PHY 303: Theoretical Physics I

An introduction to oscillations, waves, light, and Einstein's relativity, one of the two major advances in physics in the 20th century. Topics include: simple harmonic motion, damped oscillations, forced oscillations and resonance, coupled oscillations and normal modes, standing waves and traveling waves, Fourier analysis, sound, dispersion, electromagnetic waves, polarization, Poynting vector, radiation pressure, the generation of electromagnetic waves, scattering, reflection and refraction, geometrical optics, waveguides, interference, and diffraction. Topics in relativity include the postulates of special relativity; consequences for simultaneity, time dilation, and length contraction; Lorentz transformations; relativistic paradoxes; Minkowsky diagrams; invariants and four vectors; relativistic momentum and energy; particle collisions; relativity and electromagnetisms. Required in the field of concentration. Prerequisite: PHY 202. Corequisites: PHY 310, MTH 320. Fall semester.