Physics 2D
Introduction to the Physics of the Twentieth Century
Dr. David A. Rabson

The subject of this course is the physics of the twentieth century. One could say that it really starts 18 days before the beginning of the century with Max Planck's presentation to the German Physical Society (14 December 1900), but we shall not quibble. A large portion of the course will be devoted to quantum mechanics, but a survey of applications, rather than the formalism, will serve as our goal. Since many students taking Physics 2D will also have interests in the fields of electrical and nuclear engineering and in medical instrumentation, we will spend a little more time than traditional "modern-physics" courses on semiconductor devices and perhaps a little less on elementary-particle theory, astrophysics, and relativity. These are all fascinating and worthwhile topics, but I find it difficult to treat them seriously without spending a whole course on each; textbooks at this level are mostly reduced to unsatisfying qualitative descriptions and pretty pictures.

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