I’m currently teaching our sophomore-level modern physics class, which is titled something like “Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and Their Applications.” We’ve finished with the basics of Special Relativity and abstract quantum theory, and have entered the mad sprint through applications (Union is on a trimester calendar, so classes end next week)– three classes on atoms and molecules, three on solid state physics, two on nuclear and particle physics.<\/p>\n
I’ve taught this before, so I have a rough idea of what I want to do in the remaining classes– Wednesday is a lecture on semiconductor quantum dots and superconductivity (two separate topics), Friday is Rutherford scattering and nuclear structure, Monday is radioactivity and maybe a bit of the quark model.<\/p>\n
That leaves two classes, the last two classes of the term. I have a couple of possible lectures from previous iterations of the course, but I’m curious about what other people think. This may be too arcane to be a good audience-participation thread, but it’s worth a shot, so: If you were teaching this course, what would you do with the last two classes?<\/p>\n
Suggested topics:<\/p>\n
Suggested topics need not be able to generate homework problems at the sophomore level– I’ve already got plenty of those sorts of topics, and these lectures will be too close to the final for them to really work on problem-solving. The goal here is to close the course with a couple of gosh-wow lectures that will leave them convinced that modern physics is just the coolest thing ever, and they’d really like to major in it.<\/p>\n
As I said, I already have notes for a couple of closing lectures from previous iterations of the class (I won’t reveal the topics here), but I’m open to suggestions. I won’t promise to actually teach a class based on any of the suggestions, but I will do a blog post containing what I would’ve said if I had. So, suggestions?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m currently teaching our sophomore-level modern physics class, which is titled something like “Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and Their Applications.” We’ve finished with the basics of Special Relativity and abstract quantum theory, and have entered the mad sprint through applications (Union is on a trimester calendar, so classes end next week)– three classes on atoms and… Continue reading Set My Syllabus For Me<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-physics","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}