Class information
Your grade for the lecture portion of the course will consist of:
The lecture portion is 75% of your whole grade and the lab is 25%.
We will try to have a problem session on Saturdays at 4 p.m. on the 9th floor in 6911.
Office hours will be on Thursday from 10am to 1pm on the 9th floor of Stevenson. I can be found in either SC6914 (my office) or SC6924 (the Johns/Sheldon/Webster Lab area).
We will be using the Krane Modern Physics book, and we will be reviewing thermodynamics from the Fishbane text used in 121. I will supplement these with additional materials as needed.
I know you guys are really busy so I will try to accomodate your schedules as much as I can.
Lecture 1
Poisson and Gaussian Distributions
Gaussian Behavior of random sum
Lecture 2
Next, I rebin some exponentially distributed data, take the natural log of the bin entries and fit the data with a method described in class. On the first page, I show a fit to the exponentail using a sophisticated fitting program. The next page down has the example using the technique I'll show you in class. This is a very useful technique!
Example of fitting to Exponential Decay Data
Data used in fit example.Intro to Thermodynamics, Ideal gas
This lecture should read a little easier. The material is primarily from Fishbane Chapter 20.
Intro to Thermodynamics, Ideal gas, Entropy
Intro to Statistical Mechanics
We are almost done with the intro and you should be picking away at chapter 10 in Krane.
Introduction to Nuclear Physics
2 step decays, Binding Energy Intro
Semi-Empirical Binding Energy Formula
Semi-Empirical Binding Energy Formula Applications
Overheads from applications lecture
Alpha Particle Decay (tunnelling)
Plan for the rest of the Semester
Intro to Physics "spreadsheeting" with PAW
Nucleosynthesis and Compressed States
Matter Appears in the Universe
Note: For the first question please include numerical values where possible. (Ok to leave entropies as NKb(number)).
Remember, it's ok to look up integrals if you need to.
Homework 7 and HW 7 Solutions after 9 p.m.
note: the answer in the back of Krane for 14.21 is close to the right answer. If you check, you'll see that E is not conserved in the solution supplied by the book. (E is sum of KE + rest mass).
The third test is a take home exam that is due on Tuesday April 15th. If you need extra time, I will accept exams no later than April 20th. Feel free to use books, homeworks and notes. Please do not give or recieve help on this test by interacting with other people. The library is fair game, although I ask that you do not use the internet except to find books or to find physical properties like densit, and you may certainly use the course and lab web pages for 225b. There will be questions on 3 topics: Kinematics, Particle Decay Conservation Laws and Fusion. I will post each topic as it becomes available.
Kinematics Question (Earlier version had a typo on Problem 1b)
Will occur on Wednesday, March 26 in class.
Covers chapter 12 and 13 except Fusion.
I will give you extra homework credit for doing the practice exam correctly. (probably 10 extra credit points total)
Real test will be shorter. This gives you an idea of what's going through my head as far as the test goes.
Practice Test 2 and Practice test Solutions(after 7:30 p.m.)
I will give you extra homework credit for doing the practice exam correctly. (probably 10 extra credit points total)
This sheet may be supplemented by me for particular questions on the exam.
The manager of this html can be reached via e-mail at <wjohns@fnal.gov>.
