SCI 121 Introduction to Physics and Chemistry

Content

SCI 121 offers an introduction to Physics and Chemistry, with an emphasis on the first one. This course will guide you through many of the standard topics dealt with in such an introduction course. The following topics will be discussed: Newton’s laws, forces, work and kinetic energy, potential energy and conservation of energy, conservation of linear momentum, rotation and angular momentum. Finally, Kepler’s laws will be discussed. The course continues with Thermodynamics. The following topics will be discussed: temperature, kinetic theory of gases, heat and heat capacity, first law of thermodynamics, thermodynamic processes, second law of thermodynamics; entropy. The next part of the course discusses oscillations, waves, interference and diffraction: topics that will be discussed are: wave motion, superposition of waves, interference and diffraction, wave equation. The last part of this course focuses on Quantum Mechanics. This part of the course will start with the failures of the classical theories (blackbody radiation, photoelectric effect) and the guesses done to tackle these failures (Planck’s hypothesis that energy is quantized and Einstein’s idea of light particles). This leads to the particle-wave duality and to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. We will try to make the Schroedinger Equation plausible and solve it for some well-known problems: the particle-in-a-box problem, the harmonic oscillator, step potential and barrier potential (tunneling) and we will make some steps in solving the Schr¨odinger equation for the hydrogen atom. Finally, using the Pauli exclusion principle, this all leads to the Periodic Table of Elements, which is the end point of this course.

Instructor

Dr. Ir. Richard van den Doel

Track

Physics

Period

Spring / 2008

Course Material

• Physics for Scientists and Engineers, Extended Edition, Paul A. Tipler and Gene Mosca, sixth edition, 2008, published by W.H. Freeman and Company. ISBN-number is 0-7167-8964-2 (Extended Hardback Chs. 1-41)

Prerequisites

The following course is required in order to take this course:

• SCI 111 Mathematical Ideas and Methods in Contexts

Required for

This course is required in order to take the following courses:

• SCI 221 Electromagnetism
• SCI 222 Physical Chemistry
• SCI 223 Chemistry II