- Here is the Syllabus.
- '08-01-16: Bonding mechanisms First set
of notes for Jan 16, we'll continue on 18th. Hopefully connections
will be better.
- '08-01-18: Rotation and vibration
First slide or so also finishes bonding mechanism survey. Note that there
are some homework problems to try at the end.Typo on rotational energy
spacing corrected 01-23.
Here is
molecular structure at Hyperphysics which has some figures similar to
those in the text that I may show in lecture. There is also a
section on chemical bonds.
- '08-01-23: Molecular spectra
Including the mechanisms for the greenhouse effect and glow-in-the-dark
items.
- '08-01-25: Homework solutions:Here is a link to
streaming video of the lecture
- '08-01-28: Simple approach to molecular bond.
This is the 2006 version because the software I have at the moment will
not extract graphic files from a PDF, and this version contains an extracted
graphic. Here is the 1985 article
by Victor Weisskopf on the molecular bond.
Also, as some of you know, I am a big fan of
www.falstad.com. I will make use of his
molecular orbital applet.
- '08-01-30: Here are Solutions to problems 11.1,2,5
(draft at the moment, but has 1 and 2 complete.
- '08-01-30: Notes on Ch 12.1 Bonding in solids
- '08-01-30: Notes on Ch 12.3 Quantum Theory of Metals
- '08-02-09: I lectured informally on the qualitative Schrodinger equation
and the lowered energy of bonding states. PDF notes are forthcoming.
- '08-02-11Here is Test 1. I will also
be finishing my email list and trying to email it to everyone.
- '08-02-11 Notes on: Band theory of solids,
Semiconductor devices, and Lasers.
Some of these have been covered already.
'08-02-15 We started on Chapter 13: Notes on
Nuclear Structure 1 and
Nuclear Structure 2.
Here is the link to the NNDC
Interactive chart of the nuclides.
The above is best used for looking at decay schemes.
If you need mass data for isotopes not in your text table,
the following is more useful:
Mass table from the
LBNL Isotopes Project Nuclear Data Dissemination Home Page.
Careful of the units displayed!
- '08-02-18:
A look at the
Exchange Force Model for nuclear
forces, and some example problems to look at in the text.
We discussed cosmic rays a bit as part of the introduction to
the Yukawa estimate for the mass of the meson. Here is a link to the
HiRes "Fly-Eye" experiment
Here is a qualitative microscopic
explanation of Snell's law (see Anwswer to question #21 there)
from the American Journal of Physics. This reference
also refers you to Chapter 31 of The Feynman Lectures on Physics.
Remember that light in a material
is actually travelling at c, but the interaction of light with
the material atoms produces a superposed wavefront whose phase velocity is
less than c. Under certain conditions there are
precursor waves which can travel through the medium at c,
but I haven't been able to find a good example on the web yet.
This part of the Wikipedia article on
Cherenkov radiation seems to be a pretty good description of the
origins of Cherenkov radiation.
- '08-02-25: I have received copies of everyone's test.
- '08-02-25: Notes on Mathematics
of Radioactivity and Alpha decay.
- '08-02-25: Here is a link to the
Hotbits Random Number Generator
which uses radioactive decay.
- '08-12-25:Here is the syllabus.
I am sorry it is so late being posted: with IT difficulties and an
illness in the department that overloaded me, I forgot to post it
in January.
- '08-02-27: Today I plan to discuss Quantum Mechanics of Alpha Decay
This is the context in which Gamow discovered quantum tunneling, which
is now an ubiquitous idea in QM. This will mainly be going over
Problem 7-17 and Example 13-9 (p. 487). I will also use figures from
the hyperphysics section on
Radioactivity and Alpha decay, which also has some pages for
numerically estimating the order-of-magnitude for Alpha half-lives.
- '08-02-27:Recommended homework problems for Ch. 13: 20,32,
34,41,45,50. Most of these are numerical calculations to familiarize
you with radioactivity and nuclear units. I think problem 34 is based
on the Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown.
- '08-02-29: Happy Leap Day! We will overview
Beta decay and neutrinos. Some of this
has been discussed already from doc-cam notes, so I may go a bit
quickly. There is a useful external graphic linked in the PDF document,
which is here:
Segre chart,
another name for the chart of nuclides.
- Neutrino physics is a fascinating modern topic with
importance in both geophysics and astrophysics. I will probably
devote a lecture to this before we go on to Ch. 14, more links may appear
here.
- '08-03-04: We go back to chapter 12 and take a look at
superconductivity.
- '08-03-04: Here is link to
supplements to the text including superconductivity.
- '08-03-24: Here is a catchup on the notes:
Nuclear reactions
Neutron reactions
Reactors
Criticality
- Nuclear Reactor simulators
from
www.ktg-sachsen.de are
stored at WTAMU here: Nuclear_Reactor_1_2.exe
and Nuclear_Reactor_FRM2.exe (a neutron source design). Both are
executable files. These are
Monte Carlo simulations of nuclear reactors and run quite well on
Windows XP, and also illustrate safety features. They have controls in both English
and German, just check the "English" box to change. The English
online manuals are
here and
here.
- Here is a YouTube video
of an old AEC documentary about the SL-1 reactor accident. Here is a brief
NASA system
failure case study of the event.
- '08-03-26: Here is Exam 2, due April 4.
Many of the problems are taken from your text.
- '08-03-28: Notes on Fusion, with emphasis
on the processes in stars.
- Here is a solution to Problem 14-22
- '08-03-31: Notes on radiation and matter,
and dosages and detectors.
- '08-04-02: Here is an example of a biological dose calculation,
about the
poisoning of Andrei Litvinenko with Po-210.
You may want to check my numbers, I did this with a slide rule when
my calculator batteries were dead.
- '08-04-07: Here are some notes on Ch. 15, we went over the first
set on the four forces on Friday.
Elementary forces and particles,
Particle classification,
The eightfold way and quarks.
- '08-04-09: CERN has a nice page on
understanding bubble chamber tracks. Although the bubble chamber
has been almost completely replaced by electronic detectors, the
visual nature of the tracks makes understanding the particle and
beam behavior easier.
- '08-04-11: Here is an
introduction to shock waves using traffic flow. The links in
this PDF should work dynamically, try clicking them. In class we
looked at:
- Website for Panic:
a quantitative analysis. check the frame on left for links
to the simulations. What I had forgotten in class about
the column simulation was that the column decreases injuries
to allow faster exits. Compare it to one of the simulations
where injuries are included.
- The "corridor with widening" simulation there is
very shocklike (we didn't get to that one in class.)
- '08-04-14: The original papers on by Lighthill and Whitham on the method used above for
modeling shock waves can be found at:
On Kinematic Waves. I. Flood Movement in Long Rivers (read the
introduction), and
On Kinematic Waves. II. A Theory of Traffic Flow on Long Crowded Roads.
- '08-04-16: Here is the text's supplemental
Chapter 16 on Cosmology. Please read it. Also here are the
answers to the odd problems in this chapter.
- '08-04-16: Here are some problems for Test 3. We
will discuss the due date in class.
- '08-04-25: We conclude Ch. 16 by discussing the last section
and vacuum energy, and take a look at the Casimir effect, which
is strong experimental evidence for vacuum energy. Here is
an article that helps explain it via the
Maritime analogy of the Casimir effect.
- Here is the Final Exam. It consists of
problems from your text, and is due May 9.
To deal with the many units that crop up in this course, I recommend
the Java calculator program Frink (after the Simpson's professor) found at
http://futureboy.homeip.net/frinkdocs/