Physics 252: Modern Physics
(as given in Spring 1999)
Teacher: Michael Fowler
NEW! The Lecture Notes on Special Relativity have been put together in one PDF File here.
(For premodern physics, check out my course on Galileo and Einstein.)
For German Readers:
All the lectures below on Special Relativity have been translated into German
by Christoph Scholz, who
teaches high school physics (pupils aged 10-19) in
Scholtz’ school URL is http://www.ha.shuttle.de/ha/hildegardis/mint/physik.htm
These notes are copyright. Students can make one copy for personal use, but the notes are not to be distributed commercially without permission of the author and the translator.
Index of Lectures
Special Relativity
12 lectures
Galilean Relativity and the Invariance of Newton's
Laws.
The Speed of Light
The Michelson-Morley
Experiment.
Special Relativity
Time dilation and length contraction.
The relativity of simultaneity.
The Lorentz transformations.
A worked example of time dilation.
The twins and other paradoxes, and the Doppler effect.
Velocity Addition.
Relativistic dynamics: mass, relativistic
momentum and energy.
Equivalence of mass and energy: Einstein's Box.
Relativistic energy-momentum
formula.
Particle Creation.
Electric and Magnetic fields in Relativity.
Remarks on General
Relativity.
Brief Review of the Kinetic Theory of Gases
Photons
4 lectures
Blackbody Radiation.
Blackbody Radiation: Notes.
How Planck Discovered the Quantum (optional reading for the curious).
The Photoelectric Effect.
Rays and Particles.
Atoms
6 lectures
Brief Historical Review.
Atomic Spectra
Early Atomic Models: Vortices and Pudding
Rutherford's
Experiment and the Beginning of Nuclear Physics.
The Bohr Atom.
Particles and Waves
4 lectures
From the Bohr Atom to De
Broglie's Waves.
Wave Packets and the
Uncertainty Principle.
Probabilities, Amplitudes and
Probability Amplitudes.
More on the Uncertainty
Principle.
Schrodinger's Equation
6 lectures
Wave Equations for Photons and Electrons.
Electron in a Box.
Finite
Square Well
Simple harmonic oscillator.
Barrier penetration.
Two-dimensional Wells.
Three dimensional waves,the hydrogen atom, angular momentum.
Many Electron Atoms
3 lectures
Symmetry of the wavefunction:
fermions and bosons.
Angular Momentum, Electron
spin, The periodic table.
Nuclear Physics
3 lectures
Stable and unstable nuclei,
decay mechanisms, nuclear fission.
Homework Assignments
Due Friday, January 29: French, Special Relativity, Chapter 2: 5, 6, 7.
Due Friday, February 5: French, Special Relativity, Chapter 4: 1, 3, 5, 11, 14.
Due Friday, February 12: French, Chapter 4: 9, 10. Ch. 5: 7, 9, 11.
Due Friday, February 19: French, Chapter 4: 12, 13(a), 18, 19. Ch. 5: 16, 20, 22. Ch 6: 7.
Pledged Set 1 due Friday, February 26