Ph 311/312 course details
Introduction to Modern Physics
these two courses are considered to be a
sequence, so it does not make sense to join PH 312 without proper preparation
by either PH 311 or some similar course taken somewhere else, Last updated:
February 20, 2012
Lecturer: Peter Moeck, Dr. rer. nat. (Crystallography),
Associate Professor of Physics, Office hours: room 404, Science Research and
e-mail: pmoeck
at pdx dot edu, web: http://www.physics.pdx.edu/~pmoeck/index.html
telephone: 503 725 4227 (but I do
prefer communicating per e-mail with my students), do not send e-mail attachments to me, e.g. late homeworks,
I do not open them as a matter of principle, late homeworks
can however be send as attachments to Taylor Bilyeu tbilyeu@pdx.edu
and/or tbilyeu@gmail.com
his weekly deadline for receiving homeworks
is always Tuesday 1 pm !!
office hours of teaching assistant
Taylor Bilyeu (tbilyeu at pdx
dot edu): Tuesday and Thursday: 1:00
to 1:30 pm
room 201A,
Solutions to
the homeworks are posted on Tuesdays afternoons by
Homework links get updated every week on Thursday late afternoon/evening
SOLUTIONS to HOMEWORKS get posted every Week on Tuesday early afternoon
by THE Teaching Assistant for this course, he
also keeps the not collected homeworks)
For discussions on the homework problems and their grading
you have to approach the teaching assistant first, only if the two of you cannot resolve the matter together,
I will talk to you about them in the presence of the teaching assistant.
Similarly, only if the teaching assistant agrees will your homework score be
changed, do not postpone issues with him or her or him up to the last week!
What will be covered in PH 311/312?
The
revolutions in the concepts of physics in the early 20th century: special
relativity, Introduction to quantum mechanics: black-body
radiation, energy quantum ideas, Bohr/Rutherford theory of the atom, Schroedinger equation, wave functions, electronic
structure of atoms, periodic table, nuclear structure, radioactivity, fission
and fusion, (+ very briefly: statistical physics and solid state
physics).
Prerequisite:
Ph 203, or Ph 213 and Mth 252, PH 312 is to be taken after PH 311 or a similar one quarter/one
semester course, it does make no sense at all to
show up for phys 312 without proper introduction to the subject
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highly
recommended text books:
Concepts of Modern Physics by A. Beiser, McGraw-Hill,
sixth, fifth or fourth editions, (6th edition by some Indian
publisher in paperback is very good value for your money)
Thornton and Rex, Modern Physics, any of
three editions so far
Ph 311
your homework assignments
HW1, HW2, HW3, HW4, HW5, HW6, HW7, HW8, HW9,
Ph 312
your homework assignments
HW1, HW2, HW3, HW4, HW5, HW6, HW7, HW8, HW9,
Supporting web pages with
simulations:
http://wps.aw.com/aw_harris_mp_2/
http://enjoy.phy.ntnu.edu.tw/data/458/www/simulations/simsb6fb.html?sim=SternGerlach_Experiment
http://physics.prenhall.com/taylor
It
is a good idea to download “lecture manuscripts” below; BUT you do need to
update/modify them during class yourself in order to learn
manuscripts on the basis of Thornton/Rex slides
chapter 1 here
chapters 2/15 here
chapter 3 here
chapter 4 here
chapter 5 here
chapter 6 here
chapter 7 here
chapter 8 here
chapter 9 here
chapter 10 here
chapter 11 here
chapter 12 here
chapter 13 here
chapter 14 here
chapter 16 here
older
lecture manuscript/partly included in the power point slides above
for relativity
can be downloaded/printed as *.doc or *.pdf
for an alternative approach to
relativistic mechanics that does not use the concept of relativistic mass,
about which Einstein said late in his life: not good - no clear definition can be given. It is better to
introduce no other mass concept that the rest mass click here, relativistic
momentum is explained by the concept of relativistic velocity - the so called “One map two clock approach”
lecture manuscript for chapter 2 (quantum
theory of light) can be downloaded I word format here
and here in pdf
lecture
manuscript for Applied Modern Physics can be downloaded as
*.doc or *.pdf
lecture manuscript for chapters 3 can be
downloaded here
lecture manuscript for chapters 4 can be
downloaded here
lecture manuscript for chapter 5 can be
downloaded here
lecture manuscript for chapter 6 can be
downloaded/printed here
lecture manuscript for chapter 6/tunneling
phenomena can be downloaded here
the manuscript on tunneling/frustrated
total internal reflection in electromagnetic and water waves can be downloaded here
part 1 of lecture manuscript for chapter 7
can be downloaded/printed here
part 2 of lecture manuscript for chapter 7
can be downloaded/printed here
part 3 of lecture manuscript for chapter 7
can be downloaded/printed here
lecture manuscript for chapter 8/multi
electron atoms can be downloaded here
statistical physics part II can be
downloaded/printed here
; applications of statistical physics to electrical and thermal conductivity
can be downloaded/printed here
lecture manuscript for chapter 9, part I (Beiser) Statistical Mechanics can be downloaded/printed here
here is the link in *.pdf, on
superconductivity, I do not have it in word as a colleague has given it to me,
the respective section in Beiser is 10.9 and 10.10
