Unit MODERN PHYSICS
- Course
- Mathematics
- Study-unit Code
- 55A00111
- Curriculum
- Didattico-generale
- Teacher
- Maurizio Maria Busso
- Teachers
-
- Maurizio Maria Busso
- Hours
- 42 ore - Maurizio Maria Busso
- CFU
- 6
- Course Regulation
- Coorte 2020
- Offered
- 2021/22
- Learning activities
- Affine/integrativa
- Area
- Attività formative affini o integrative
- Academic discipline
- FIS/03
- Type of study-unit
- Opzionale (Optional)
- Type of learning activities
- Attività formativa monodisciplinare
- Language of instruction
- ENGLISH
- Contents
- A GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE PHYSICS OF THE XXTH CENTURY AND TO ITS TEACHING IN THE HIGH SCHOOL
- Reference texts
- MODERN PHYSICS: AN INTRODUCTORY TEXT - PFEFFER & NIR - IMPERIAL COLLEGE
- Educational objectives
- To provide information and tools for the knowledge and teaching of modern physics.
- Prerequisites
- A good knowledge of classical physics.
- Teaching methods
- formal lectures
- Learning verification modality
- oral exams
- Extended program
- 1. Problems with classical physics at end of the XIXth century.
2. The velocity of light, its constancy in vacuo and related problems.
3. Transmitting signals at infinite velocity: the case of Newtonian mechanics and Mack’s criticism to classical physics.
4. Electromagnetic waves and their transported energy. Energy emitted by a hot body and the ultraviolet catastrophe.
5. The Planck’s solution: quantization of energy.
6. Einstein’s hypothesis of the photon and the photoelectric effect.
7. Special relativity and symmetries. The case of Lorentz’s transformations.
8. A few details on special relativity.
9. Progresses in physics across the first years of the XXth century. The Bohr’s hypotheses on the atom. The De Broglie’s wavelength.
10. Einstein and Hilbert. The theory of general relativity.
11. Emmy Noether’s theorem and the foundations of modern physics as a non-purely heuristic science.
12. Experimental and theoretical results toward the understanding of quantum mechanics. W. Pauli’s work: neutrinos and the spin of particles.
13. Problems with equations of waves formulated for matter. The Klein-Gordon’s equation.
14. A non-relativistic approach: the Schroedinger’s equation.
15. Formulation of Quantum Mechanics by Heisenberg and the Copenhaghen interpretation.
16. Relativistic Quantum Mechanics and the work of Paul Dirac.
17. Einstein’s and Bohr’s alternative views. The EPR paradox.
18. Introducing quantum field theories: Richard Friedman and his contemporary colleagues.
19. The Bell’s theorem
20. Hints on the Standard Model and the future of physics, in the light of the difficulties of quantum field theories for gravity.