What is “Modern Physics”?
“Modern” physics means physics based on the two major breakthroughs of the early the twentieth century: relativity and quantum mechanics.Physics based on what was known before then (Newton’s laws, Maxwell’s equations, thermodynamics) is called “classical” physics.
This course traces in some detail just how the new ideas developed. We examine the experimental and theoretical paradoxes that forced thinking out of the traditional path. This is a valuable exercise—the classical ideas are in much better accord with common sense (defined by Einstein as the layer of prejudices in place by age eighteen), so seeing how the new physics came about is helpful in overcoming that “common sense” and getting a better understanding of nature.
But this is not just a course on concepts: the lectures and homework are sufficient to give the student a basic technical grasp of special relativity, and of Schrödinger’s quantum mechanics.
