Detailed Syllabus

Grade Policy

Exams (Questions, Answers, Curves)

Weekly Assignments

Sep. 3 -Sep. 10  Intro to harmonic oscillators

                           Read French Chap 1, Chap 2 through p. 26, Chap 3 through p. 62

                           Nice applet on superposition of harmonic oscillations

                           Homework 1 (linked as a PDF file).  Due 12 September in class.

                           Solutions to Homework 1

Sep.12 -Sep. 19 Oscillators, Damped and Forced

                           Read French Chap. 3, Chap 4.
                           Also important: Review AC circuits in text and notes from your last EM course.

                           Some stuff on the Web:

                           Understanding molecules as simple mechanical systems, with oscillations and bends

                           Design your own damped or forced oscillators:

• An animated damp-it-yourself oscillator (cribbed from Spartans)
• Just show me the damped oscillator solution (from Alberta University Math Dept.)
• A cool forced oscillator, showing phase and amplitude plots, and animation (needs Java)
• A comprehensive forced oscillator, including transients

                           A really nice general oscillations page with lots of stuff, from Dan Russell at Kettering University.

                           Beats

                           Damped Oscillations in a Looping Flare in the Solar Corona.

• Science, Vol. 285, 6 Aug 89, p. 862.
• Check out Fig. 1 and Fig. 2.

                            You can get unusual jobs in critical damping.  Try the video clips.

                             Resonance: General features of amplitude and phase, amplitude-phase vs. Q, the power response vs Q

                             RLC circuits: try this

                           Absorption spectra

                            Creating the Z⁰  resonance  in electron-positron annihilation at E_CM=91 GeV.

• Quantum carrier of the weak interaction
• Can consider this as resonant excitation of a virtual vaccum state
• The facility is the Stanford Linear Collider
• Check out the "lineshape". A classic forced oscillator resonance in the Lorentzian approximation

                            Homework 2 (linked as a PDF file).  Due 24 September in class, or by 5pm in Amidei mailbox

                            Solutions to Homework 2

Sep.20 -Sep. 27  Coupled Oscillators, Normal Modes, Standing Waves

                            Read  French Chap.5 through p. 135, Chap 6 through p. 188

                           Auxiliary reading:

•  RLC circuits: Halliday and Resnick "Fundamentals of Physics" 6th Ed. p. 769-796, Serway "Physics for Scientists and Engineers" 3rd Ed., p. 927
• Standing Waves: Serway as above, p. 479

                            Web Stuff

                            A very nice discussion of coupled oscillators from Hugh Young at CMU:

• The classic 2 mass/3 spring example
• The same problem in the matrix formulation
• Some background on eigenvalues and eigenvectors

                            Coupled Oscillator Applets

•  The classic 2 mass/3 spring system as in lecture. Set the coupling to be small (10N), put one mass at the origin,give the other a large extension, and let go. Observe "energy exchange", and the "beat" like arrangement of the oscillations.You can also set initial conditions to excite the normal modes and compare frequencies.
• More than 2 masses. Experiment with the normal modes and initial conditions

Coupled Oscillations in Action in Biology

• Ant colonies
• Slime molds

                             Normal Mode Applets

• Masses on springs, and a model of the water molecule
• Normal modes are especially useful for decomposing the motion in "continuous" systems.
• Normal modes on a vibrating string. The sum of normal modes here is a lot like Fourier series...
• Normal modes of a vibrating drum head (this is cool)

Standing Waves

• Standing waves in the electron wave-function!
• Electron standing waves in crystals
• Seismology

Compression Waves

•  Nice longitudinal/compression wave applet

Getting into Music

• A nice physics of music and acoustics site.  See especially this page on standing waves on strings

                              Assignment 3: Due: 5 pm,  Oct. 1  in Amidei mailbox on 2nd Floor Randall building (or in lecture)

                             Solutions to Assignment 3

Oct.1 - Oct. 8 Coupled Oscillators, Normal Modes, Standing Waves

                     Reading

• Finish French Chap. 6
• Hirose 5.1-5.5
• Serway "Physics for Scientists and Engineers" 3rd Ed., Chap 18 (Elementary Review, optional)

 Normal Modes

• Normal Modes of air oscillating in a pipe
• 2D Normal Modes on a rectangular membrane with fixed edges
• 2D Normal Modes on a rectangular membrane with fixed edges, another version
• 2D Normal Modes: Drum Head  (these are Bessel functions)
• 3D Normal Modes in a box: these would for instance be the acoustical modes in a room
• Vibrational Modes of Baseball Bat: explains the "sweet spot"!
• Vibrational Modes of a Guitar (Dan Russell is great)
• Vibrational Modes of a Handbell

 Fourier Series

• The Normal Modes on a string (from above) is a lot like Fourier decomposition
• However the author has a separate Applet which is quite the Fourier demonstration

                      Assignment 4: Due: 5 pm,  Oct. 8  in Amidei mailbox on 2nd Floor Randall building (or in lecture)

