Module Identifier PH17010  
Module Title CONCEPTS IN PHYSICS  
Academic Year 2000/2001  
Co-ordinator Dr Tudor Jenkins  
Semester Semester 2  
Other staff Dr Andrew Evans, Dr David Langstaff  
Pre-Requisite Normal entry requirements for part 1 Physics  
Co-Requisite None  
Mutually Exclusive None  
Course delivery Lecture   18 lectures  
  Workshop   3 workshops  
Assessment Continuous assessment     100%  

Brief description
A number of topics in modern physics are described, each illustrating an important idea in Physics, and each used to develop techniques of problem solving. After introducing the concept of measurement and the analysis of errors the technique of dimensional analysis is used to check equations and to investigate relationships. The ability to make order-of-magnitude estimates is then developed and used to tackle a wide range of problems with examples taken from radio, optical and X-ray regions of the electro-magnetic spectrum.

Learning outcomes
After taking this module students should be able to:

Additional learning activities
None

Outline syllabus
The Electromagnetic Spectrum is taken as an overall concept. The syllabus will be divided up into three sections:

The Electromagnetic Spectrum.
Propagation of electromagnetic energy - the wave and photon picture.

a) optical spectrum
Sources of visible light.
The LASER and the special properties of laser light
Types of laser with some practical demonstrations of argon ion and semiconductor systems.
The coherence of light.
Use of coherence properties of lasers - speckle phenomena and holography.
Optical waveguiding - optical fibres, integrated optics and the route to optical computers.

b) high energy electromagnetic spectrum (x-rays and gamma-rays)
properties of x-rays and g-rays (energy, wavelength, ionisation, attenuation)
production of x-rays (x-ray tubes, synchrotron radiation)
production of g-rays (radioactive decay, annihilation)
detection of x-rays and g-rays (gas ionisation and solid state detectors)
application of x-rays and g-rays (diffraction, spectroscopy, imaging,
radio-therapy)

c) radio spectrum
radio transmission, modulation and demodulation
radio astronomy
radio sources in the universe

Reading Lists
Books
** Recommended Text
W.G. Rees. Physics by Example. Cambridge University Press 0-521-44975-8
Louis Lyons. Data Analysis for Physical Science Students. Cambridge University Press 0-521-42463-1
P.A. Tipler. Physics for Scientists and Engineers. Freeman Worth 1-57259-673-2
Keller, Gettys and Skove. Physics, Classical and Modern. McGraw-Hill