Physics 145: Andrew Foland Josh Boehm MWF 10 Am

Physics 145
Andrew Foland
Josh Boehm
MWF 10 AM
About the Class
Let me come to the subject matter at the end (!)
Class meets 3 times weekly
Sections T/Th 7:30-9
Office hours to be determined
Course is small enough to be taught rather

differently from most other physics courses
It will be possible to simply come, sit quietly, and get an A,
but thats not the way to get the most out of the
opportunity a small class affords
2 Handouts Today
Syllabus
Assignment packet
Survey, MtP
In addition to HW #1, there is
Surveyplease fill out!
ADFs version of the survey--Ive already done my
assignment :)
Meet the Professor

Next week, meet with me in small groups in my
office, just so we can get to know each other

(and so you can learn where my office is!)
Four times, circle your preference, and cross
out any you CANNOT make

Ill let you know by Friday which time to come
Prerequisites
Absolute minimum: the 15 sequence and 143 a/b
Special Relativity
Quantum Mechanics
Desirable extras: Stat Mech (!), a lab course (123 or
191), any knowledge of second quantization
Math
Will assume you are good at calculus
The difference between the experimenter and the
theorist is that the theorist knows what to do when you

are stuck: integrate by parts.S. Teukolsky
Will teach you rudiments of group theory and statistics as
needed
Seminars
If possible (depends on enrollment), every
one of you will present a seminar summary of
a classic paper in the history of the field
Discovery papers of things such as the positron,
neutron, J/y, Z, t, etc
Will be a talk given in the evening (section
time) after the break
Josh and I will give example seminars before
Spring Break
Books
Griffiths: The Good Book of Particle
Physics
Perkins: more on phenomenology and
experimental apparatuses, more up to date
PDG booklet
Up-to-the-biannum text summarizing the state of
human knowledge about particle physics
Goldhaber and Cahn: contains the classic
papers of the field
Grading
20% HW
25% Seminar
20% Midterm
35% Final (probably take-home)
Style
It's a problem that physicists have learned to deal with:
They've learned to realize that whether they like a theory or
they don't like a theory is not the essential question. Rather, it
is whether or not the theory gives predictions that agree with
experiment. It is not a question of whether a theory is
philosophically delightful, or easy to understand, or perfectly
reasonable from the point of view of common sense. The theory
of quantum electrodynamics describes Nature as absurd from
the point of view of common sense. And it agrees fully with
experiment.
R.P. Feynman, QED
Matters of elegance ought to be left to the tailor and to the
cobbler.
L. Boltzmann
Field Trip!
How We Got Here
Crises!
Atomic Stability
Emission lines
Photoelectric effect
Blackbody radiation
Light indicates special behavior at the atomic scale

Experiments for the Day
Wave Interference
Suppose propagating plane
waves happen upon absorbing
material
The wavefronts in the non-
absorbing slits act as new
sources
Huygens!
Born scattering
Each slit is point source,
causing an expanding circular
wavelet!
Find when the two wavelets
are in, out of phase
Then add (Huygens)
Constructive,
destructive interference
Sunrise on Beebe Lake
Interference Cartoon
Along solid lines
E1=E2; in phase

= sin U (E1+E2)2 = 4A
d Constructive
interference
Along dashed lines
d E1=-E2 out of phase
U (E1+E2)2 = 0
Destructive
Interference
Interference
Etot = E sin( kx1 t ) + E sin( kx2 t )
(
x1 = L2 + h2 = L 1 + h
2
)
2
E sin( kx1 t )
h
x2 = x1 + d sin x1 + d
L x1
p1
h
x2 E sin( kx2 t )
d
L
p2
Postulates of Quantum
Mechanics
The world is made up only of particles
For every particle, there exists a probability function (x,t)
aka wavefunction
The probability to measure any particle

Pdo = (o0 ) do
2
observable O with value o0:
(x,t, observables) contains everything there is to know about the particle

Outline
History of the field
The Standard Model of Physics
Symmetries
Detectors and Accelerators
Field Theory Lite and Feynman Calculus
The Known Interactions (aka Lagrangians)
Gauge Theories
The Higgs Mechanism
Postulates of Quantum Study
Mechanics particle
physics!
Statistics The world is made up only of particles
For every particle, there exists a wavefunction (x,t)
The probability to measure any particle

Pdo = (o0 ) do
2
observable O with value o0:
(x,t, observables) contains everything there is to know about the particle
In quantum mechanics, energy and momentum are represented by

E = ih
p = ih
t x
The Big Questions of the Day
Why is the universe made mostly of matter?
Why is the cosmological constant neither 0
nor huge?
How can particles have mass?
What keeps WLWL scattering unitary?
Might neutrino masses arise differently?
Why are there 3 different generations of
particles?
What is the deal with gravity?

The Smaller Questions of the Day
What is the mixing scheme of neutrinos?
Is there Supersymmetry?
What is Dark Matter?
Are protons stable?
Why is there such a thing as lepton number?
Summary
Syllabus / Intro
Meet the Professor next week
Despite Wave/Particle duality dogma

The world is made of particles

Physics 145: Andrew Foland Josh Boehm MWF 10 Am

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Physics 145: Andrew Foland Josh Boehm MWF 10 Am

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Physics 145

Course is small enough to be taught rather

Meet the Professor

office, just so we can get to know each other

out any you CANNOT make

theorist is that the theorist knows what to do when you

Light indicates special behavior at the atomic scale

For every particle, there exists a probability function (x,t)

The probability to measure any particle

(x,t, observables) contains everything there is to know about the particle

Statistics The world is made up only of particles

For every particle, there exists a wavefunction (x,t)

The probability to measure any particle

(x,t, observables) contains everything there is to know about the particle

In quantum mechanics, energy and momentum are represented by

What is the deal with gravity?

Despite Wave/Particle duality dogma

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