                      Solutions to Assignment 4

Oct.15 - Oct. 22 Fourier Series, Traveling Waves

                     Reading

• Hirose 13.1-13.4
• Hirose Chap 2-5 (Note: Much of Chap 2-5 is review and the reading is fast. You should try to digest it all. If you need to cherry pick, the essential (new) material is in  2.1-2.3, 2.6-2.7, 4.4, 4.6 Example 5, 5.2 and 5.6)
• Lightening Review of Fourier Series and (NEW!) Fourier Transform

  Assignment 5: Due: 5 pm,  Oct. 22  in Amidei mailbox on 2nd Floor Randall building (or in lecture)

 Solutions to Assignment 5

                      Traveling Waves

• Nice longitudinal/compression wave applet
• A transverse wave applet: how does a transverse disturbance move?
• Phase and Group Velocity Applet
• Another Phase and Group Velocity applet
• Another Phase and Group Velocity applet. This one calculates the phase and group velocities.

Oct.22 - Oct. 29 Reflections, Multidimensional Waves, Doppler Effect

                    Reading

• Hirose Chap 6, 7, 8
• French p. 274-279
• Fourier Note (see above)
• Halliday and Resnick (6th Ed.) p. 414-418 (elementary treatment of Doppler effect)

Assignment 6: Due: 5 pm,  Oct. 31  in Amidei mailbox on 2nd Floor Randall building (or in lecture)

Assignment 6 Solutions

                    Reflections

•  Applet for Making Standing Waves from Superposition of Oppositely Traveling Waves
•  Reflection Applets from the Dan Russell site.
•  Some nice reflection and interference applets here

3D Waves

• Derivation of 3D plane Wave (Bekefi and Barrett, Electromagnetic Vibrations, Waves, and Radiation.)
• Derivation of Spherical Wave (from Weisstien/Wolfram Physics Dictionary, a good general reference)

Doppler Effect/Shock Waves

• You control the source motion for Doppler of Shock
• Another adjustable source motion applet
• Doppler animations on the Dan Russel page
• MPEG of F-14 breaking the sound barrier with shock cone visible

Oct 31 - Nov 12   EM Waves

                           Assignment 7 due  5 pm, Nov.12  in Amidei mailbox on 2nd Floor Randall building

                          Solutions to Assignment 7

                            Discussion in class Monday Nov 10.  THE NATURE OF PROBLEM 6

                            Required Reading 

 Hirose: Chap, Begin Chap. 10

 EM Waves in any 240 Physics-like textbook, for instance:

             Serway "Physics for Scientists and Engineers" 3rd Ed., Chap 34

             Halliday and Resnick,  "Fundamentals Physics", 6th Ed. Chap.34

 Polarization discussion at  http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/Polarization.ht

 Lecture Notes on reflection and transmission of EM waves at dielectric boundary

                           Applets

• llustration and animation of Electromagnetic Plane Waves
• Control the polarization of an EM wave. You should check this out
• Some interesting things about polarization
• EM radiation from accelerated charge and retarded fields. This one has user control
• EM radiation from accelerated charge and retarded fields. This one has dipole pattern from SHM

EXAM II will be Friday Nov. 14th in class, covering material in Homeworks 5-7   

Nov. 17 - Dec.1  Radiation: Scattering, Interference, Diffraction

Required  reading:  Hirose Chap. 10, 11

                                 Coursepack  Chap. 37 and 38

                                 (Adapted from Serway, “Physics for Scientists and Engineers”, 3^rd Edition)

Supplemental Reading: French p. 280- 298                                   

Assignment 8: due  Wed. Nov 26 in class or by 5pm in Amidei mailbox on 2nd Floor Randall building

Assignment 8 Solutions  

• The solar corona is visible by scattered light
• Interference from two slits applet
• Interference from two slits pattern
• Now we understand those antennas
• Interference pattern from many slits
• Multiple slit interference applet
• If you think "phasor analysis" is bad, imagine having to use geometry to invent mechanics. A page from Newton's Principia.
• Michelson and Morley's Interferometer to measure the Ether Wind
• Cool Michelson historical stuff
• The 2 mile LIGO interferometer to measure gravitational waves
• The Very Large Array for interferometric radio astronomy

Dec. 1- Dec. 10  Special Relativity

                             Assignment 9 Due Dec. 10, 5pm in Amidei mailbox

                             Assignment 9 Solutions

                             Required reading:

•  Course-pack material on Relativity

• On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, by A. Einstein (1905)   Read Intro, Sec I.1 and I.2

Links:

• Newton's take on Space and Time
• Does the Inertia of a Body Depend on Its Energy Content?, A. Einstein (1905)
• Simulation of Relativistic Effects
• Relativistic Doppler Shift
• Minute changes in a star's redshift reveal the extra-solar planets!
• The Redshift of Galaxies is used to map the large scale structure of the universe
• Hubble's Law and the Expansion of the Universe

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