Lecture manuscript for first part of chapter 13 is here
Lecture manuscript second part of chapter 13/14 is here
Lecture manuscript for superconductivity (in Beiser within the chapter on solid state physics) can be downloaded/printed here As a special treat, you will
hear Richard P. Feynman giving a lecture out of the computer system in class, lecture
manuscript for (Feynman) 1st lecture can be downloaded here
in word and here
in pdf
lecture manuscript for (Feynman) 2nd
lecture can be downloaded here
in word and here
in pdf
watch Richard Feynman giving the The Douglas Robb Memorial Lectures at
http://www.vega.org.uk/video/subseries/8 (streaming video for free) have some fun at http://physicsweb.org/article/world/16/9/2
if time permits, we will also explore resources b y PBS/NOVA
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/
Is the Moon there when Nobody looks, Reality and the Quantum Theory?, the last lecture in the course Possible extra credit, but only it the whole class wants it:
For PHY 311, you may like to read
the Planck
PAPER and answer for yourself the following questions: Which novel idea(s) did
Planck introduce in the derivation of his black body radiation formula? In
which paragraph do(es) it
(they) first show up? What are (is) the equation number(s) relating to this
(these) new idea(s)? Where did he get an estimate of h from?
Also for PHY 312, you may like to
read about the important theorem by Bell and his famous inequalities in two
popular science papers by David Mermin (one without much physics,
one with a bit
more physics ) and about the experimental verification that Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen have probably been wrong in the Aspect
nature paper. We will also cover this in the last two lectures, but without
preparations the very elegant reasoning by David Mermin
may be difficult to comprehend. For the extra credit answer the following
questions.
This is a two quarter course, everybody that enrolls only in the
second term is assumed to have sufficient knowledge in Modern Physics form some
other course!
It is best to take the two courses within one
academic year as there will be frequent references back to the material covered
in the first quarter throughout the second quarter !!
You
better come to the lectures as it is the things I pay special attention to in
the lectures that will be asked off you in the tests and exams, but I do not
take a register
Homework credit contribute one third to your final
course grade (you better do your homework as this will prepare you well for the
tests and final exam, if you don not at all you will get zero credit in this
section!), Homeworks will be set on this webpage on
Thursday late afternoon/evening. Homeworks have to be
handed in on Tuesdays before the lecture, as their solutions will be posted
soon after this on the web. All homework solutions and a correct version of the
midterm exam will be published on the webpage of the teaching assistant.
your final grade will be calculated
from your individual scores:
33.33 % Home works
33.33
% Midterm exam, 6th week (February 14, 2012)
33.34 % Final exam, all topics after 10
weeks,
the exam questions might be similar
to homework questions but they will be biased towards the tougher ones, so you
better check very carefully what went wrong in the homeworks
so that you do better in the exams, you can have a look at your final exam
personally at office hours after the course.
These final grade percentages make sure you have two
thirds of your grade fixed before the final exam, so there is no need to get
nervous at exam time as the final is unlikely to change much.
You get to keep your graded midterm exam, the final exams remain with the physics department.
Final
exam date: as
set by PSU, typically Tuesday of finals week, 10:15 am to 12:05 pm
Relative strengths and weaknesses
of selected textbooks that can be used with this course
Concepts of Modern Physics by A. Beiser, McGraw-Hill,
6th edition, 2002, 542 pages, (quite easy going but pretty much to
the point, a few bits and pieces missing, but a good thread throughout,
unfortunately, there are quite a few typos in the 6th edition, but
the 5th and 4th are just as good and may be cheaper) you
may get the paperback version over http://www.tatamcgrawhill.com/
or over http://www.amazon.com/
Modern Physics for Scientists and
Engineers by Stephen T. Thornton and
Andrew Rex, 3rd edition, Brooks/Cole, 2006, about 600 pages without
appendices, (good and comprehensive most of the time, sometimes too much detail
and not enough explanations of the more important concept)
Modern Physics by R. A. Serway,
C. J. Moses, and C. A. Moyer 3rd edition, Saunders 2005, 600 pages
without appendices and index, it is pretty good, I served as one of the
accuracy reviewers, if you are just coming for PH 311, that could be your book,
if you do the whole sequence PH 311 and PH 312, I recommend Beiser
and/or Thornton/Rex
Modern Physics by P.A. Tipler, R.A. Llewellen, 4th edition, Freeman, 2007, http://bcs.whfreeman.com/tiplermodernphysics4e/ (a bit heavier but the classical text for the serious
student, best on postmodern particle physics and cosmology, I served as one of
the chapter/concept reviewers)
Modern Physics for Scientist and
Engineers by John R. Taylor, Chris D.
