­Ph 311/312

Supporting web pages

 

Training quizzes, hand on simulations, companion site of the Thorton Rex book: http://www.brookscole.com/cgi-wadsworth/course_products_wp.pl?fid=M20b&discipline_number=13&product_isbn_issn=0534417817

 

http://wps.aw.com/aw_harris_mp_2/

 

Pretty good and comprehensive overview classical physics in preparation of modern physics

 

http://enjoy.phy.ntnu.edu.tw/data/458/www/simulations/simsb6fb.html?sim=SternGerlach_Experiment

 

http://www.cengage.com/cgi-wadsworth/course_products_wp.pl?fid=M20b&flag=student&product_isbn_issn=9780534493394&disciplinenumber=13

 

http://physics.prenhall.com/taylor

 

http://www.falstad.com/mathphysics.html

 

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/hframe.html

 

http://www.cosmolearning.com/courses/quantum-physics/ higher level Quantum Mechanics

 

http://www.openculture.com/2012/08/the_character_of_physical_law_richard_feynmans_legendary_lecture_series_at_cornell_1964.html a lecture series with videos by Nobel Laureate Richard P. Feynman on the character of physical laws, also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdZMXWmlp9g, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdZMXWmlp9g,

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUJfjRoxCbk, double slit experiment, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu57B1v0SzI

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kekayfI8Ii8 advice for students

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=Nv1_YB1IedE Brian Green, Fabric of the cosmos

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfeoE1arF0I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRBnGRk-VN8 nano-tech future

 

http://physics.info/#modern a new free physics hyper textbook resource for the very basics, but it won’t replace a dedicated modern physics textbook

 

http://www.cosmolearning.com/topics/general-physics/

 

https://www.coursera.org/course/eqp an online course from the University of Maryland graduate/advanced undergraduate level introduction to quantum mechanics

 

and somewhat related: https://www.coursera.org/course/nanotech to watch out https://www.edx.org/

 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/240219/The-Modern-Revolution-in-Physics free book,

 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/118406824/principles-of-modern-physics

 

properties of the elements, periodic table of the elements

 

Albert Einstein himself about special and general relativity, an assessment of the physics of Einstein: http://www.umsl.edu/~chengt/index.html, pdf of the talk the author gave at Portland State

 

Modern Physics textbook for evaluation purposes

 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/23570101/modern-physics notes on modern physics

 

novel kind of textbook http://physwiki.ucdavis.edu/Quantum_Mechanics, the discussion in 1D is useful for our class

 

First year college physics and Volume I of the Feynman lectures

 

 

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2012 was awarded jointly to Serge Haroche and David J. Wineland "for ground-breaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems".  kinds of lecture manuscripts” for modern physics classes, basic: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2012/popular-physicsprize2012.pdf download

and advanced: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2012/advanced-physicsprize2012_02.pdf

 

Nobel Prize in Physics 2013 to François Englert and Peter Higgs  for their theoretical work in 1964, (F. Englert and R. Brout  http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v13/i9/p321_1 and P. Higgs http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v13/i16/p508_1); as observed experimentally on July 4, 2012. (Overview by the master himself http://proceedings.aip.org/resource/2/apcpcs/300/1/159_1?bypassSSO=1)

 

Three papers in support of the understanding of the Quantum Mysteries: Mermin 1981 (before experimental verification), Mermin 1985 (after the first successful verifications of the Bell theorem (violations of the Bell inequalities) that demonstrate that either locality or reality or both have to be abandoned if we want to keep counterfactual definitiveness / the way we do science by induction), and (philosophical viewpoint of Mermin in 2012, QBism, concerning “observer created reality”). Explained by Feynman from minute 19 onwards of this movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72us6pnbEvE followed up at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytGo85BZUww , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyejXtZrGb0, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWTbtXgqYMo, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsQfPDG46cs

and utilized to “visualize” Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, leading over to Bohm’s (great work and) prejudices, Bell’s theorem, the EPR paradox, what physical measurement really means, …

in part II around minute 6 is a nice example of an eager student “one of those guys that knows too much” disturbing the sage (who does not wear socks) for a moment with extra complications that he plans to introduce only later on because he want to get his points across in a systematic and highly pedagogical manner

about 9:30 minutes into  part IV a theatrical-funny philosophical statements “with no depth but great profundity” just after minute 21 the sage apologizing for a mistake he didn’t make (as any good instructor should do from time to time to make the audience feel good)

it’s all about trying to talk in common language (that is based on common logic in a classical physics word) about things that are cannot be described by common language and have a different kind of logic because they are in the quantum world

 

Einstein and Eddignton movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG2sDVjL1wg, some of the facts are wrong, but the physics is essentially right

 

Sir Roger Penrose: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WXTX0IUaOg

 

Special Relativity: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TKSfAkWWN0

Minutephysics-Magnetism on Different Scales: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFAOXdXZ5TM

 

BBC program on the beauty of physical equations http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erUQhXjY9ic as explored by an artist

 

Feynman’s lecture on the double slit experiment (Part VI of Messenger lecture on character of physical laws): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUJfjRoxCbk

Character of physical law, part I of Messenger lecture by R. P. Feynman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzWzLyGuPRY gravitation

Character of physical law, part II of Messenger lecture by R. P. Feynman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUJfjRoxCbk relation of physics and mathematics

