Mon 15:40-17:30 P1 & Wed 15:40-17:30 P1
(*) All lectures and exams will be face-to-face.
Tue 16:30-17:30 P311
(**) In-person visits at other hours will not be admitted.
Concepts of Modern Physics, Arthur Beiser, 6th Edition, McGraw-Hill, 2003
Make sure to read syllabus carefully. See also METU Rules and Regulations Governing Undergraduate Studies
Grading: in-class assignments (ICA) 30%, Midterm (MT) 30%, Final Exam (F) 40% (Total 100).
Letter grades: AA (90), BA (85), BB (80), CB (75), CC(70), DC (65), DD(60), FD(50), FF (0)
Class attendance and participation is mandatory for a passing grade independent of exam results.
By registration, you are assumed to accept the code of ethics & core values of METU and commit to maintain academic honesty and integrity for this course.
Any form of academic misconduct, including cheating in assignments and exams, is prohibited.
Relativity (Ch1) Lecture notes
Feb 19 Time dilation, length contraction, relativistic Doppler effect, Lorentz transformation
Feb 26 Relativistic velocity addition, momentum and energy In-class assignment #1
Particles and waves (Ch 2, 3) Lecture notes
Mar 04 Electromagnetic waves, Blackbody radiation, photoelectric effect, X-rays, gamma rays, Compton scattering,
Mar 11 de Broglie relation, matter waves, Heisenberg uncertainty In-class assignment #2
Atomic Structure (Ch 4) Lecture notes
Mar 18 Nucleus and electron orbits, Atomic spectra, Bohr model and correspondence principle In-class assignment #3
Quantum Mechanics (Ch 5) Lecture notes
Mar 25 Schrodinger equation, operators and expectation values, particle in a box, orthogonality, completeness In-class assignment #4
Apr 01 Finite square well, tunneling, quantum harmonic oscillator In-class assignment #5
Apr 08 National Holiday
Quantum Theory of the Hydrogen Atom (Ch 6) Lecture notes
Apr 15 Schrodinger equation in 3D, separation of variables Midterm (Ap. 15 15:30-17:30 P1)
Apr 22 Hydrogen atom and quantum numbers, angular momentum, Zeeman effect In-class assignment #6
Many-Electron Atoms (Ch 7) Lecture notes
Apr 29 Selection rules, spin, exchange symmetry, Fermions and Bosons In-class assignment #7
May 06 Periodic table, atomic structure, spin-orbit coupling, addition of angular momentum In-class assignment #8
Molecules (Ch 8) Lecture notes
May 13 Bonding, electron sharing, Hydrogen molecule, hybridization, rotations and vibrations In-class assignment #9
Statistical Mechanics (Ch. 9) Lecture notes
May 20 Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution, equipartition theorem, quantum statistics, photon gas In-class assignment #10
May 27 Phonon gas, specific heat, Fermi-Dirac distribution and electron gas In-class assignment #11
Final Exam (June 14, 9:30-11:30, U2-U3)
Makeup Exam (TBD)
(***)The content outlined is subject to change depending on our pace in this semester.
Barton Zwiebach's Quantum Physics I lectures from MIT
Some lectures are a little more advanced than this course but most of them are easy to follow.
David Kaiser's Einstein, Oppenheimer, Feynman: Physics In The 20th Century lectures from MIT
Less technical and more entertaining with historical aspects but still contains important physics