The following topics and texts were assembled from courses given recently at UNH. Other texts used in Junior and Senior level classes also are appropriate. Be sure to look at one lower level book and one upper level book for each topic. Because texts are so similar, there is no need to look at more than one text at each level; choose whichever you prefer or have access to. But don't forget to look at lower level texts as they have some problems and topics that are not in higher level texts.
Classical Mechanics
TEXTS:
Lower level
- Halliday, Resnick and Walker
- Knight
- Young
Upper level
- Symon
- Marion and Thorton
TOPICS:
- Newtonian Mechanics
- Gravitation
- Lagrangian Mechanics
- Hamiltonian Mechanics
- Scattering
- Rigid Bodies and Rotation
- Small Oscillations
- Central Forces
- Systems of Particles
Electricity and Magnetism
TEXTS:
lower level
- Halliday, Resnick and Walker
- Knight
- Young
upper level
- Lorrain, Corson and Lorrain
- Reitz, Milford and Christy
- Griffiths
- Purcell
TOPICS:
- Electrostatics
- Boundary Value Problems in Electrostatics
- Multipoles, Electrostatics of Macroscopic Media, Dielectrics
- Magnetostatics
- Time Varying Fields, Maxwell Equations, Conservation Laws
- Plane Electromagnetic Waves and Wave Propagation
- Wave Guides and Resonant Cavities
- Simple Radiating Systems
- Special Theory of Relativity
Quantum Mechanics
TEXTS:
Upper level
- Liboff, Introductory Quantum Mechanics
- Ohanian, Principles of Quantum Mechanics
- Griffiths
TOPICS:
- Applying the postulates of QM, uncertainty principle, wave-particle duality, superposition principle
- Eigenfunctions and eigenvalues
- Calculating probabilities and expectation values
- Properties of Hermitian operators
- Dirac notation
- Identical particles
- Spin
- Particle in a 1, 2, or 3 dimensional box
- Simple harmonic oscillator in 1, 2, or 3 dimensions
- Hydrogen atom
- Perturbation theory (time independent, degenerate, time dependent)
- Variational methods
- Scattering
Thermal and Statistical Physics
TEXTS:
Lower level
- Halliday, Resnick and Walker
- Knight
Upper level
- Schroeder
TOPICS:
Energy and the second law
- Ideal gas, entropy
- Heat capacity
- Heat Engines and refrigerators
- Free energy, phase transitions
- Boltzmann statistics, partition function
- Quantum statistics, Bosons and Fermions
Modern Physics
TEXTS:
- Serway, Moses and Moyers (3rd edition).
Chapters 1-6,8,9,13-15 - Krane
TOPICS:
- Interference, Diffraction, Relativity, Wave Nature of Particles
- Quantum Physics, Photons, Electrons, Atoms, Molecules
- Condensed Matter Physics
- Nuclear Physics
- Particle Physics
