Physics 101A
Fall 2005
Introduction to Modern Physics I
University of California at Santa Cruz
MWF 2:00pm to 3:10 pm, Natural Sciences Annex Room 101
Discussion Session: 6:00pm to 7:30 pm, Thursday, ISB 231
 
TEXT: Tipler and Llewellyn, `Modern Physics', Fourth Edition
Instructor: Bruce Schumm
Office: 329 Natural Sciences II
Phone: (831) 459-3034
Email: schumm@scipp.ucsc.edu
 
Office Hours:
Thursday 10:00 - 12:00
And by appointment if necessary
 
Teaching Assistant: Luke Winstrom
Office: Natural Sciences II Room 217
Office Phone: 459-5119
Email: luke@physics.ucsc.edu
Office Hours: Mondays, 3:30-5:30 PM
 
Just before the turn of the last... er... second-to-last century, there was a feeling amongst physicists that the major problems of physics had been solved. A few unexplained phenomena, such as the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation inside a heated cavity ("blackbody radiation"), and the fact that the medium supporting that radiation (the "ether") had never been discovered, were thought to be oddities. Beginning in 1900, and through the mid 1920's, the work of Planck, Bohr, Einstein, Heisenberg, and others was to show that these oddities were in fact the tip of an iceberg, which, once exposed, was to radically reshape the way human kind thinks about the universe in which it lives. These developments - the revolution of so-called "modern physics", will be the subject matter of Physics 101.

Fall 2005 Syllabus

Homework Assignments

Spacetime Paper

Uncertainty Principle Plots

Sample Questions for Mideterm I

Sample Questions for Mideterm II

Sample Questions for Final Exam

Electronic Reserves (Homework Solutions, etc.) Send email to me if you don't have the password.