Syllabus for Ph136a, Fall Term 2020/21
The class is nominally intended to cover Chapters 1-12 of the textbook developed for this course by Roger Blandford and Kip Thorne. Reports from instructors in recent years indicate that students thought (often incorrectly, based on homework difficulties!) that they knew the Stat Mech material (Chapters 5-7), and were keener on other topics. However the class vote in 2020 was to cover stat mech, and skip elasticity, so the 2020 plan is to cover Chapters 1-2 (tensors, geometric special relativity), Chapters 3-5 (Kinetic Theory/Stat Mech and Thermodynamics), Chapter 6 (stochastic processes), 7-9 (geometric, diffractive optics and coherence), [not sure if time for Chapter 10, nonlinear optics]. This I hope would leave a little time for a few fun applications.
Important Dates
Sept 30 - first class
Oct 16 -Last day to add classes
Oct 28-Nov 3 - midterm exam period (this course will not have a midterm)
Nov 18 -Last day to drop or P/F classes
Dec 2 - Last lecture
Thurs Dec 10 - Final exam due 5:00pm
| 1 | 09/30 | Geometric Physics, Tensors, Ch 1 | |
| 2 | 10/5, 10/07 | Tensors, Stress Ch 1 | |
| 3 | 10/12, 10/14 | Spacetime Tensors, Ch 2, Kinetic Theory Ch 3 | |
| 4 | 10/19, 10/21 | Kinetic Theory, Ch 3, Stat Mech Ch 4 | |
| 3 | 10/12, 10/14 | Stat Mech, Ch 4 | |
| 4 | 10/19, 10/21 | Thermodynamics, Ch 5 | |
| 5 | 10/26, 10/28 | Random Processes, Ch 6 | |
| 6 | 11/02, 11/04 | Fluctuation/Dissipation, Fokker-Planck | |
| 7 | 11/09, 11/11 | Geometric Optics Ch 7 | |
| 8 | 11/16, 11/18 | Photography, Caustic & Catastrophes | |
| 9 | 11/23, 11/25 | Diffraction Ch 8 | |
| 10 | 11/30, 12/02 | Interference and Coherence Ch 9 |
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