PHY 4604
Announcements — Fall 2008
The announcements below are listed in reverse chronological order.
| Jan 26 | Posted solutions to the final exam. |
| Dec 14 | The grader will not be able to compete grading Homeworks 7 and 8 until late Wednesday. These assignments will be returned at the final exam. owever, the instructor's solutions can be picked up in office hours starting Monday. |
| Dec 12 | Changes to the office hours announced on December 10: They will end at 4:00 p.m. on Friday December 12 and at 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday December 16. |
| Dec 10 | Kevin Ingersent will be out of town from December 18 through January 9. The graded final exam will be available for pick-up beginning Monday January 12. |
| Dec 10 | Graded Homeworks 7 and 8 (and solutions for Homework 8) should be available for pick-up during office hours beginning Monday December 15. |
| Dec 10 | In the lead-up to the final exam, office hours will be held daily from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., except Wednesday December 17, when they will run from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. (Should any of these hours have to be changed, an announcement will be posted on this page.) |
| Dec 10 | The final exam will take place in NPB 1002 between 10:00 a.m. and noon on Thursday, December 18. The exam will focus on Chapters 4 and 5 plus all additional material covered in class. (The coverage of Chapter 5 has been limited to Section 5.1 Two-Particle Systems). Please try to arrive in the exam room by 9:55 a.m. and bring writing materials. You may also bring three formula sheets (up to 8½" × 11") and an electronic calculator. No other electronic devices may be used. Any integrals beyond the basic level will be provided on the exam sheet. Spherical harmonics, hydrogenic radial wave functions, and Clebsch-Gordan coefficients will also be provided if needed. |
| Dec 5 | Posted Homework 8 (due December 10). This assignment may be turned in without penalty (and without using a late-penalty waiver) until 5:00 p.m. on Friday, December 12, after which time no credit will be available. |
| Dec 2 | Extended office hours: Wednesday December 3 10:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m. and Thursday December 4 10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m. |
| Nov 26 | Many students missed today's class due to the upcoming holiday. For your information, the lecture topic was the behavior of a spin in a magnetic field. The material was very similar to that in Griffiths Section 4.4.2 through the middle of page 182. However, the treatment of precession covered the more general case mentioned in footnote 33 on page 180, starting with a = cos(θ0/2) exp(-iφ0/2) and b = sin(θ0/2) exp(iφ0/2). |
| Nov 24 | Posted Homework 7 (due December 5). |
| Nov 19 | Students can pick up the graded Exam 2 from 2162 NPB between 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. on Thursday. Exams not collected on Thursday will be distributed in class on Friday. |
| Nov 17 | Extended office hours today: 10:30 a.m.–8:00 p.m. |
| Nov 14 | Posted practice questions for Exam 2 and their solutions. |
| Nov 12 | Mid-term Exam 2 will take place in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Building A, room 303 between 8:20 and 10:10 p.m. on Monday, November 17. The exam will address material covered in the course through the end of Chapter 3 and through Homework 6 Question 2. Please try to arrive in the exam room by 8:15 p.m. and bring writing materials. You may also bring two formula sheets (up to 8½" × 11"). No electronic devices, including calculators, may be used. Any integrals beyond the basic level will be provided on the exam sheet. |
| Nov 12 | Extended office hours: Wednesday November 12 10:30 a.m.–6:00 p.m. and Thursday November 13 noon–5:00 p.m. |
| Nov 5 | Posted Homework 6 (due November 14). |
| Nov 5 | Extended office hours: Wednesday November 5 10:30 a.m.–1:00 p.m. and Thursday November 6 noon–5:30 p.m. (The Thursday times are different from those announced in class today.) |
| Oct 30 | Homework 5 has been updated to specify in Question 1 that E2 > E1. |
| Oct 29 | Assigned Homework 5 (due November 7). |
| Oct 21 | Extended office hours: Wednesday October 22 10:30 a.m.–3:00 p.m. and 4:00–5:30 p.m.; and Thursday October 23 11:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m. |
| Oct 15 | Assigned Homework 4 (due October 23). |
| Oct 8 | As announced in the syllabus, there will be no class on Friday, October 10. Instead, you should read Appendix A of Griffiths, which reviews the linear algebra of finite-dimensional vectors and matrices with complex entries. (For now, you should take "|v>" to be synonymous with the more conventional vector notation "v", and equate the inner product "<u|v>" with the vector dot product "u⋅v".) You will assumed to be familiar with this material when we move on to Chapter 3. |
| Oct 8 | Returned Homework 3. |
| Oct 6 | Distributed solutions to Homework 3. |
| Oct 4 | Posted solutions to practice questions for Exam 1. |
| Oct 3 | Extended office hours: Monday October 6 10:30 a.m.–8:00 p.m. |
| Oct 1 | Extended office hours: Wednesday October 1 10:30 a.m.–5:00 p.m. and Thursday October 2 10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m. |
| Oct 1 | Posted practice questions for Exam 1. |
| Oct 1 | Mid-term Exam 1 will take place in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Building A, room 303 between 8:20 and 10:10 p.m. on Monday, October 6. The exam will address material covered in the course through the end of class on Monday, September 29 (i.e., through the discussion of stationary states of the step potential) and through Homework 3. Please try to arrive in the exam room by 8:15 p.m. and bring writing materials. You may also bring one formula sheet (up to 8½" × 11"). No electronic devices, including calculators, may be used. Any integrals beyond the basic level will be provided on the exam sheet. |
| Oct 1 | Homework 3 clarification: In question 1(a), you should not make use of <p>=m d<x>/dt. |
| Sep 26 | Each student will receive two (rather than one) waiver from the penalities for late submission of homework. |
| Sep 26 | The deadline for on-time submission of Homework 3 has been extended to the beginning of class on Friday, October 3. |
| Sep 26 | Returned Homework 2. Figures connected with Question 2: (1) Numerical solutions for ψa, ψb, and ψc defined in the question. (2) Numerical solutions for a higher-energy state for a much larger value of v. |
| Sep 24 | Today's office hour from 10:30–11:00 a.m. has been canceled. Students with questions are welcome to stop by NPB 2162 any time between 1:00 and 5:00 p.m. |
| Sep 24 | Assigned Homework 3 (due October 1). |
| Sep 17 | Extended office hours: Wednesday September 17 10:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m. and Thursday September 18 10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m. |
| Sep 12 | Assigned Homework 2 (due September 19). |
| Sep 12 | Returned Homework 1. |
| Aug 29 | Assigned Homework 1 (due September 5). |
| Aug 25 | First class. Distributed course syllabus. |