Physics 330, Fall 2008
Introduction to Modern Physics
Instructor: Prof. Bernd Bassalleck
E-mail: bossek@unm.edu
Office/phone: room 104 (Chair’s office, behind our front office) / 277-1517
Office hours: after class or by appointment
Grader: Prabhakar Palni, p.palni@iitg.ernet.in (not at UNM until after 8/27)
Class Website: http://panda.unm.edu/Courses/Bassalleck/PHY330Fa08
Textbook & planned course contents:
Modern Physics, 5th ed., Paul A. Tipler & Ralph A. Llewellyn, Freeman & Co., 2008
This course will cover the basics of the two most fundamentally important contributions of 20th century physics, Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, plus some applications. Clearly not every chapter/section can and will be covered. During the last several weeks of the semester we will focus on Nuclear & Particle Physics as well as Astrophysics/Cosmology. There is no detailed week-by-week pre-determined content. Instead, our progress during the semester will determine details of and modifications to the above general plan. Let’s learn something while having some fun with exciting and interesting physics topics instead of rushing through too many topics!
Prerequisites/Homework/Exams/Grading:
No significant prior exposure to so-called Modern Physics will be assumed, beyond what is typically covered towards the end of an introductory physics course, such as our 262. Successful completion of such a 2-3 semester introductory, calculus-based physics course is, however, assumed as prerequisite for this course.
Homework will be assigned every 1-2 weeks, but without a rigid schedule at this point. Copies of homework solutions will be posted. 2-3 exams (plus the final) are foreseen, details to be discussed (probably drop the lowest pre-final exam score). I will not curve my grading scale. The homework will likely count for 40% of the final grade, with the rest to be distributed among the exams. It’s a sufficiently small class that we can remain flexible and discuss certain options, depending upon class progress.