Instructor: Charles Cunningham
Office: Science 1031, x3182
Research lab: Science 0210, x4372
Email: cunningh@grinnell.edu
Lecture: MWF 11:00 - 11:50 am, Science 1023 (physics lecture room)
Lab: Tu, We, or Th 1:15 - 4:15 pm, Science 1133 (modern physics/waves
lab)
Texts:
Introduction to Wave Phenomena, by Akira Hirose and Karl
Lonngren (HL)
Introduction to Electrodynamics, 3rd Edition, by David
Griffiths (G)
Fundamentals of Physics, 5th Edition, by Halliday, Resnick,
and Walker (HRW)
Physics of Waves, by William Elmore and Mark Heald (EH),
optional
One of the most fascinating things about nature is that a vast
diversity of physical systems have similar behaviors. Among the
most common of these behaviors are harmonic oscillations and waves.
You have already studied harmonic oscillations in a variety of
simple systems, including atoms in a molecule, masses on springs,
and swinging pendula. This semester, we shall see how these oscillations
produce waves, which transport energy and momentum from the oscillator.
We shall study the properties of those waves in mechanical and
electromagnetic systems, emphasizing the common behaviors such
as momentum and energy transport, diffraction and interference
phenomena, coherence and dispersion effects, and superposition.
It is important that you do the assigned reading outside of class
because you cannot learn all the material we will cover in class
by simply attending lecture three times a week. As you will see
on the syllabus, I have assigned readings each week from up to
three different sources. I recommend that you start with HRW,
which will give you a quick refresher/introduction. Then after
you are familiar with the physical effects, read the more advanced
treatments in HL and in G. The optional text EH is written at
a more challenging level than HL, but it treats thoroughly some
topics like Fresnel diffraction that are not covered extensively
in the other texts. Finally I will put my lecture notes on reserve
in the library; while they are not required reading, you may find
them helpful for providing the details of some derivations.
Please buy one of the large brown lab books for use as your lab
notebook so that you can tape in 8.5"x11" sheets of
paper. Waves labs will be run a little less formally than Modern
or Intro labs. While I do expect you to come to your official
lab period so that I can help you get started with your lab, I
don't mind if you want to work on the experiment another day,
or if you want to do the writeup outside of lab. There is a risk,
however, in splitting data acquisition over two days, since another
student may modify the setup in the interim. And you should do
at least some preliminary analysis of your data in lab to make
sure your results make physical sense. I grade lab books over
the weekend, so make sure your work is turned in by Friday at
3 pm.
There will be short homework sets due at every class meeting.
Please do not work on your homework in class. Late homework
sets will not be accepted without prior arrangement. I will
post the keys in the waves lab. Exams will be in-class, closed-book,
closed-notes, calculators allowed. I don't want anyone to feel
rushed on exams, so you may continue working into the lunch hour
if you need to.
Grading:
Unit exams (3 @ 10%) 30%
Final exam 20%
Homework 20%
Lab work 20%
Project 10%