PHY3021F Advanced Physics 1 [Preliminary]
This is the first semester final year course for BSc students majoring in Physics.
The PHY3021F course convenor is A.Prof. Heribert Weigert,
Room 506, RW James building (ph 650-4706)
The course consists of 2 lecture modules and a laboratory course.
Modules
| Module | | Lecturers | Tutors |
| EM | Electrodynamics | 30 Lectures |
A. Prof. Heribert Weigert
| Dino Giovannoni |
| TP | Thermal Physics | 30 Lectures | Dr. Spencer Wheaton
| Dino Giovannoni |
|
|
| LAB | Laboratory Course | 5 Experiments |
A. Prof. Andy Buffler
|
Lecture timetable and venues
All lectures will be held in Room 330, R.W. James Building, 4th period 11.00 - 11:45.
Tutorials and weekly problem sets
Lecturers will distribute
weekly problem sheets or other tutorial assignments to be
completed. These will be marked and will be incorporated into the
final mark. Students are required to attend 3 hours of weekly
tutorials at a time to be agreed upon. The tutorial slot may also be
used for lectures and class tests, although its main purpose is to
allow discussion of lecture material and tutorial assignments.
Syllabus
Electrodynamics:
Maxwell's equations in vacuum and in matter, conservation laws, momentum and angular momentum in electromagnetic fields, electromagnetic waves, the Fresnel relations, laws of optics, absorption and dispersion, frequency dependence of permittivity, wave guides, gauge transformations, retarded potentials, electric and magnetic dipole radiation, power radiated by a point charge, special relativity, four-vectors, relativistic kinematics, relativistic electrodynamics, the electromagnetic field tensor
Recommended texts:
- D. J. Griffiths,
Introduction to Electrodynamics,
(Pearson, 2008).
- G.L. Pollack and D.R. Stump,
Electrodynamics,
(Addison-Wesley, 2002).
Thermal Physics:
Review of the basic laws of thermodynamics; statistical ensembles;
connection between thermodynamics and classical mechanics;
phase space averaging in classical mechanics;
sum over states in quantum mechanics; meaning of entropy;
Fermi-Dirac and Bose-Einstein statistics; Bose-Einstein condensation.
Recommended text:
- D Schroeder: Thermal Physics, (Addison-Wesley, 2000)
Prerequisites and co-requisites
Prerequisites: PHY2014F and PHY2015S, and MAM2000W or
(MAM2004H and MAM2046W).
Co-requisites: none
Essay
Students will be required to write an essay on a scientific topic
associated with the lecture course. A number of topics will be set
and students will choose one of interest to them.
The purpose of this essay is to develop skills in scientific writing
and communication.
Laboratory
Professor Buffler runs the PHY3021F laboratory PHYLAB3.
See
phylab3 website.
Assessment
PHY3021F is assessed as shown below:
|
2 | class tests (90min) | 14% |
12 | weekly problem sets | 13% |
| lab writeups | 20% |
1 | essay (writing exercise) | 3% |
| June Examination | 50% |
Duly performed (dp) requirement
In order to qualify for writing the final examination,
the DP requirements must be met. This requires
- a class test record of at least 35%
- all laboratory reports handed in
- at least 80% of problem sets handed in