Zafiratos, Michael A. Dubson,
2nd edition, Prentice Hall, 2004, 720 pages, (many good examples in
the text, good reviews of classical physics concepts from time to time,
comprehensive atomic mass table, operators and expectation values first show up
in the section on the hydrogen atoms, rather than in the section on quantum
mechanics in one dimension, makes it a bit more difficult than perhaps
necessary,)
Modern Physics by R.A. Serway
and C.J. Moses, 1st edition, about 500 pages without index, by the
way, do not purchase a copy of the 2nd edition (Saunders,
1997) including MP Desktop software that is supposed to help the students and lots
of optional text which kind of makes it difficult to follow the thread), my
2002/2003 students did not like it much, but the first and 3rd
editions are fine
Modern Physics by Randy Harris, 2nd (and earlier edition
under the title “Nonclassical physics: beyond
Newton's views”), Wiley, 2008, 554 pages plus some 100 pages with appendices,
(good, conceptual, some formula and material missing but good descriptions, not
much on the history of modern physics, but many examples on how modern physics
is used in current technologies, …)
Modern Physics by Kenneth Krane, 3rd
(and both earlier editions), Wiley, 2012, about 600 pages, (more conceptual,
frequent connections to classical physics, quite easy going, sometimes too
simplistic for my liking, but a good book)
Modern Physics by Hans C. Ohanian, 2nd
edition, Prentice Hall, 457 pages without appendices, (a bit week on solid
state physics but otherwise OK, mathematical level is moderate, but the useful Wentzel Kramers and Brillouin (WKB) approximation for very gradual variations
of the time independent potential and short wavelength standing waves is
mentioned)
Modern Physics by J. Bernstein, P. M. Fishbane
and S. Gasiorowicz, Prentice Hall, 2000, 602 pages,
(somewhat tough going at places; as it is a relatively new text, sometimes
explanations are not provided in sufficient detail for the mathematically less
gifted student)
Modern
Physics from α to Z0 by
James W. Rohlf, John Wiley and Sons. Inc., 1994, 569 pages plus some 60 pages appendix,
good book for very dedicated students, but somewhat unconventional sequence in
presenting the material, i.e. it starts with a survey of particles and forces
and within some 20 pages arrives at Feynman diagrams and the fine structure
constant, which other text may cover at page 200 or so in case of the fine
structure constant (or not at all in case of Feynman diagrams). The Lorentz
transformations, on the other hand, only come up after some 100 pages. Since
the book was published 1994, the top quark is missing, but otherwise if is very
good. It is almost like a reference book rather than an undergraduate textbook, although there are lots and lots of worked out
problems! Perhaps there were no further editions because not many instructors
recommended this text for their classes for students with mixed backgrounds?
Concepts of Modern Physics, Unraveling
Old and New Mysteries by George Duffey, 2010, Solomon Press, 330 pages, (only two pages of
appendices and other shortcomings when compared to the dedicated undergraduate
texts above). Instructors may like it as it is very concise, almost like a
collection of the most important formulae and concepts.
I particularly like his
concluding statement: “In a fundamental sense, all extant physical
theories are false. Each is a good representation of nature only over a limited
range of the independent variables.” Many undergraduate students and
the general public may have some difficulty appreciating this simple fact.
a complementary book for worked problems:
Schaum’s Outlines Modern Physics, by R. Gautreau and W. Savin, 2nd
edition, Mc Graw-Hill, 1999, does not substitute for
a genuine textbook
Quantum Physics for Scientist and
Technologies, by Paul Sanghera, Wiley 2011, is also pretty
good for complementary reading. As the title implies, there are no dedicated
chapters on special and/or general relativity, but the book covers pretty much
the same material as the “dedicated modern physics textbooks” mentioned above.
