| Time and place: | MWF 12:00-12:50PM, Regener Hall 103 |
| Instructor: | Prof. Y. Pihlström |
| Office hours: | Wednesdays 10:00-11:30AM in Regener 114. Other times by appointment. To contact me outside class, email is the best choice ylva@unm.edu, or phone to my office (277-4492, P&A 170). |
| Textbooks: |
Fundamentals of Physics, Halliday, Resnick and Walker, 6th Edition. Special Relativity: A Modern Introduction, H.C. Ohanian |
| Exams: | There will be four exams, out of which three are sectional. These will take place during regular class hours. The fourth is a final comprehensive (on all course material), and is given Friday May 12, 10:00AM-12:00PM in Regener 103. The three exams with the best scores will account for 75% of your final grade. In general, make-up exams will NOT be given unless you have a very valid reason, and make-ups will be oral. NO make-ups will be given unless arranged before the exam. |
| I will start handing out the final exam at 9AM in RH 103, Friday May 12. We got one more hour test time, and the test is scheduled for 9AM-12PM on Friday. If you want to get your exam returned, and/or discuss your final grade, you can come to my office between 9AM-2PM on Monday May 15. | |
| Homework: | Homework will account for 25% of
your final grade. Each week you will be given one set of written
problems (HW; posted on WebCT
on Wednesdays, due the following Wednesday), and one WebAssign homework
(WA; posted on WebAssign on Mondays,
due Friday same week). A late homework will not give full points, and
homework handed in later than one week will not be accepted at all. Note on WebAssign: You do need to purchase a WebAssign card at the Bookstore and that will give you your access code. Please do this before Feb 1. For WebAssign, the user name is the first part of your email address, the school code is "unm" and the password is the 4 last digits of your SS (omit leading zeros). WebCT: The username is your UNM NetID (first part of your UNM email address), and the password is your UNM password. |
| Suppl. instructor: | Paul Thorman (pthorman@unm.edu) will hold two additional recitation/problem solving sessions per week: Mondays and Thursdays 2-3PM in RH 114. Your input will help to determine what sections of the course to emphasize. |
| Prerequisites: | Physics 161; pre- or corequisite: Math 264L |
| Physics 267: | The 267 course will work on problem solving, for material related to the Physics 262 course. We will meet Wed 9:00-9:50AM in Regener 114. |
| Electromagnetic and other Waves | |||
| W Jan 18 | Review general wave behavior, energy and power of a traveling wave | HRW 17.1-7 | HW1 pdf file |
| F Jan 20 | Superposition of waves | HRW 17.8-11 | |
| M Jan 23 | Maxwell's 4 equations | HRW 32, 34.1-3 | |
| W Jan 25 | Poynting vector | HRW 34.4 | HW1 due, HW2 |
| F Jan 27 | Radiation pressure, polarization | HRW 34.5-6 | WA1 due |
| M Jan 30 | Refractive index, Snell's Law, Total internal reflection | HRW 34.7-8 | |
| Geometrical and Physical Optics | |||
| W Feb 1 | Dispersion, Brewster's Law, Flat and spherical mirrors | HRW 34.7, 34.9, 35.1-3 | HW2 due, HW3 |
| F Feb 3 | Refracting surfaces | HRW 35.4-6 | WA2 due |
| M Feb 6 | Thin lenses, images | HRW 35.6-7 | |
| W Feb 8 | Magnifying glasses, the eye, telescopes, microscopes | HRW 35.7 | HW3 due, HW4 |
| F Feb 10 | Interference, diffraction, Young's experiment, Coherence, double slits | HRW 36.1-6 | WA3 due |
| M Feb 13 | Thin film interference, Michelson's interferometer | HRW 36.7-8 | |
| W Feb 15 | Single slit and circular aperture diffraction, resolution | HRW 37.1-5 | HW4 due |
| F Feb 17 | Double slit diffraction | HRW 37.6 | WA4 due |
| M Feb 20 | Gratings: dispersion and resolving power; X-ray diffraction | HRW 37.7-9 | |
| W Feb 22 | Recap of course so far | HRW 17, 34-37 | No HW due this week, HW5 |
| F Feb 24 | Mid-term exam | HRW 17, 34-37 | |
| Special relativity | |||
| M Feb 27 | Reference frames, Galilean transformation | OH 1.1-2 | |
| W Mar 1 | Addition of velocities, spacetime diagrams | OH 1.2-4 | HW5 due, HW6 |
| F Mar 3 | Wave theory of light, Michelson-Morley experiment | OH 1.5-7 | WA5 due |
| M Mar 6 | Einsteins relativity, synchronization of clocks | OH 2.1-2 | |
| W Mar 8 | The Lorentz transformation | OH 2.3 | HW6 due, HW7 |
| F Mar 10 | Invariant spacetime intervals, combination of velocities | OH 2.4-6 | WA6 due |
| Mar 13-17 | SPRING BREAK | ||
| M Mar 20 | Time dilation, Doppler effect | OH 3.1-2 | |
| W Mar 22 | Length contraction and distortion | OH 3.3-4 | HW7 due, HW8 |
| F Mar 24 | The Twin Paradox, The Barn Paradox | OH 3.5-6 | No WA this week |
| M Mar 27 | Relativistic mechanics, momentum | OH 4.1-2 | |
| W Mar 29 | Relativistic energy, energy and mass | OH 4.3-4 | HW8 due |
| F Mar 31 | Four-vectors, invariant length | OH 4.5-6 | No WA this week |
| M Apr 3 | Mid-term exam | OH 1-4 | |
| Introduction to Quantum Theory | |||
| W Apr 5 | Photoelectric effect | HRW 39.1-3 | HW9 |
| F Apr 7 | Light as a probability wave | HRW 39.4-5 | |
| M Apr 10 | Electrons and matter waves | HRW 39.6 | |
| W Apr 12 | Schrödinger equation | HRW 39.7 | HW9 due, HW10 |
| F Apr 14 | The uncertainty principle, Barrier tunneling | HRW 39.8-9 | WA7 due |
| M Apr 17 | One dimensional traps | HRW 40.1-3 | |
| W Apr 19 | Zero-point energy, two- and three-dimensional traps | HRW 40.4-7 | HW10 due, HW11 |
| F Apr 21 | The hydrogen atom | HRW 40.8 | WA8 due |
| M Apr 24 | Electron spin, angular momentum | HRW 41.1-4 | |
| W Apr 26 | The Stern-Gerlach experiment, magnetic resonance | HRW 41.5-6 | HW11 due |
| F Apr 28 | The Pauli exclusion principle, the periodic table | HRW 41.7-9 | WA9 due |
| M May 1 | Nuclear particles, basic properties, spin, bosons, fermions | HRW 43.1-3, 45 | |
| W May 3 | Review previous material | ||
| F May 5 | Mid-term exam | HRW 39-41 | |
| F May 12 | Final exam | HRW 17, 34-37, 39-41 OH 1-4 |