Announcements

Instructors

Professor Robert C. Hilborn (primarily responsible for the labs)
Office: 118 Merrill Science Center
Phone: (413) 542-2062
email: rchilborn@amherst.edu
Office Hours: TBA

Professor Will Loinaz (primarily responsible for the lectures)
Office: 223 Merrill Science Center
Phone: (413) 542-7968
email: waloinaz@amherst.edu
Office Hours: Monday and Friday, 11-12 and 1-2. You're also welcome to catch me in my office when I'm free or to make an appointment.

Anne Kemble (grader)

Course Information

Course Description:

Schedule

• Class: MWF 10-10:50, Th 9-9:50 (Merrill 211)
• Lab: W 2-5 (Merrill 217)
• Problem Session (informal): Sunday 8:00 pm (location: Physics student lounge)

Prerequisites

Course requirements

• Attendance: Come to class. Lots of stuff will happen there and you wouldn't want to miss out. It's your affair how you allocate your time and I won't explicitly penalize you for being absent, but if you're going to be absent please do me the courtesy of letting me know in advance, if possible. It's a small class--I'll notice if you're not there. It will be your responsibility to find out what happened in the class you missed. Also, you must attend all of the labs.
• Homework: I'll assign weekly problem sets, due Monday @ 6 pm. You may leave your homework in my mailbox near the physics department office, or of course you may give it to me personally (please do NOT leave it in the box beside my office or stick it under my door). Homework submitted late without prior arrangement will receive a 50% penalty if submitted within two days of the due date (i.e. Wednesday at 5 pm), and will not be accepted after that. If you've got a compelling reason why you need an extension, come talk to me in advance. I will not grant a homework extension without penalty if you ask for it on the day the homework is due, so don't ask for one. [If you need such a last-minute or post-facto extension due to extenuating circumstances (e.g. death in the family, sudden illness, travel problem), you'll need to have the Dean of Students or your Class Dean formally make such a request to me and suggest a rescheduled due date. You should also take this route if you need an extension but you don't want to tell me why (say, it's for personal or legal reasons). If you explain your reason to a Dean and the Dean tells me it's OK, that's good enough for me.] In general, though, life will be easier for you and for me if you get into the habit of doing your best to finish the problem set on time and handing in as much as you've been able to complete by the deadline.

  I can't emphasize enough the importance of working the homework. You must work the problems, think about the results, and understand any mistakes you've made if you wish to attain the type of understanding of the subject required of a working physicist. I (or a grader) will grade the problems, and I'll hand out solutions. I encourage you to read the solutions and understand any mistakes. If it doesn't make sense, ask me about it right away---don't wait until right before an exam.

• Labs: A weekly lab will be held in Merrill 217, Wednesday 2-5. Attendance at all labs is mandatory; if you must miss a lab for some compelling reason, please see us well in advance so that we can schedule an alternative time for you to work the lab. We'll hand out a lab manual at the beginning of the semester. Please read the relevant portions of the lab manual before coming to lab. Some labs will be graded by exit inteviews, others by formal lab writeups (listed respectively as EI or formal in the last column of the lecture/lab schedule below). Please bring to lab a bound lab notebook (any type: spiral, etc.) that can be used solely for Physics 34 (we will want to collect your lab notebooks at some point during the semester).
• Exams: There will be two mid-term exams and a final, dates TBA. The exams will be closed-book, and all course material (lectures, labs, handouts, text readings and homeworks) will be fair game for the exam. I'll give you relevant formulae, so the exams will be not be memorization exercises. I'd like to schedule the mid-term exams outside normal class hours Wed. Feb 28, 7 pm, and Wed. April 11, 7 pm.
These are subject to discussion and change provided we have unanimous consent of the class. I am usually willing bend the exam start time a little if you have some conflict, but I expect everyone to take the exams on the same day, and around the same time.
• Extensions: In the interest of fairness I will hold fast to the deadlines and policies above. In particular, I won't grant extensions to homeworks on the day they're due, and I won't reschedule the exam for an individual to a different day from the rest of the class. Should circumstances render such rescheduling unavoidable, you'll need to have the Dean of Students or your Class Dean contact me with a formal request for an extension and a suggested rescheduled time. Such matters should be taken care of before the exam if at all possible. If the matter is personal or confidential, the Deans need not provide me with any particulars, only their opinion that the rescheduling is reasonable.