Many of the important formulae are present (including the time-independent Schroedinger equation in spherical coordinates), but there
is much more text explaining the concepts in plain English. Some discussion,
e.g. that of the Zeeman effect, are incomplete (and
result, e.g. in equation 8.13 being wrong). Because of its well written text
and there are many section “living in the quantum world” on modern applications
of quantum mechanics (that the classical modern physics text do not have), this
book may be helpful to many undergraduates.
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a very nice book that builds a bridge between
introduction to modern physics and real quantum mechanics is A. I. M. Rae, Quantum Mechanics, CRC Press,
see how he starts:
1. For every dynamical system there
exist a wavefunction that is a continuous, square-integrable, single-valued function of the parameters of the
system and of time, and from which all possible predictions about the physical
properties of the system can be obtained.
2. Every dynamical variable may be
represented by a hermitian operator whose eigenvalues represent the possible results of carrying out
a measurement of the value of the dynamical variable. Immediately after such a
measurement, the wavefunction of the system is
identical to the eigenfunction corresponding to the eigenvalue obtained as a result of the measurement.
Actually
four basic postulates of quantum mechanics (two of them are given above) are
all that is really fundamental, the rest can be derived from these postulates,
it is that cool!
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free *.pdf files on: general introduction to
quantum mechanics, one-dimensional Schroedinger equation, three-dimensional Schroedinger equation, and further details on
the book where these chapters are from (it is European university course
stile, not expensive, no examples within the text, but pretty much to the
point, if you like doing maths, this book very well
complements the course and your other textbook)
I use all of the text books above to
prepare my lectures, probably I use Beiser, Thornton
& Rex, Serway et al., Krane, Taylor et
al., the most (possibly in this
order). You may work with anyone of these textbooks or with previous
editions of these books, the homework problems will be given on the webpage and
may be from either of these books. So I am not forcing you to purchase any a
textbook, it is up to you, you are responsible adults. If you are really short of money, I may lend you a few
current and older versions of these texts as long as supplies last.
Unfortunately, supplies are depleted a bit since some students never returned
what they had borrowed from me.
further reading and real fun to
read at bedtime and very useful to
explain modern physics to your
grandparents and kids:
Sheldon L. Glashow, From
Alchemy to Quarks, Brooks/Cole, 1994, this is the text the Nobel prize
winning author uses to teach physics to non-science majors, so it is
essentially non-mathematical, but concepts are very clearly expressed verbally. My course gained a lot from this book as Glashow writes: There is but one culture of which science is an essential
part. Membership in the community of educated men and women demands competence
in science and awareness of its history.
Two very good popular science
books that include discussions of EPR, inequalities by Bell, and the
experimental verification that Copenhagen interpretation quantum mechanics is
fine,
L. M. Lederman, C. T.
Hill, Quantum Physics for Poets, Prometheus, 2011, note that L. M. Lederman
possesses a Nobel Prize in physics
B. Rosenblum,
F. Kuttner, Quantum Enigma, Physics Encounters
Consciousness,
Also useful:
Physics for Scientists and Engineers with Modern
Physics, Serway/Jewett, 6th
edition, Volume 5, ISBN 0-534-40854-0 (there is now a 7th edition.)
paperback (it is volume 5 of
the 5 volume set which has a different ISBN, covering only chapters 39-46, so
don not purchase the whole set if you already possess a good undergraduate text
on classical physics, Thomson Brooks/Cole (everything is a bit simpler, just
enough material for a one quarter course, if I have to give Phys 313 Ideas in Modern Physics, http://www.physics.pdx.edu/course_info.htm#300
- that will be the text I am going to use, I served as a chapter reviewer for
this text)
S. M. Blinder, Introduction to Quantum mechanics in Chemistry, Materials Science, and Biology, Elsevier 2004, only about $40 but pretty good if you are aiming for a career in these professions, not so much use for a prospective physicist
Wolfgang Rindler, Relativity, Special, General and Cosmological, 2nd
edition, Oxford University Press, 2006
Physics for Poets, 5th edition, McGraw Hill, 2003, by Robert H. March
A free book chapter from a
first year introductory
modern physics text
In Search of Schroedinger’s
Cat, Quantum Physics and Reality, John
Gribbin, paperback, parallel worlds and all the rest
of that, pretty nice if you don not like the
and Physics and Philosophy, the revolution in modern science by W. Heisenberg, Harper
Torchbooks,
go
also to http://www.whfreeman.com/modphysics/INDEX.HTM#top
for lots of interesting modern physics stuff by
Tippler and Llewellyn, to be downloaded as *.pdf
a free pdf with some simplified modern physics
a free introductory pdf chapter (some 70 pages with illustrations) on the
relationship between classical physics and modern physics
a free
higher level mp4 file that explains the double slit experiment
mathematically over entanglement in Hilbert Space
an interesting paper, partly
philosophical/partly quantum physically, from a former Visiting Professor at
Heisenberg himself orally about the uncertainty principle: http://www.aip.org/history/heisenberg/uncertain.au, http://www.aip.org/history/heisenberg/voice1.htm,
Some students - frequently those with strong religious
beliefs - do not like the probabilistic interpretation of quantum mechanics
according to the so called
So in effect that version of quantum mechanics proofs nothing beyond the point that one actually does not need to stick to the Copenhagen Interpretation (while using the mathematics of Hilbert Space) in order to make progress in quantum mechanics. In fact the mathematics are completely independent of any interpretation.
