PHYS420 Principles of Modern Physics

Instructor: Kara Hoffman, PhD
Assistant Professor of Physics
Office: 4336 Toll Physics Building
Phone: 301-405-7263
Email: kara@icecube.umd.edu
Book: Modern Physics, 3rd Edition
by Serway, Moses and Moyer
Teaching Assistant: Abraham Sahilemeskel
Email: miramoth@umd.edu

Course syllabus Assignments Lecture Slides

Final Exam solutions

Final Exam, Wednesday, December 19, 1:30-3:30pm, in our usual room

You may bring 1 equation sheet, front and back. You do not need to write the spherical harmonics and the radial wavefunctions on your equation sheet. I will give those to you if you need them. The exam will be cumulative, and will cover the material through exam 2, as well as the material we've covered since exam 2, which includes Chapter 8, Sections 8.1-8.3 and 8.5 and Chapter 15 sections 15.1-15.5, 15.7, 15.9, and 15.10, with particular emphasis on what I went over in class. Make sure you do HW12. It is a good review since it draws on some concepts from Chapter 2 plus the Heisenberg uncertainty principle! Good luck and happy holidays!

Exam 2, Monday, November 19

solution to second exam
Practice Exam 2
Solutions to practice exam 2.

Exam 1, Wednesday, October 10

Practice Exam
solution to first exam

Resources

Michelson Morley interferometer

An animation of the Michelson Morley experiment.
Here is a java applet of the Michelson Morley apparatus that allows you to set the speed of light and the ether, and study the effect of rotating the apparatus with respect to the ether wind.

Special relativity

Here is an applet showing length contection and time dilation in cars moving relative to one another.
Here is another excellent website with animations on relativity.
Here is a website that explains spacetime coordinates.
PHYS420
Fall 2007
Last modified: Oct 1, 2007