Physics 763 Syllabus, Fall 2020


Instructor:  Professor Henry Greenside     hsg@phy.duke.edu    919-660-2548  
Teaching assistant (TA):  Ms. Xiaoxuan Jian xiaoxuan.jian@duke.edu  


Welcome       Time and Place       Prerequisites       What You Need       Class Policy       Weekly Reading       Grading

Exams       Homeworks       How to Write Homeworks       Getting Help       Important Dates      

763 Home Page     Duke Gradescope     Useful links     Department of Physics

Welcome:

Time and Place

Prerequisites:

What You Need:

  1. There is no required textbook. Weekly reading will be based on some books that are available for free on the Internet (mainly from the second edition of the book Statistical Physics by Lev Landau and Evgeny Lifshitz), on some book chapters posted on the 763 Sakai webpage, and on some journal articles also posted on the course Sakai website.

    Because Physics 763 assumes that you are already familiar with and have mastered key concepts of statistical physics at the undergraduate level, you should own a hard copy of an undergraduate textbook on statistical physics so that you can review basic concepts and examples as needed. One textbook used in many American undergraduate stat mech courses is "Thermal Physics" by Daniel Schroeder. Some other books are listed in the 763 links webpage.

  2. Because teaching and discussions will be done online and because homeworks will be uploaded and graded as electronic files, it will be greatly helpful if you have a tablet and digital stylus that can connect to Zoom so that you can write and draw information to share with the instructor or with the teaching assistant. An older 12.9" iPad Pro with 32 GB or more of RAM and an Apple Pencil will be fine.

  3. A computer with access to the Internet and a modern browser like Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. You will need to access email, the 763 webpage, the Duke Sakai website, and the course Piazza website.

    Your computer should have a webcam and microphone so that you can participate in the class Zoom sessions and have one-on-one Zoom sessions with Professor Greenside and with the TA.

  4. The Mathematica program installed on your computer. Homework assignments will occasionally require you to execute, or to make some modest changes to and then execute, previously written Mathematica notebooks. Information about how to do this will be provided during the semester. As a Duke student, you can download and install a free copy of Mathematica from the OIT software licensing webpage.

Class Policy

Weekly Reading

Grading

Midterm and Final Exams

Homework Assignments

How to Write Your Homeworks

Getting Help

Important Dates



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