Scientists and Engineers, extended version, Tipler (Freeman)
Modern Physics, Serway, et al (Brooks Cole)
Modern Physics, Ohanian (Prentice Hall)
Concepts of Modern Physics, Beiser (McGraw-Hill)
Course topics
Topic
Reading
th
1. Overview—the revolutions of 20 century physics
2. Sound and light waves
Hecht Ch 1
3. Interference
Hecht Ch 6.1-6.3, 6.5
4. The Fourier transform
Hecht Ch 8.1-8.2
5. Diffraction
Hecht Ch 7.1-7.5
6. The birth of modern physics
TRex Ch 1
7. Special relativity 1
TRex Ch 2
8. Special relativity 2
TRex Ch 2
9. Special relativity 3
TRex Ch 2
10. The basis of quantum mechanics
TRex Ch 3
11. Structure of the atom—the Bohr atom
TRex Ch 4
12. Quantum mechanics 1
TRex Ch 5
13. Quantum mechanics 2
TRex Ch 6
14. The hydrogen atom
TRex Ch 7
15. Quantum weirdness
16. Societal context
17. Atomic physics
TRex Ch 8
18. Molecules
TRex Ch 10
19. Blackbodies and lasers
20. Nuclei
TRex Ch 12
21. Particle physics
TRex Ch 14
22. General relativity
TRex Ch 15
23. Cosmology
TRex Ch 16
Stuff you should know
to take this course
y (Imaginary)
x = A cos(j)
P
A
Complex numbers
y = A sin(j)
j
Trigonometry
x (Real)
Physics I and II
Calculus (integration and differentiation)
Some differential equations (I’ll usually solve them for you, but
it’s important that you not be afraid of them!)
2 f
1 2 f
 2 2  0
2
x
v t
Long live trees!
This class is as paperless as
humanly possible. I’ll tell you
news in class and put
homework assignments and
other news on my web site:
www.frog.gatech.edu
Please write this web site URL
down now, and don’t forget it!
Everything you’ll need for this
class will be there!
We’ll also use T-Square, where
you can check your homework
and quiz scores.
My lectures
are on
the
web.
All my lectures will also be on my web site:
www.frog.gatech.edu.
Please
download
and read
them before
class, so
you don’t
have to
take as
many notes
in class.
And I usually improve them after class, so consider checking them
again a day or so after class for the most up-to-date versions.
How to view the lecture files
They’re Microsoft Power Point files.
If you have Power Point, you’re set.
If not,
Just download the free Windows program, Power Point Viewer.
Power Point is built into the SkyDrive, where the files reside.
For a tablet (iPad or Android), download the free app Onlive
Desktop, which allows you to run Power Point remotely. Onlive
Desktop will also soon be available for the Mac and PC.
In the meantime, for a Mac, you can download BlueStacks, a free
program that runs Android apps on the Mac and PC. And then
download Onlive Desktop for Android.
Or for a Mac, purchase Parallels ($50), Windows ($100), and MS
Office 2010. Simultaneously run both Mac and Windows apps.
Homework
Homework will be due on the date in
the title of the HW file at the beginning
of class at the upstairs entrance to the
classroom, where the TA will collect it—
not under my door.
HW problems shouldn’t require many pages each, so
if you’re having trouble,
talk to the TA or me.
The TA will try to grade and return the
homework within a few days. I require
that the TA return all homework by the
class before any quiz, and he will go over the homework in class on
the class day before each quiz.
Everyone will be allowed to turn in one assignment late (email our TA,
who will keep track of this; please don’t email me about this).
You can work with your classmates on homework (I encourage you to
do so!), but write it up yourself.
Quizzes and other detestable stuff
There will be 3 quizzes, all closed book. No notes or calculators
will be allowed. You won’t need to remember complex equations or
do complex computations. Quizzes will emphasize concepts, not
math.
Quiz dates: Wednesday, Sept. 26
Friday, Oct. 26
Wednesday, Nov. 28
I’ll count your worst quiz score for only half as much as your other
two (the weights will be 20%, 20%, and 10%), so, if you’re having a
bad day on quiz day, it won’t hurt quite as much.
Grading:
Quizzes: 50%
Homework: 25%
Final: 25%
If class attendance falls off, we’ll use
the Turning Point clickers.
If I decide to use them,
I’ll announce it in class
three times and place
this information on the
web site a week in
advance.
If you have any
problems with them,
email: Chaohua Ou
[email protected]
ch.edu
For additional information, check out www.turningtechnologies.com
Grading if we use the clickers
I’ll still count your worst quiz score for only half
as much as your other two (the weights will
then be 18%, 18%, and 9%).
Grading:
Quizzes: 45%
Homework: 20%
Final: 20%
Clicker questions: 15%
The Importance of Having Class
Now, I know you’ll be tempted to skip class and just download the
lectures. This is fine if you only do it occasionally. But you should
come to class because there’s a lot that I’ll say that won’t be in the
Power Point files. And which will be on the quizzes.
In the past, people who have
skipped a lot of classes have
received very bad grades.
Conversely, people who’ve come
to most or all of the classes nearly
always receive A’s and B’s.
No one’s
perfect.
So we
give lots
of partial
credit.
But you must
say what
you’re doing!
Write a lot of
text in addition
to equations in
your homework
and quizzes.
Modern Physics
has very some
unintuitive ideas.
In fact, this course will hit you
with more unintuitive ideas
than any other course you’ll
ever take. The goal is simply
to expose you to them, and
later courses will cover them
in more detail.
To help, in my lectures, I’ve put equations that you need to remember
in white boxes with colored borders. Plain white boxes indicate that
it’s an important equation, but you don’t need to remember it.
p ph 
h
 ph
h

d
 h/ p
Don’t worry if you don’t understand all
of the ideas in this course.
We’re covering all of physics!
And my teaching style is to tell
you more than you need to
know to inspire you and give
you a sense for what’s to come.
And besides, no one actually
understands all of modern
physics!
Understanding the ideas of each
lecture requires the knowledge of the
previous lectures.
If you keep up,
you won’t end up
looking like this
the night before
the quizzes!
Finally, this
course is difficult!
We’re covering
some of the most
difficult ideas in
science!