Character of physical law, part III of Messenger lecture by R. P. Feynman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6n0HSJ5jEE conservation principles

Character of physical law, part IV of Messenger lecture by R. P. Feynman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ6o1cDxV7o symmetries

Character of physical law, part V of Messenger lecture by R. P. Feynman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAgcqgDc-YM distinction past and present

Character of physical law, part VI of Messenger lecture by R. P. Feynman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUJfjRoxCbk probability and uncertainty

Character of physical law, part VII of Messenger lecture by R. P. Feynman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIN_-Flswy0 seeking new laws

More than 20 years later, same lecturer on the nuts and bolts of doing quantum mechanics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec03o-7rHLw, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4-sz59-Cis, between minutes 10 and 16, an analogy of what a modern physics course is; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0LVRgKTPP8 between minutes 9 and 12 and again between minutes 19 to 23 is “undoing some lumber” clarifying that there is an abstract model for each physical problem to be solved with gets the essential physics right (by neglecting some other truths that are quite irrelevant for the approximate result one would like to get). For some other problem, there will be some other model, neither of them is really really true, and one should not make the mistake to try to picture or draw “a quantum mechanical thing” and use the common classical physics logic about what it should be doing; particularly nice 1 hour and 2 minute: “… you have to add the amplitudes first and then make the square. Why? I don’t know. Nature works that way”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWIYnLCZWa8 and then combining special relativity with non-relativistic quantum mechanics to go into quantum electrodynamics and at about 1 hour 44 makes his usual statement that one cannot really appreciate the beauty of nature without knowing something about mathematics of this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZvgGekvHes

and the whole playlist: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW_HsOU6YZRkdhFFznHNEfua9NK3deBQy&feature=mh_lolz

at about the same time, the sage revisited nanotech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eRCygdW--c

http://bethe.cornell.edu/ a great site with three lecture videos by Nobel Laureate Hans Bethe, “Quantum mechanics made relatively simple” (he does have a German accent, but not as thick as mine)

Quantum Electrodynamics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0Z5i9qMbd0, the theory of electric charge and much more, e.g. the standard model, big bang, …

http://quantizd.blogspot.com/p/so-you-want-to-become-physicist.html

 

modern physics / quantum physics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1yGjB4LBLI

43 minutes

 

A series of 15 min modern physics movies by Ed Witten, he summarizes our course in some 10 minutes and then talks about the outstanding problems of “post-modern physics”, the unification of general relativity with quantum mechanics (there are a few sections in Italian in these movies,, but you can just skip them)

 

I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnzLpyDsn3M

 

II  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsYRCLYH954

 

III https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIT_e62SgdI

 

IV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhNnyii8x_g

 

V https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MaT8QKEgjs


semi-original Thornton/Rex slides

chapter 1 here

chapters 2/15 combined old version 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

typically not taught because of current lack of applications: 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
 
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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 by PBS/NOVA
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/

For PH 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 PH 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.

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, Boca Raton, Ann Arbor, London, Tokyo, 5th edition, 2007

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 a total of 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.,  Tippler and Llewellyn, Taylor et al., Krane, 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, Oxford University Press, 2006

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 were to teach Ph 313 Ideas in Modern Physics, that will probably 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 COPENHAGEN interpretation of quantum mechanics for aesthetical or philosophical reasons

and Physics and Philosophy, the revolution in modern science by W. Heisenberg, Harper Torchbooks, 1962, a bit heavier although without any mathematics as he gets very philosophical

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 Portland State and author of widely read books on advanced quantum mechanics: A new interpretation on Quantum Mechanics. I am in no position to judge if all the claims in this paper are correct, but have a go yourself, your opinion is as valuable as mine.

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 Copenhagen School (Bohr, Born, Heisenberg). Well, there might be an alternative in the form of a nonlocal hidden variables theory by David Bohm and here is a link to an article published in Scientific America that may serve as a starting point for exploring that theory. Sure this article is a bit polemic as its author wants to promote his book, but it concedes that all predictions of standard quantum mechanics are borne out in experiments. Interestingly, Bohm’s version of quantum mechanics makes exactly the same predictions as standard Copenhagen quantum mechanics and can, thus, also claim to be in agreement with all of the experimental evidence! Sure the consequence of being indistinguishable as far as experiments go is also a loose end, i.e. some ad hock invented but not really physically observed quantum potential that represents the influence of the rest of the universe and about which the physicist is partially ignorant so that he or she can only make probabilistic prediction on the basis of quantum mechanics.

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 Newton. The experimental tests of Bell’s inequality by Aspect, Grangier, and Roger show convincingly that standard quantum mechanics is complete (besides being correct) and that local hidden variable theories give false predictions.

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 Copenhagen interpretation does not contain counterfactual definiteness, so that is probably easiest to give up. Non-local reality might be quite acceptable as well.

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 Copenhagen done right which does not see a problem at all. More recently, the well known physicist David Mermin commented on QBism, Replace “knowledge” with “belief.” Whose belief? The belief of the agent who makes the state assignment, informed by her past experience. Belief about what? About the content of her subsequent experience. This sure is not religious beliefs, it’s just a Bayesian approach to something “nobody quite understands”.

 

David Mermin again: 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.

 

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 New York accent.

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 do 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 do 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.

 

Some BS from a senior editor of the American Spectator: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgms0J5m-Vc