As already mentioned the theory by David Bohm
is a hidden variable theory, but is very special in the respect that it is non
local. His new idea of the quantum potential makes in some sense up for the
difference between quantum mechanics and classical mechanics. This concept has,
however, been criticized as being closer to Aristotle than to
According to current wisdom, this experimental fact means one of the following, (i) there is no local physical reality to the properties of quantum mechanical entities before they are observed, everything is at least in principle somehow connected, and (ii) there is no counterfactual definiteness (loosely speaking is does not make sense to speak with meaning of the results of measurements that have not been performed.)
The second condition kind of invalidates all theories that are based on local physical reality, e.g. the general theory of relativity by Albert Einstein, as points in space-time are then no longer separable. From the first condition, one can conclude that since the properties are not real before they are measured and the object being kind of the sum of its property, the object may not be real either. The question arises then how can large objects which are ensembles of small objects be real.
The
A way out could be to follow Stephen Hawking: I do
not demand that a theory corresponds to reality because I don’t know what it
is. Reality is not a quality you can test with litmus paper. All I’m concerned
with is that the theory should predict the results of measurements. Quantum
theory does this very successfully and when I hear of Schroedinger’s cat, I reach for my gun. A position
such at this is known as philosophical positivism. There is also the Decoherence/Consistent Histories approach, sometimes called
Richard P. Feynman in chapter 1 of QED, the strange
theory of light and matter gives good advice for the novice student of modern
physics
I would like to talk a little
bit about understanding. When we have a lecture, there are many reasons why you
might not understand the speaker. One is, his language is bad, he doesn’t say what
he means to say, or he says it upside down, and it’s hard to understand. That’s
a rather trivial matter, and I will try my best to avoid too much of my
Another possibility,
especially if the lecturer is a physicist, is that he uses ordinary words in a
funny way. Physicist often use ordinary words as work or action or energy or even, as you shall see, light for some technical purpose. Thus,
when I talk about work in physics, I
don not mean the same thing as when I talk about work on the street. During this lecture I might use one of those
words without noticing that it is being used in this unusual way. I will try my
best to catch myself, that’s my job, but it is an error that is easy to make.
The next reason that you
might think you do not understand what I am telling you is, while I am
describing to you how Nature works, you
will not understand why Nature works that way. But
you see, nobody understands that. I can not explain why Nature behaves in
this peculiar way.
Finally, there is this
possibility: after I tell you something, you just can not believe it. You can
not accept it. You do not like it. A little screen comes down and you do not
listen anymore, I am going to describe to you how Nature is, and if you do not
like it, that is going to get in the way of your understanding it. It is a
problem that physicists have learned to deal with: They have learned to realize
that whether they like a theory of they
don not like a theory is not the
essential question. Rather, it is whether or not the theory gives predictions
that agree with experiment. It is not a question of whether a theory is
philosophical delightful, or easy to understand, or perfectly reasonable form
the point of view of common sense. The theory of quantum electrodynamics
describes nature as absurd form the point of view of common sense. And it
agrees fully with experiment.
David Mermin: It is because nothing required us to apprehend atomic
structure during our evolutionary development that we are incapable of
understanding what it is that quantum mechanics describes. Quantum mechanics is
weird to us because we can make inferences about the atomic world only
indirectly through the correlations we can arrange for it (called measurements)
which those parts of the world (called classical) that evolution has outfitted
us directly to apprehend.
Something nice
from Physics for Poets,
mentioned above: To be human is to
wonder. The baby is displayed behind glass, well-scrubbed, and one need not
know about the delivery room (it is soundproofed). Thus we are spared the agony
of wonder, which is not unlike love and makes as little (or as much) sense as
love.
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If you did not get an A or B this time, do not worry too much, I did not get
straight As all my life and neither did Werner
Heisenberg. If you want to know how badly he screwed up his final PhD
exam, click here,
nevertheless he was professor at age 25 and one of the greatest physicists
ever.