Physics 350 Quantum
Physics Spring
(12) 2008
Instructor: Mark Taylor Office: Gerstacker 118
Phone: 569-5241
email: taylormp
Office Hours: MTWF 1:30-6:00, Sun. 2:00-6:00
Physics Study Session: Thursday evening 6:00-9:00.
Meeting Times: MWF 11:00-12:20; Gerstacker 10
Textbook: Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, 2nd edition, by David Griffiths
Course Overview: Quantum
mechanics is the basic theory that embodies our understanding of the
microscopic world. As we saw in
Physics 320, the theory was born out of a diverse set of experimental results
that were incompatible with a classical mechanics interpretation. Thus far your exposure to quantum theory
has been in the form of wave-mechanics via Schrodinger's equation. This approach is certainly useful for
many calculations and we will make extensive use of it in this course. Unfortunately, that messy partial
differential equation HY=EY tends to obscure a much simpler underlying
formal theory. We will devote some
time to developing this more formal theory in which particle states are
represented by vectors in a Hilbert space and observables are represented by
Hermitian operators. These formal
operator methods can be extremely powerful as we will see when we treat the
harmonic oscillator and angular momentum.
Despite Feynman's famous quip that "nobody understands quantum
mechanics", we'll do our best to figure some of it out. Of course the "true" meaning
of it all is still open to debate and we'll explore some of these issues of
"quantum reality" at the end of the course.
Links to pdf files:
Course Information Sheet Syllabus Gaussian Integrals