  The College requires that all written work for a course except for a final be submitted by 5 pm on the last day of classes. The physics department takes this deadline seriously. After that day/time, no homework or lab reports will be accepted, nor will I conduct exit interviews for labs.

Statement of Intellectual Responsibility:

• We strongly encourage you to discuss the homework problems and learn the labs with your fellow students---discussing and debating the concepts and procedures is a very effective way to learn. However, the final write-ups of your assignments or lab reports should be your own. For example, the copying homework solutions in part or in whole from other students (current or prior) or from other sources (commercial or otherwise) is unacceptable. I don't mind if you use other texts to learn from, and if the answer to a homework problem is worked as a example in some other text you may utilize it (although you should first try to solve it on your own as best you can). But in that case you should make an explicit reference to the source in your homework, and of course you still need to explain the solution to the problem in your own words. It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway: tests are written without help.
• In the lab, lab partners are expected to share equally in the collection of data. However, each student must keep a separate record of the data and do all calculations independently. In addition, we wish to emphasize that intellectual responsibility in lab work extends beyond simply not copying someone else's work to include the notion of "respect for the data". By this we mean that you should not alter, "fudge" or make up data just to have your results agree with some predetermined notions. It is always best to simply state that your results did not turn out as anticipated and try to understand the discrepancy between your expectation and the data. You should never erase data which appear to be wrong. It is perfectly legitimate to state that you are going to ignore some data in your final analysis if you have a justifiable reason to suspect a particular observation or calculation.
• If you have any questions about what is or is not acceptable under this policy, please ask us.

Grading:

• Homework: 20%
• Lab: 15%. (However, all labs, lab reports and exit interview must be completed to instructors' satisfaction to receive a passing grade in the course.)
• First Midterm: 20%
• Second Midterm: 20%
• Final: 25%

Textbooks:

• Six Ideas That Shaped Physics: Some Processes Are Irreversible (Unit T) (ISBN: 0-07-043056-X), by Thomas A. Moore
• Fundamentals of Physics (Sixth Edition), Parts 2 (ISBN: 0-471-36041-4) and 4 (ISBN: 0-471-36039-2), by Halliday, Resnick & Walker. Part 2 contains Chaps. 13-21 of the hardback edition of the text. Part 4 contains Chaps. 34-48.

• Lectures in Physics, Chap. 39-46 (vol. 1), R. P. Feynman
• Understanding Thermodynamics, H. C. van Ness
• Thermodynamics, Enrico Fermi
• Thermodynamics and Heat Power, Granet & Bluestein (engineering applications)
• Thermal Physics, C. Kittel and H. Kroemer (more advanced)
• Thermal Physics, D. Schroeder (more advanced)

• Lectures in Physics, (vol. 2), Richard P. Feynman (on reserve) [Feynman's insights are always unique and worthwhile.]
• Optics, Eugene Hecht [Talks about waves, but obviously with a focus on electromagnetic waves.]
• Wave Phenomena, Dudley Towne (an Amherst professor emeritus) (on reserve) [A nice book, at about the level of our course.]
• Vibrations and Waves, French (on reserve)
• Electricity and Magnetism, Chap. 9, E. Purcell [The text used in Physics 33 last semester.]
• Waves, F. Crawford [Develops waves from discrete mechanics. Lots of nice at-home experiments.]
• The Physics of Waves, Howard Georgi [Similar to Crawford in approach, but with more sophisticated mathematics.]
• Classical Dynamics of particles and systems, Marion and Thorton. Chap 13 covers waves, Chap 3 covers Fourier series. [A succinct treatment of the wave equation. The text is used in Physics 42.]
• Physics of Waves, William C. Elmore and Mark A. Heald [One of the standards at this level. I haven't used the book much myself, but it looks good.]
• Optics (Schaum's Outline Series), Eugene Hecht [Worked examples are always nice for studying.]

