Temperature scales from absolute zero, through Bose-Einstein condensates to the Big Bang. Music: “O Tannenbaum”, “Linus and Lucy” and “Christmas Time is Here” by Vince Guaraldi.
Temperature Scales

I’m sick, so this is the first of two podcasts this week. We go into the Hurry Up, two minute warning, now or never phase for the last third of the time beofre General I. Ten minutes on getting started so we’re all there on Jan. 28. Music: “There is a war”, Leonard Cohen.”Statistical Mechanics” will be posted on Thursday.
Hurry Up

This week: optics. Electromagnetic waves, wave tracing and geometric optics, lenses, f-stop, Fresnel and Frauenhofer differaction, interferometers. Music: “Edward Appleby (In memorium)” by Mark Mothersbaugh, “tcp d2 nnn english irdial” from the Conet Project, Bach, “Cello Suite #1 in G, 2. Allemande”
Optics

“Increasing, decreasing,Decreasing, Increasing,Who the hell caresWhat entropy does?”Classical thermodynamics, the mystery of what heat is, thermodynamic potentials, the four laws, Carnot cycle, ideal gases and polyatrops. Music: “In the Midnight” by Van Morrison and “Loquasto International Film Festival” by Mark Mothersbaugh.
Thermodynamics

Thing one, thing two and thing three: every field boils down to three basic ideas. Some thoughts on how to discover them and what to do with them.
04_ThreeThings_4_5Oct2006.mp3

The basic ideas of quatnum mechanics: de Broglie waves, Stern-Gerlac experiment, Heisenberg uncertainty principle, operators, bra, kets and wave mechanics. Music: “Kite Flying Society” by Mark Mothersbaugh and “In Dreams” by Roy Orbison.
15 Quantum Mechanics

Constants and other numbers which Physics students should know. Numbers are important and not very hard to remember.
Numbers

Introduction