| Date | Topic | Notes, etc... | Reading |
THERMODYNAMICS |
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| Why does heat flow from hot things to cold things? | Knight, chapter 18 | ||
| Second Law of Thermodynamics. Entropy and temperature. | |||
The difference between past and future. Fundamental forces. | |||
| ELECTRICITY AND MAGNETISM | |||
| Jan 12 | Charge model, static electricty, and electroscope. Coulomb's Law. | slides notes | Knight chapter 25 |
| Jan 14 | Electric field worksheet. Electric field of the dipole. Charge configurations. | slides notes worksheet solutions | Knight chapter 25 Post reading 26.1, 26.2, first section of 26.3 |
| Three fundamental charge configurations and their electric field. Parallel infinitly charged plates. The motion of charge in an electric field. Torque on a dipole. | Knight chapter 26.5 Knight chapter 26.6, 26.7 | ||
E = 0 in a conductor (from motion of charge). The electric potential eneergy. Path integrals. The electric potential. Volta. It's Alive! |
Knight chapter 28.1 and 28.4 |
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| Potentials Worksheet: understanding the difference between electric potential energy and electric potential. Pierre's Slide! | Knight chapter 28.1, 28.4, 29.1, 29.3 | ||
| Special Lecture: General Relativity | |||
| Gauss's Law, the idea of flux, surface vectors, and flux through a closed surface. Spraying water analogy. | Knight chapter 27.2, 27.3, 27.4 | ||
| Calculating flux using surface integrals (the hard way) Using Gauss's law to find electric field of complicated charge formations (plane, sphere, line), Maxwell bio. Gauss's Law and condutors. | Knight chapter 27.4, (27.5 is neat) | ||
| Finish up Gauss's Law: Two ways of calculating Flux! Charged insulator. Plinko current, drift velocity, how randomly bouncing stuff can drift in a field. | Knight chapters 30.1, 30.2, and 30.3 | ||
| Microscopic connection of bouncing electrons to the charge current I, conductance, I proportional to E. Resistance and resistivity. | Knight chapters 30.1, 30.2, and 30.3 | ||
| Capacitors and capacitance. Introduction to circuit analysis. | Knight chapter 30.5, 31.1, 31.2 | ||
| Importance of Kirchhoff's loop law. Geometry of capacitance. The RC circuit. Decay constants. (EXTRA: Dielectrics) | Knight chapters 30.5, 31.1, 31.2 | ||
MAGNETISM: Basic magnetic phenomena, how to define the magnetic field. | Knight chapter 32 | ||
Magnetic fields from currents and moving charges. Origin of magnetic field from magnets. | Knight chapter 32 | ||
| Effects of magnetic field. Force on a moving charge. | Knight chapter 32 | ||
Charged particles orbiting in magnetic fields. Forces on current-carrying wires. Electric motors. | Knight chapter 32 | ||
| Quantifying the strength of a magnet. Definition of magnetic moment and torque on magentic moments. | Knight chapter 32 | ||
| Introduction to induction. Lenz's Law, motional EMF. | Knight chapters 33.1, 33.2, 33.4 | ||
Motional emf, Faraday's Law, and Lenz's Law. | Knight chapters 33.5-33.6 | ||
| Induced electric fields, line integrals, integral form of Faraday's Law | Knight chapters 33.1, 33.2, 33.5-33.7 | ||
| Conservation of charge, Ampere/Maxwell Law, Summary of Electromagnetism, Electromagnetic radiation | Knight chapters 34.3, 34.4, 34.6, 34.7 | ||
WAVES | |||
Types of waves, why waves show up all over the place, basic properties of waves Snapshot vs history graphs | |||
| Mathematical descriptions of waves, sinusoidal waves, frequency, wavelength, and velocity | |||
Light in a medium, constructive and destructive interference, thin films | |||
QUANTUM MECHANICS |
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Double slit interference, photons | Knight chapter 38.3, 39 | ||
| Photon interpretation of the double slit experiment | |||
Double slit experiment for electrons. Quantum superpositions. Wavefunctions. | Knight chapter 39 | ||
Quantum measurement. Wavefunctions for states with definite position and definite momentum. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. | Knight chapter 39 | ||
Time dependence of wavefunction. Writing functions as sums of pure waves. The Schrodinger Equation. | |||
Schrodinger equation for particles with forces/potentials. Trapping of wavefunctions. Energy eigenstates, bound states and tunneling. | Knight 40.1-40.4,Knight 40.6,40.10 | ||
Special lectures |