Cornell University

Department of Physics

Phys 214 November 13, 2003

Waves, Optics, and Particles, Fall 2003

Homework Assignment # 10

(Due Thursday, November 20 at 5:00pm sharp.)

Agenda and readings for the week of November 17:

Skills to be mastered:

• Be able to compute potential, kinetic and total energy densities and power for a string, given $y(x,t)$

• Understand conservation of energy in wave motion

• Be able to compute electric and magnetic energy densities in an electromagnetic wave

• Be able to compute power flux for a plane E&M wave

• Understand the concept of intensity of an E&M wave and its relation to the power flux and the complex amplitude of the wave.

Lectures and Readings:


Readings marked YF are from the text Young and Freedman, University Physics, 10th edition. Readings marked LN are from the course lecture notes to be found at http://www.muchomas.lassp.cornell.edu/P214.

• Lec 23, 11/18 (Tue): Comment on conservation of momentum and energy for other waves. Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, G.P. Thomson experiment.
  Readings: LN ``Wave Phenomena III: Transport of momentum and energy,'' Sec. 4.2; YF 41-1, 41-3.

• Lec 24, 11/20 (Thu): Analysis of G.P. Thomson experiment, measurement of $\hbar$, de Broglie hypothesis.
  Readings: YF 41-2.

• Lec 25, 11/25 (Tue): Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
  Readings: YF 41-4

• Lec 26, 12/02 (Tue): Particles in a box; Schrödinger's equation.
  Readings: YF 42-1, 42-2, 42-3, 42-4.

• Lec 27, 12/04 (Thu): Three Nobel Ideas.
  Readings: LN ``Feynman Diagrams ...,'' Secs. 3.4, 3.5, 4, 5.

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