Physics 315, "Modern Physics II", Spring 2005-2006

This material can be found online at URL

http://spiff.rit.edu/classes/phys315/phys315.html

This class is really taught by Professor Axon; I am just substituting for him a few this this quarter. The old schedule is now replaced with (as far as I know) a new schedule:

Lectures

1. Schroedinger's approach and a particle in a 1-D box
2. A particle in a 2-D or 3-D box
3. Schroedinger's method applied to the hydrogen atom
4. Details of the shapes of orbital wave functions in hydrogen
   (This is a PDF copy of Prof. Axon's notes)
5. Quantized magnetic dipole moments

6. Molecular bonds
7. Molecular spectra

Homework

• Homework set 1, due Mar 28 (PDF format)
• Homework set 2, due Apr 4 (PDF format)
• Homework set 3, due Apr 25 (PDF format)

Other Physics Information

• My site for Modern Physics I (SPSP 314)
• The book Mr. Tompkins in Paperback, by George Gamow, provides an amusing and informative overview of relativity and quantum mechanics. I have placed it on reserve in the library.
• Another excellent reference for this course is the series Understanding Physics by Isaas Asimov. Volume III, "The Electron, Proton, and Neutron," is especially relevant to the material we cover after relativity. I've placed it on reserve in the library. I've also put on reserve a later collection of all three volumes in one book, titled The History of Physics.
• Too much free time? Why not build your own cyclotron?
• A good source of values for physical constants is the NIST site on Fundamental Physical Constants. If you're interested in the properties of subatomic particles, try The Review of Particle Physics site at LBL.
• The WebElements site contains a great deal of information on the chemical elements. Another is the on-line periodic table provided by the Los Alamos Laboratory's Chemical Division. If you can't find a piece of information here, try looking in the library for The CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics
• A good place to look for information on the nuclear properties of different elements is The Berkeley Laboratory Isotopes Project's "Exploring the Table of Isotopes" web page
• You can view a face-centered-cubic crystal lattice from any angle with a very nice crystal-viewer applet; thanks to Winston Chan at the University of Iowa.
• Paul Falstad's Physics and Math applets include some which illustrate material in this course.
• The Wolfram Integrator can help you with a tough integral if you don't have a reference table handy.
• The view from a car moving at relativistic speeds, thanks to the University of Evansville - On Line Interactive Education project.
• The Seeing Relativity site provides software to view the world as if you were speeding through it at relativistic speeds. Thanks to Mr. Borukhovich for pointing it out...
• Spectra of Gas Discharges shows very pretty versions of the optical spectra of many elements.
• Another source of spectral information
• Classic papers in physics and chemistry from the Chem Team collection.
• Comments on science, from characters in movies. From the And you call yourself a scientist! site. My favorite is

            From Street Fighter (1994):
             "Dr Dhalsim! How is your research today?"
             "The same. Warped. Corrupted. My science twisted to 
                    serve perversion instead of peace."
             "Tell you what: after I've crushed my enemies, 
                    we'll see about getting you published."
           

This page maintained by Michael Richmond. Last modified Apr 24, 2006.

Copyright © Michael Richmond. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.