Welcome to Honors 225!

Fall 2019

Max

• HW, Grades, Syllabus, and Schedule, etc.: //max.byu.edu/20195-honrs225/ 

Missing Pages/Corrections from Roots

• Minor errata listed in the syllabus
  • (Some versions of book) pg 29 – The upper part of figure should be labeled "Figure 2.4a. Specular Reflection."
  • (All versions of the book that I've checked) pg 85 – Figures A3.2a and A.3.1b on this page should be switched. The captions and labels are correct as-is, but the images should be switched.
  • (All versions of book) pg 149-150 – The units of specific heat should be J/(kg×K), not J/K as is stated. Also, as a side note, normally a lower case c is used to indicate specific heat instead of an upper case C.
  • (All versions of book) pg 190 – Eq. 3 at the bottom of the page should have an “approximately equals” sign, ≈, instead of an actual equals sign, =.
  • (All versions of book) pg 283 – the last part of endnote 17 should have an “approximately equals” sign, ≈, instead of an actual equals sign, =. That is, e^(1/pi) ≈ 137/100. To be a bit more precise, one could say e^(1/pi) ≈ 137.4802/100
• missing-pages.pdf - Some versions of book are missing most of the text/figures on pages 119, 154, and 186. Here are those pages.
• Bell's function plots.pdf - current and corrected version of Fig 18.5

Handouts

• Study guide for Roots (mainly chapter summaries, with some added info as appropriate): study guide for Roots (chapter summaries).pdf
• Fourier Analysis handout (replacement for Roots Chapter 2 Appendix FOU, to be covered after chapter 7): Fourier Analysis.pdf

Supplementary Material

• Two interfering speaker animations: left, right, combined, combined2, allfour, as shown in lecture
• Video of single photon double-slit experiment: FromPhotonsToWaves.avi, downloaded from this website:  //www.sps.ch/en/articles/progresses/wave-particle-duality-of-light-for-the-classroom-13/
• Images from the first double-slit experiments doing the experiments with individual electrons:  //physicsworld.com/a/the-double-slit-experiment/
• Links to the two quantum simulations from PHET
  • //phet.colorado.edu/en/simulation/legacy/bound-states
  • //phet.colorado.edu/en/simulation/legacy/quantum-tunneling
•  Heisenberg's Microscope - Sixty Symbols (9:11 long). This is the best video I could find about Heisenberg's thought experiment about a microscope, and I actually felt it expressed several things more clearly than Rootsdid... such as the difference between inherent uncertainty in position and momentum that comes from the wavefunction description of matter, and the inherent experimental uncertainty that comes when one tries to experimentally measure a small particle which could conceivably have a well defined position and momentum (which, I think Heisenberg's point was, turns out to exactly match the uncertainty that comes from the wavefunction, to within small numerical factors).
  • Also see part 2 of that video, if you are interested (6:27 long).
• Quantum Computing - The Einstein-Bohr Debates - Extra History - #3 (10:51 long). This is the best video I could find about the 1927 and 1930 Solvay conferences. It's pretty good, but there are some flaws. Two in particular that I noticed are (1) with regards to Einstein's 1930 challenge, the video refers to the "mass" and the "weight" of a photon. That's incorrect. Photons have no mass nor weight. The way it's described in Roots on page 432 is better, which is that the energy of the departing photon creates a loss of measured mass of the box through Einstein's E = mc² equation. (2) It says the Solvay conferences were held every year. That's not quite correct; the Wikipedia article linked to above gives the specific years the Solvay conference has been held (first conference in 1911, most recent in 2017). Also, with regards to the 1927 challenge there's a slight difference between Fig 16.4 and how the video depicts things; the video shows a third slit that precedes the double slit. In this case I suspect the video is correct and Rootsis simplifying things. It doesn't really affect the argument or rebuttal, though, so don't worry about it.
  • Here are the other videos in their Quantum Computing series, if you're interested:
  • Quantum Computing - The Foundation of Everything - Extra History - #1
  • Quantum Computing - Electron Boogaloo - Extra History - #2
  • Quantum Computing - Spooky Action at a Distance - Extra History - #4
  • Quantum Computing - Decoherence - Extra History - #5
  • Quantum Computing - The World of the Future - Extra History - #6