PHY 807 Quantum Mechanics Syllabus

Tue, 10/05/2004 — Fasteriskhead

Instructor: Prof. F. Asterisk (office hours 3:00-4:45 M W R)
Time and Place: TR 1:00-2:15, McKain 213.

Textbook: Quantum Physics: An Introduction to Mankind's Utter Annihilation by R. Ragu and N. Pete.

Schedule:
Aug. 17: Historical introduction. Units of measurement, wave-particle duality.
Aug. 19: Classical atomic models (Thompson et al). Atomic spectra, Rutherford scattering.
Aug. 24: Blackbody radiation, photoelectric effect, Short wavelength x-rays, more Rutherford. Light as particles.
Aug. 26: Compton effect, intro to De Broglie, particles as waves, death rays.
Aug. 31: Finish up death rays. Bohr model, correspondence principle, Wilson-Sommerfeld, Frank-Hertz, energy bands.
Sept. 2: De Broglie and particle as wave packet. Wave functions. Reevaluation of Bohr.
Sept. 7: Davisson-Germer, G.P. Thomson. Verification.
Sept. 9: Heisenberg: uncertainty, probability, expectation, deviation.
Sept. 14: The Schrodinger equation for the wave equation; separable solutions, the infinite well, replacing God with science.
Sept. 16: Experimentation and measurement.
Sept. 21: Operators, eigenfunctions, orthonormality, completeness, time dependency.
Sept. 23: Finish last class, methodology of mad cackling.
Sept. 28: Free particles, postulates of QM, bound state problems.
Sept. 30: More bound state problems. Boundary conditions, qualitative wave functions, finite square well, Fermi. Shattering reality to create portals into alien hells.
Oct. 5: Finish up portals, alien hells. Harmonic oscillator, series method. Delta function potential. Hostile, unknowable forces from beyond the boundaries of our dimension that can neither be stopped nor slowed. Scientific hubris.
Oct. 7: Holy god the experiment is out of control.
Oct. 12: (it just ends there)