• QED, R. P. Feynman [an introduction to the quantum theory of light]
• Solitons and Instantons, Rajarmanan [primarily a text on quantum field theory that has extensive discussion of nonlinear waves called solitons]
• Mathematical Methods for Physicists, Arfken [a mathematical physics book that has the details about Fourier series and Fourier transforms that we gloss over in class]
• Mathematical Handbook (Schaum's Outline Series), Murray R. Spiegel [a convenient compendium of useful mathematical formulae, including integrals and special functions at a low, low price. You'll use it through your entire physics career.]
• Fourier Analysis (Schaum's Ouline Series), Murray R. Spiegel [lots of worked examples of Fourier series and Fourier transforms, if you want more practice]

Other Comments:

Lecture/Lab Schedule

Week	Notes	Hmwk	Lab
1. January 29	Thermal Physics Jan 29: Administrative stuff / Intro / Reversible and Irreversible Processes (T1) Jan 31: Temperature (T1) Feb 1: Ideal Gases (T2) Feb 2: Ideal Gases (T2) / Gas Processes (T3)	From Moore: T1S.6, T1S.7, T1S.9, T2S.1, T2S.6, T2A.1, T3S.4, T3S.7, T3R.2	Lab 1: Ideal Gas Thermometry	EI
2. February 5	Thermal Physics Feb 5: Macrostates and Microstates (T4) Feb 7: More on Counting states (T4), Entropy (T5) Feb 8: Entropy (T5) Feb 9: Second Law (T6)	From Moore: T4S.6, T4R.1, T4A.2 (optional challenge problem), T5S.8, T5R.1, T5R.2, T6S.4, T6R.1, T6R.2, T6A.1, Read the paper and work Problem 3 from The art of statistical mechanics: Looking at microscopic spectra and seeing macroscopic phenomena (American Journal of Physics, Vol. 67, No. 12, pp. 1123)	Lab 2: Latent heat of liquid nitrogen	Formal
3. February 12	Thermal Physics Feb 12: Boltzmann factor and related issues Feb 14: Boltzmann factor and related issues Feb 15: Circuits, Complex Numbers, Op Amps (Hilborn) Feb 16: Calculating entropy changes	T6A.2, T7S.10,T7S.11, T7R.2, T7A.1, three extra problems distributed in class	Lab 3: Measurement of Cp/Cv	EI
4. February 19	Feb 19: Entropy changes/Heat engines (T8) Feb 21: More on Op Amps (Hilborn) Feb 22: Carnot cycle (T9) Feb 23: Heat engines and a little on random walks	T8S.18, T8S.19, T8R.2, T8A.1, T9R.1, T9A.1, BONUS problem: demonstrate, by analyzing each stage of the four-stage cycle (as we did in class for the carnot cycle) that the efficiency of the stirling cycle engine is the same as that of the carnot cycle engine.	Lab 4: Operational amplifiers	EI
5. February 26	Feb 26: More on random walks Feb 28: More on op amps (Hilborn) Feb 28: Exam #1, 7 pm Mar 1: Wrap up op amps (Hilborn) Mar 2: Start optics--reflection, refraction, Snell's law	no homework	Operational amplifiers	EI
6. March 5	Mar 5: total internal reflection, chromatic dispersion, start Fermat's principle Mar 7: Fermat's principle, real and virtual images, flat mirrors Mar 8: Mirrors Mar 9: Spherical Mirrors	HRW Chap 34: 49,51,56,57; Chap 35: 3,8,11	Operational amplifiers	EI
7. March 12	Mar 12: finish spherical mirrors, start refracting surfaces Mar 14: refracting surfaces; Guest lecturer: Andrew Foss Mar 15: thin lenses; Guest lecturer: Lindsay Clarke Mar 16: optical instruments and some more lens stuff	HRW Chap 35: 13,15,20,26,29,31,34,35,37	Lab 5: Operational amplifiers	Formal
March 17-25	Spring Break!	nada	woo-hoo!
8. March 26	Transverse waves on a string Mar 26: Preview of the rest of the course. Overview on waves. Transverse waves on a string: derivation of the wave equation in the small slopes approximation. A solution of the wave equation. Mar 28: A solution the wave equation and its qualitative features. Mar 29: General solution to the wave equation. Kinematics of waves. Start on sinusoidal waves. Mar 30: Characteristics of sinusoidal waves. Small slope approximation for sinusoidal waves. How to obtain the + and - waves from initial conditions.	HR Chap 17, #22,23,30,31, and two extra problems distributed in class.	Lab 6: Mirrors	EI
