PHYS 324
Modern Physics
Spring 2008
http://physics.umbc.edu/~reno/PHYS324/PHYS324.html
Instructor: Dr. Robert C. Reno
My Office Hours: Wednesday 10:30am - 12:00 pm (Room PH316), Thursday
10:30am-12:00pm ( Room PH316)
Other meetings on Tuesdays or Thursdays can be scheduled as needed by e-mailing
me at least 48 hours in advance.
My Office: PH316
My Phone: 455-2530
My e-mail: reno@umbc.edu Please note that I do NOT check my e-mails after 5:00pm
on weekdays or on weekends.
Text: Modern Physics for Scientists and Engineers, Third edition, Stephen T. Thornton and Andrew Rex
Desired Learning Outcomes and Student
Assessment:
As you progress through this course, you will
learn about the topics listed below, traditionally known as “Modern Physics” (
even though most of the phenomena and associated theory were discovered or
developed over 100 years ago).
“Learning” this material means that you will become familiar with the
terminology used to describe modern physics phenomena, you will understand what
experiments were performed and how the results led to modern physics theory,
you will be able to reproduce the derivations of important equations that
describe phenomena, and you will be able to apply theory to the solution of a
variety problems involving modern physics concepts. You will be expected to demonstrate mastery of the
aforementioned without referring to textbooks or notes.
The methods you are expected to utilize in
learning this material are:
1) Listening to the instructor’s lectures
2) Reading the appropriate material in your
textbook
3) Reading the instructor’s lecture notes
4) Doing all the assigned homework problems
The measures used to determine whether or not
you have achieved the desired
learning goals are:
1) Graded homework: Since
there are over 100 topics covered in the course ( see the list below ), the
broadest “test” of your mastery will be achieved by the assignment of over 150
homework problems during the semester, spanning the entire range of course
topics. Since these problems can
be solved with the aid of open
textbooks and notes, the grades for homework will count for 12% of your final
grade total.
2) Exams: There will be three midterm exams and one final exam,
in which you will be expected to work out a total of approximately 20 problems,
similar in difficulty to the ones given for homework. These problems will be chosen to represent a relatively
uniform coverage of the topics listed below, although many topics will not be
represented by a test question in any one year, due to the limited number of
problems that can be given in the 270 minutes of exam time allocated per
year. The total grade on all exams
will count for 88% of your final grade total.
Topics to be covered in Modern Physics:
Special Relativity
Lorentz
transformations; Time
dilation; Length contraction; Velocity transformation; Doppler effect ( longitudinal and
transverse ); relativistic
momentum; relativistic energy (
kinetic and total ); Relativistic dynamics
Early Quantum Theory
Crucial experiments ( black body radiation,
photoelectric effect, Compton scattering, matter waves ); Bohr theory of the hydrogen atom (
Lyman and Balmer emission spectra,
quantization of orbits,
energy levels, finite mass
corrections, characteristic x rays
)
Formal Quantum Theory
Wave
functions and their physical interpretation; Uncertainty principle;
Schroedinger equation;
Special analytically-solvable potentials ( Infinite square well, finite
square well, harmonic oscillator, barrier potentials); Hydrogen-like coulomb potentials (
quantum numbers, degeneracy, magnetic moments and angular momentum,
Stern-Gerlach experiment and Zeeman splittings, electron spin ); Multi-electron atoms ( Pauli exclusion
principle, total angular momentum, Spin-orbit interaction, Hund’s rule for
ground state prediction, lande g-factor and level splittins in weak magnetic
fields )
Statistical Mechanics
Maxwell-Boltzman statistics; computations of means ( velocity, energy
); Fermi-Dirac and Bose-Einstein
statistics ( electron gas, photons, phonons ); density of allowed and filled
states
Molecular Physics
Molecular
forces (Lenard-Jones potentials, equilibrium separations); vibrational and
rotational spectra; lasers
Solid state Physics
Basic
crystal structures; Atomic potentials (harmonic and anharmonic behavior );
electronic and lattice specific heats; paramagnetism; Energy bands (
insulators, conductors, semiconductors );
electricval conductivity; semiconductor devices
Nuclear Physics
Nuclear
constituents ( neutrons, protons); isotopes; nuclear stability; radioactive decay ( alpha, beta, gamma
emission, neutrinos, halflives, activity ); nuclear reactions ( fission, fusion, p-n and n-gamma );
nuclear decay schemes; applications to medicine, art and archaeology; ionizing
radiations and human exposure
Additional Course Information:
Student Identification: During your first week of classes, you will be given
a unique four-digit ID number, which is the only way you will be allowed to identify yourself on exams
and homeworks. Any submission containing your name or social security number
( whole or part thereof ) will be immediately shredded to protect your privacy.
Needless to say it will not be graded.
Homework: You should realize that the key to understanding
physics is the practice that comes with solving homework problems. I doubt that
anyone could pass this course without doing homework regularly, and that is why
I assign homework problems. In itself, this is reason enough for you to do the
assignments. However, homework will be worth 12% of your final grade.
You are encouraged to work together on
homework, but each of you must submit his or her own solutions and the work
must show some original effort on your part.
Copying someone else's homework solutions and submitting a copy will be
treated as cheating.
At the end of the semester, I will drop the lowest homework grade before
assigning you a final homework score. This procedure becomes, in effect, an
excused absence for homework, so please do NOT ask me to accept any late
homework for any reason.
Homework assignments must be handed in by the beginning of my lecture on the
date due. A few minutes after my lecture has started ( at ~ 2:06 pm), homework
will no longer be accepted from any student, for any reason.
Audits: In order to get credit as an audit, you must take the final exam and
pass it with a score of at least 70%.
Letter grades: Three in-class midterm exams are worth 19 points
each; the final is worth 31 points. To determine your final grade, I will
simply add your four exam grades, and the points ( 12 maximum ) earned for
homework, and convert your total to a letter grade approximately as follows:
PHYS324H Students: Students
enrolled in the honors section of PHYS324 meet for an additional two hours per
week and earn four credits for the course instead of three. During the additional meetings, they
will perform six experiments that will each be of at least two weeks in
duration. Upon completion of each
experiment, each student will participate in a discussion of experimental
results. Letter grades for 324H
students will be assigned using the criteria utilized in the regular PHY324
course, coupled with an “acceptable” or “unacceptable” rating, based on
performance in the laboratory experiments. If a student earns an “unacceptable” rating in the
performance of experiments, the letter grade will be reduced by one. “Acceptable” ratings will be given to
any student who actively participates in the taking of data, attends the
pre-lab lectures, actively participates in the discussion of experimental
results, and passes the radiation safety quiz.
“Unacceptable” rating will be given to any student who does not earn an
“acceptable” in at least five out of six of the experiments, or who does not
pass the radiation safety quiz. ( Passing the radiation safety quiz is a
pre-requisite to performing three of the six experiments. )
Note: Permission of the instructor is
required to enroll in PHYS324H.
Incompletes: Please read carefully the catalog statement on
acceptable grounds for an incomplete. In this course, incompletes are only
given if you are incapable of taking the final exam due to illness. Since you
must be doing "qualitatively satisfactory" work in order to qualify
for an incomplete, you must have at least completed the first three exams with
a grade of C or better and have a homework average of 65% up to the time you
took sick.
The website for this course is:
http://physics.umbc.edu/~reno/PHYS324/PHYS324.html
Homework
Assignments Homework assignments will be posted on this site. Solutions
will also be posted on this site, after the assignment due date.