PHYSICS 9HB

winter 2004


Joe Kiskis

jekiskis@ucdavis.edu


PHYSICS is FUN

(at least occasionally)

Einstein as
young rake

This course uses the honor system. You are on your honor to follow the Code of Academic Conduct.

Documents for the course:

  1. Course goals
  2. Introduction
  3. If your grade in Physics 9HA was C+ or below or if you were not in Physics 9HA, fall 2003, please read this.
  4. How to read physics.
  5. Readings
  6. Problem sets
  7. Labs
  8. A note on Unstable particles.
  9. The pion decay example.
  10. Variational principles and physics.
  11. Lorentz transformation and geometry ppt or pdf.
  12. Four-vector notation and the metric.
  13. The Lorentz transformation in four-vector notation.
  14. Weird units.
  15. Momentum 4-vector notation.
  16. General relativity and cosmology by Dr. R. Harris.
  17. Gravity and Geometry.
  18. Cosmology.
  19. Midterm info.
  20. Winter 2001 midterm.
  21. First law stuff.
  22. Foundations.
  23. Stat. mech. and thermo. main points.
  24. Photon statistical mechanics and blackbody radiation.
  25. Blackbody emission.
  26. More cosmology.
  27. Winter 2001 final.
  28. Final information.
Archive of messages to class list.
The program StatMech from the text author (T. Moore) is available at the bottom of the list of programs on this page.
Great new cosmology data from the MAP spacecraft
The official word on time.
Related interesting articles from The Economist.
Einstein, Person of the Century (Time Magazine).
A Brief History of Relativity by Steven Hawking. This is one of the articles in the Time issue on Einstein. Hawking gives a nice overview of relativity and other topics that we will discuss.
Live events from proton + anti-proton collisions at Fermilab.
Some Cosmology links collected by Professor Albrecht.
Cosmology.
A nice, readable article on inflation by Alan Guth.
A Sober Assessment of Cosmology at the New Millennium by M. Turner
Read about high energy physics (my research area) and, at the same time, do a non-trivial test of our PDF compatability here. (This requires a PDF reader, which can be stand-alone or a plug-in for your browser).