Modern
Physics

Spring 2017
course
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Syllabus

Info

Title Modern Physics
Term Spring 2016
Credits 4
Time Mon, Wed, Fri 9.30-10.30
Place Brown Science/Sci 117A
Level Intermidiate
Faculty Sara Salimbeni
Tutor to be announced

Textbook

Modern Physics 3rd by Krane

Other Useful Books

Physics for Scientist and Engineers by Randall D. Knight - volume 5 (Reserve)
Quantum Physics: A Fundamental Approach to Modern Physics by John Townsend (Reserve)

Student Accessibility

This course will honor all reasonable accommodations for students with documented disabilities. If you have a disability that requires specific accommodation, please contact Catherine O’Callaghan, Assistant Dean of Academic Advising & Support (cocallag@marlboro.edu). Catherine will convene the ADA committee to review documentation and determine what accommodations are warranted. Catherine will then provide a letter to faculty outlining reasonable accommodations. It is your responsibility to engage in this process; i.e., disclose your disability, provide documentation, request accommodations, and deliver the accommodations letter to your faculty.

Course Policies & Grading

Attendance and Participation
Attending the lessons and actively participating in class are essential to successfully pass this course. I understand that emergencies happen in life (illness, family emergencies, religious observance, homework overload etc.), for this reason you are allowed to miss 3 classes without the need of reporting to me. However, your final grade will drop by 2.5 points for each absence beyond the first three. You will not receive any credit for this course if you missed more than a total of 10 classes. Arriving late in class is a disruptive behavior and affects yours and other students' learning experience. Please, come on time to class. Three late arrivals will be considered an absence.
Readings, Participation and Pre-class assignments
I hope you will participate and collaborate with other students during class discussions, group work and experiments, this is the best way of learning the material in this course. You are encouraged to come to class prepared to discuss the material and ask questions. Reading the material is critical for having a productive class time, failing to prepare will affect the learning of you and your classmates. To help you with the reading I will assign pre-class questions that will be discussed during class time. Soon you will be engaged in tutorials where you will have most of the responsibility in leading the tutorial discussions. To prepare you for tutorials, during this course each student will be responsible for facilitating some in class discussions. Readings, quality of participation, pre-class assignments and leading the class discussions are part of your grade (20% of your final grade).
Homework
Homework will be assigned weekly (40% of your final grade). Homework is an essential tool to learn and to receive feedback. For this reason it is important that you hand in your assignments on time. Students are encouraged to work together on the homework assignments. However, your final write-up of the assignment must represent your own understanding; copying another person's work is plagiarism and will result in no credit for that assignment.
You are allowed to review your assignments after my correction for a higher grade. Reviewing an assignment means to redo an exercise you had trouble with from scratch, it does not mean copying the solutions given during the class discussion or the feedback you received on your assignment. This review will help us both to verify your understanding and if further help is needed.

Take-Home tests and Final
In addition to the weekly assignments, there will be two take-home tests (40% of your grade). You are not allowed to collaborate while you are working on the take-home tests or on the final (unless I assign group work).
Late Police for Assignments, Take-Home tests and Final
You have one bonus late assignment to use during the semester in case of emergency, use it wisely. Special arrangements for further late work can be obtained under very special circumstances agreed through prior discussion with me. No late work will be accepted for the Take-Home tests and Final assignments.
If you are late in more than one assignment and we did not agree on any special arrangement this is how I will value your late work:

Plagiarism
Academic Honesty is expected of all scientists, and also of all students. Cheating on homework or the final exam will result in no credit.
If you are not sure on how to use a source, please check this link on the library webpage.
Grading

Grade Letters
The green represents the range of numerical grades that corresponds to the letter grade

Tentative Schedule

The schedule will be finalized with the students during the intro class.
Day Topics ------ ----- Week 1 The Failures of Classical Physics Week 2 The Special Theory of Relativity Week 3 The Special Theory of Relativity Week 4 The Particlelike Properties of Electromagnetic Radiation Week 5 The Wavelike Properties of Particle Week 6 The Schrodinger Equation Week 7 The Schrodinger Equation Week 8 The Rutherford-Bohr Model Week 9 The Hydrogen Atom in Wave Mechanics Week 10 The Hydrogen Atom in Wave Mechanics Week 11 Many Electron Atoms Week 12 Molecular Structure Week 13 Statistical Physics (maybe...not much time for it)
http://cs.marlboro.edu/ courses/ spring2017/modern_physics/ syllabus
last modified Tuesday April 4 2017 5:08 pm EDT