1. Physics 2213A Modern Physics
Professor Rick Trebino
Howey Physics Building
Room N011
Class time: MWF 2-3
Office hours: after class, especially Wed. & Fri.
Or me.
In a crisis, call my cell phone
Class TA: Patrick Chang (404) ; TA Office hours: 2-4pm the day before each homework due date and quiz in Howey Physics Building E05.

2. Modern Physics is awesome!
Now that you’ve gotten the boring physics courses out of the way, we can do the fun stuff!
Modern Physics will take you from the 19th century up to the 21st! It’s all the great ideas that have changed the way we look at the world!
Image from

3. But Modern Physics is very difficult!
We’ll be studying
Special Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and General Relativity.
The great scientific revolutions of the 20th century!
Guess who was responsible for them...
Albert Einstein ( )

4. Bedtime reading
Course required texts: Modern Physics for Scientists and Engineers (3rd or 4th ed.) by Thornton & Rex
Schaum’s Outline: Optics by Eugene Hecht
Other helpful books:
Optics, 4th ed., Eugene Hecht
Introduction to Modern Optics, G.R. Fowles (~$15)
A Student’s Guide to Fourier Transforms, J.F. James (about $3 if used!)
Modern Physics, Bernstein, et al. (Prentice-Hall)
Modern Physics, Krane (Wiley)
Modern Physics for Scientists and Engineers, Taylor, et al (Prentice Hall)
Physics for Scientists and Engineers, extended version, Tipler (Freeman)
Modern Physics, Serway, et al (Brooks Cole)
Modern Physics, Ohanian (Prentice Hall)
Concepts of Modern Physics, Beiser (McGraw-Hill)

5. Course topics Topic Reading
1. Overview—the revolutions of 20th century physics
2. Sound and light waves Hecht Ch 1
3. Interference Hecht Ch , 6.5
4. The Fourier transform Hecht Ch
5. Diffraction Hecht Ch
6. The birth of modern physics TRex Ch 1
7. Special relativity 1 TRex Ch 2
8. Special relativity 2 TRex Ch 2
9. Special relativity 3 TRex Ch 2
10. The basis of quantum mechanics TRex Ch 3
11. Structure of the atom—the Bohr atom TRex Ch 4
12. Quantum mechanics 1 TRex Ch 5
13. Quantum mechanics 2 TRex Ch 6
14. The hydrogen atom TRex Ch 7
15. Quantum weirdness
16. Societal context
17. Atomic physics TRex Ch 8
18. Molecules TRex Ch 10
19. Blackbodies and lasers
20. Nuclei TRex Ch 12
21. Particle physics TRex Ch 14
22. General relativity TRex Ch 15
23. Cosmology TRex Ch 16

6. Stuff you should know to take this course
y (Imaginary)
x (Real) P
y = A sin(j)
x = A cos(j) j A
Complex numbers
Trigonometry
Physics I and II
Calculus (integration and differentiation)
Some differential equations (I’ll usually solve them for you, but it’s important that you not be afraid of them!)

7. Long live trees!
This class is as paperless as humanly possible. I’ll tell you news in class and put homework assignments and other news on my web site:
Please write this web site URL down now, and don’t forget it! Everything you’ll need for this class will be there!
We’ll also use T-Square, where you can check your homework and quiz scores.

8. My lectures are on the web.
All my lectures will also be on my web site:
Please download and read them before class, so you don’t have to take as many notes in class.
And I usually improve them after class, so consider checking them again a day or so after class for the most up-to-date versions.

10. How to view the lecture files
They’re Microsoft Power Point files.
If you have Power Point, you’re set.
If not,
Just download the free Windows program, Power Point Viewer.
Power Point is built into the SkyDrive, where the files reside.
For a tablet (iPad or Android), download the free app Onlive Desktop, which allows you to run Power Point remotely. Onlive Desktop will also soon be available for the Mac and PC.
In the meantime, for a Mac, you can download BlueStacks, a free program that runs Android apps on the Mac and PC. And then download Onlive Desktop for Android.
Or for a Mac, purchase Parallels ($50), Windows ($100), and MS Office Simultaneously run both Mac and Windows apps.

11. Homework
Homework will be due on the date in the title of the HW file at the beginning of class at the upstairs entrance to the classroom, where the TA will collect it— not under my door.
The TA will try to grade and return the homework within a few days. I require that the TA return all homework by the class before any quiz, and he will go over the homework in class on the class day before each quiz.
Everyone will be allowed to turn in one assignment late ( our TA, who will keep track of this; please don’t me about this).
You can work with your classmates on homework (I encourage you to do so!), but write it up yourself.
HW problems shouldn’t re-quire many pages each, so if you’re having trouble, talk to the TA or me.

12. Quizzes and other detestable stuff
There will be 3 quizzes, all closed book. No notes or calculators will be allowed. You won’t need to remember complex equations or do complex computations. Quizzes will emphasize concepts, not math.
Quiz dates: Wednesday, Sept Friday, Oct Wednesday, Nov. 28
I’ll count your worst quiz score for only half as much as your other two (the weights will be 20%, 20%, and 10%), so, if you’re having a bad day on quiz day, it won’t hurt quite as much.
Grading: Quizzes: 50% Homework: 25% Final: 25%

13. If class attendance falls off, we’ll use the Turning Point clickers.
If I decide to use them, I’ll announce it in class three times and place this information on the web site a week in advance.
If you have any problems with them, Chaohua Ou
For additional information, check out

14. Grading if we use the clickers
I’ll still count your worst quiz score for only half as much as your other two (the weights will then be 18%, 18%, and 9%).
Grading: Quizzes: 45% Homework: 20% Final: 20% Clicker questions: 15%

15. The Importance of Having Class
Now, I know you’ll be tempted to skip class and just download the lectures. This is fine if you only do it occasionally. But you should come to class because there’s a lot that I’ll say that won’t be in the Power Point files. And which will be on the quizzes.
In the past, people who have skipped a lot of classes have received very bad grades. Conversely, people who’ve come to most or all of the classes nearly always receive A’s and B’s.

16. No one’s perfect. So we give lots of partial credit.
But you must say what you’re doing! Write a lot of text in addition to equations in your homework and quizzes.

17. Modern Physics has very some unintuitive ideas.
In fact, this course will hit you with more unintuitive ideas than any other course you’ll ever take. The goal is simply to expose you to them, and later courses will cover them in more detail.
To help, in my lectures, I’ve put equations that you need to remember in white boxes with colored borders. Plain white boxes indicate that it’s an important equation, but you don’t need to remember it.

18. Don’t worry if you don’t understand all of the ideas in this course.
We’re covering all of physics!
And my teaching style is to tell you more than you need to know to inspire you and give you a sense for what’s to come.
And besides, no one actually understands all of modern physics!

19. Understanding the ideas of each lecture requires the knowledge of the previous lectures.
If you keep up, you won’t end up looking like this the night before the quizzes!
Finally, this course is difficult! We’re covering some of the most difficult ideas in science!
Image from (I don’t recommend this site for anything other than this picture.)