Physics 252: Modern Physics
(as given in Spring 1999)
Teacher: Michael Fowler
(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 Hagen, Germany. They can be downloaded in pdf format at einstein-deutsch.pdf
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.
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