9. April 2	Superposition and Fourier analysis Apr 2: Superposition of two out-of-phase waves (and discussion of phasors). Standing waves. Statement of Fourier's theorem. Apr 4: How to calculate the coefficients in the Fourier expansion. Apr 5: Vector space interpretation of Fourier series. Example: Square wave. Some general features of Fourier coefficients. Apr 6: General features of Fourier coefficients. Power spectrum. Example: Periodic pulse.	Problem set distributed in class. (Problems 3,4, and 5, which use the Fourier transform, are rolled over to next week.)	Lab 7: Lenses	EI
10. April 9	Fourier transforms / Plane acoustic waves Apr 9: Brief review of power spectrum. Introduction to Fourier transforms. Example: Fourier transform of a finite wavetrain. Apr 11: Pre-exam questions. Finish up Fourier transform of finite wavetrain, including calculation of spectral width. Qualitative aspects of plane acoustic waves. Apr 11: Exam #1, 7 pm Apr 12: Characterize an ideal fluid. Derive the wave equation for plane acoustic waves: conservation of mass. Apr 13:Derive the wave equation for plane acoustic waves: Newton's 2nd law and equation of state	Three problems carried over from last week (Towne, 15-31, 15-32 and Arfken, 3rd ed., 15.3.5). In addition, HRW 18.10, 18.11.	Lab 7: Fourier Synthesis/Speed of waves	EI
11. April 16	Plane Acoustic Waves/Boundary Value Problems Apr 16: Wave equation for plane acoustic waves. Speed of sound and equation of state. Bulk modulus and compressibility. Apr 18: Bulk modulus. Simplified form of three equations for acoustic waves. Wave impedance. Apr 19: Wave impedance for waves on a string. Boundary value problems: waves on a semi-infinite string reflected from a wall. Apr 20: Boundary value problems for acoustic waves: hard reflections, pistons, and a start on the transmission-reflection problem. (Crawford, 5)	Towne 2-17, 2-28, 3-3, 3-5, 3-6, 3-9, 3-10 (deadline extended to Wednesday)	Finish speed of waves	Formal
12. April 23	Transmission-Reflection/Energetics of Waves/Interference Apr 23: Transmission and reflection of 1D waves (Towne, 3.1-3.6; French, p. 253-264) Apr 25: Energetics of waves: kinetic and potential energy, power (Towne 4.1,4.10; HRW 17.7; French, p. 237-343); start interference (HRW 36) Apr 26: Interference in general; interference from two coherent source (dipole interference) (HRW 36; Towne 4.7-4.8, 11.1,11.4,11.6-11.7; Feynman II 29; French, p. 280-283; Crawford, 9) Apr 27: Two-source interference (Feynman II 29.5, 30.1; French, p. 280-288; Crawford, 9)	Extra problem on power spectrum (handed out); HRW Chap 36, #18, 29, 43, 60; Towne, Chap 11, #6, 11	Lab 9: Measuring light wavelengths with a ruler	Formal
13. April 30	N-source interference and diffraction Apr 30: Two-source and partway through N-source interference May 2: N-source interference May 3: Diffraction (Towne, Chap. 12; HRW Chap. 37; Feynman II, Chap. 30) May 4: Finish Diffraction: single (long) slit diffraction, diffraction from a rectangular slit	HRW Chap. 37, #12, 18, 24, 25, 30, 38, 64	Lab 10: Two-source interference	EI
14. May 7	Electromagnetic waves and polarized light May 7: Begin electromagnetic waves: recall Maxwell's equations in differential and integral forms; application to a pulse: derive relation between the speed of light and the parameters in Maxwell's equation May 9: Course evaluations, general derivation of wave equation, brief introduction to polarization May 10: Quantitative introduction and formal description of polarization; Jones vectors; demonstrations using polarized light (Hilborn) May 11: Jones vectors and matrices in polarization, retarders, birefringence, lots of demos (Hilborn)	No problem set on EM waves. I'll come up with some practice problems and solutions.	Finish interference	EI
May 14-18	Final exam period	Final: Thursday May 17, 2-5 pm, Merrill 131

Website

Useful Links

Other Interesting talks in the Five-College area:

Interesting and useful papers:

Interesting and useful websites:

Six Ideas website

Statmech program referred to in the Six Ideas text (if that doesn't work try this .zip version, found by Jessica Willard).

Stirling Engine Society website