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Modern Physics Guide
Relativity:
What will all observers agree on?
Speed of light
What events take place (collisions, emission and absorption, and so forth)
What events cause others.
The mass of an object.
What measurements change from one observer to another?
Simultaneity of events separated in space.
Elapsed time
Length in direction of motion
Early Quantum:
Discovery of electrons, nuclei, neutrons.
Black body radiation led to light quantization, constant h.
Radioactivity, alpha and beta particles, gamma rays.
Xray diffraction and atomic spacing.
Atomic line spectra, led to Bohr’s orbit model of the atom.
Photoelectric effect Einstein brings the photon to light.
QM
E=hf, p = h/λ De Broglie, confirmed by photoelectric effect and e- diffraction.
Subatomic quanta are particle and wave simultaneously.
Square of wave function is a probability amplitude. (standard)
Square of wave function is a distribution of energy density of particle. (Ol’ Doc Grey)
Double slit interference: quantum must pass through both slits to produce interference.
Interference pattern is a probability distribution for finding the quantum at the screen.
Making a measurement collapses the wave function to that for the result.
Uncertainty principle: ΔpΔx≥ħ ; ΔEΔt≥ħ due to the wave nature of the quantum.
Pattern of wave functions (like standing waves), shape and order of functions.
Exponential decay of wave function when E<potential energy.
Tunneling and how it works.
Particle in a well solution, energy and confinement of particle.
Spin and angular momentum.
Nuclear
Fission and fusion
Calculation of energy from mass difference.
Identifying single missing particles.
High Energy Physics
Leptons, mesons, baryons
Fundamental forces, exchange bosons.
Feynman diagram of an interaction.
Conservation laws: charge, angular momentum, lepton number, baryon number, momentum
Antiparticles