Review: Waves & the wave equation, superposition, wave packets, interference, diffraction, Maxwell's equations, light as an electromagnetic wave; Relativity: Classical notions of relativity, Michelson-Morley experiment, postulates of special relativity, Lorentz transformations, Minkowski space, spacetime diagrams, relativistic energy & momentum, invariant mass & invariant lengths, energy-mass conversion & binding energy, relativistic collisions; "Old" Quantum Mechanics: Quantization of electric charge & discovery of the electron, blackbody radiation, Rayleigh-Jeans law & the “UV catastrophe”, Planck’s theory of quantized radiation, photoelectric effect, X-ray physics & the Compton effect, atomic spectra, Rutherford’s experiment, the Bohr model of the atom, the Franck-Hertz experiment; "New" Quantum Mechanics: De Broglie’s hypothesis, probabilistic interpretation of the wave function, Schrodinger equation in 1D, expectation values & operators, simple systems in 1D (square well, harmonic oscillator, barriers & tunneling), Schrodinger equation in 3D, hydrogen atom solutions, intrinsic angular momentum, the Stern-Gerlach experiment, total angular momentum; Atomic & Molecular Systems: Quantum mechanics of multiple particles, the periodic table, chemical bonds, atomic transitions (absorption & scattering), stimulated emission; Nuclear Systems: Basic properties of nuclei, nuclear stability & decay, nuclear reactions, fission & nuclear energy, fusion (i.e. how the sun shines), radioactive dating, nuclear magnetic resonance & imaging; Elementary Particles & Fundamental Interactions: Antiparticles & experimental evidence for their existence, the “Standard Model” of particle physics, symmetries & conservation laws, the quark model, experimental evidence for the Standard Model; Cosmology: Introduction to general relativity, the Big Bang cosmological model, experimental evidence for the Big Bang model
Have I lost you yet? I just got the syllabus for one of my classes in the fall, Modern Physics, & it made me totally excited for classes to start up again. :-) I know, I'm a huge nerd, but this is my passion. This is my element. I'm getting excited just thinking about it. Anyway, nothing too excited for you guys I guess, but I thought I'd share my excitement.
I bought the textbook for the class, too, I found it on Amazon.com for $5! And it has a $200 list price! I got it ridic cheap. :-) But then I also just spent $150 on my Linear Algebra book too, &I still have 3 more classes I need books for. Why are textbooks so expensive? Are they made with some sort of precious metal?
Sorry there's not much else to write about. I'm a little busy with things. :-P
I'll be honest, I read the first line and skipped to the next paragraph...haha.
ReplyDeleteTEXT BOOKS ARE FREAKEN RIDICULOUS!
lol, they cost me $1000+ a year...it's a joke!
I could probably buy them on Amazon...but postage to AUS is normally more than the item itself...rip offffff
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Haha, I didn't really expect anyone else to read that first paragraph anyway. But I'm sure you got a taste of my nerdy-ness just from the first line. :-)
ReplyDeleteBut yeah! Textbooks are a total ripoff! And my school just makes it even worse. They try to give you as little information about the book as possible so you can't even find the right one on Amazon.com. They give a ridiculously abbreviated title, an abbreviated publisher and (sometimes) the edition number. But they don't give the ISBN! Luckily one of m. Prfessors realized how ridic this is so he didn't tell the school what book he's using, but he emailed all the students with All the necessary info.
And there's no Amazon.co.au?
Most of those "words" look familiar!
ReplyDeleteThat seems really intense for one course- I think I covered most of that through two physics courses and a chemistry course.
I've probably forgotten most of what I learnt about them over the last few months though, aha.
btw it looks like you started a blog pretty close to when I did.
Haha we get every little detail, which is good cos there's a text book store in the city that's a good 20-30% cheaper!
ReplyDeleteAnd no, there's no amazon au for whatever reason but I wish they'd hurry up an make one...I'm sick of paying 30USD postage for two DVDs!
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