Brock University Undergraduate Calendar

Physics Courses

PHYS 0N00

Co-op Work Placement

Optional Co-op placement (4 months) with an approved employer.

Restriction: open to PHYS Co-op students.

PHYS 0N01

Co-op Work Placement I

First co-op placement (4 months) with an approved employer.

Restriction: open to PHYS Co-op students.

PHYS 0N02

Co-op Work Placement II

Second co-op placement (4 months) with an approved employer.

Restriction: open to PHYS Co-op students.

PHYS 0N03

Co-op Work Placement III

Third co-op placement (4 months) with an approved employer.

Restriction: open to PHYS Co-op students.

PHYS 1F20

Physics for Life Sciences

Fundamental classical physics phenomena and concepts: mechanics, optics, electromagnetism and thermal physics.

Lectures, 3 hours per week; problem sessions, 2 hours per week.

Note: a background in elementary algebra and trigonometry is useful. This material should be of interest and use to students who plan to major in the physical or life sciences.

Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade in PHYS 1F25.

PHYS 1F25

Physics, with Laboratory, for Life Sciences

Combines the lectures in PHYS 1F20 with a laboratory session.

Lectures, 3 hours per week; problem sessions, 2 hours per week; lab, alternating weeks, 3 hours per week.

Note: for science students who require an introductory physics course with laboratory but who do not have OAC physics.

Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade in PHYS 1F20.

PHYS 1F90

Principles of Physics

Mechanics, electromagnetism and light.

Lectures, 3 hours per week; problem sessions, 1 hour per week; lab, alternating weeks, 2 hours per week.

Note: OAC physics is strongly recommended. Designed for students intending to major in physics (either as a single major or as part of a combined major), chemistry, mathematics or computer science. Credit in PHYS 1F90 is preferred for entry into all year 2 PHYS courses.

PHYS 1P10

Fluids, Heat and Light

(also offered as ENVI 1P10)

Newton's laws and their consequences: work-energy relationship, energy conservation, momentum-impulse relationship and momentum conservation. Application of Newton's laws to fluids: fluids in equilibrium (pressure and Pascal's principle, surface tension and capillary action); fluids in motion (Bernoulli's equation, viscosity, turbulent flow); principles of centrifuge. Heat and heat flow, phase-changes, heat pumps/refrigeration. Wave nature of light.

Lectures, 3 hours per week; tutorial, 1 hour per week.

Restriction: open to OEVI and ENVI (ENVS) (single or combined) majors or permission of the instructor.

PHYS 2P20

Introductory Mechanics

Mechanics of particles and systems of particles by the Newtonian method; conservation of linear momentum, angular momentum and energy; elementary dynamics of rigid bodies; oscillators; motion under central forces; selected applications.

Lectures, problem sessions, 3 hours per week; lab and tutorial, 3 hours per week.

Prerequisites: one of PHYS 1F20, 1F25, 1F90 (preferred); MATH 1P01 (1P93) and 1P02 (1P94).

PHYS 2P31

Electronics

Conduction in metals and semiconductors; circuit analysis; semiconductor junction, diode and transistor; rectification, switching and amplification; digital and linear integrated circuits; electrical measurement instruments.

Lectures, lab, 6 hours per week.

Prerequisites: one of PHYS 1F20, 1F25, 1F90; one MATH credit or permission of the instructor.

Note: laboratory will include student exercises and instructor demonstration. No previous course in electricity/magnetism/electronics is required. Secondary school algebra and some basic calculus will be used in the quantitative sections.

PHYS 2P50

Modern Physics

Special relativity, photons, the wave-particle aspects of electromagnetic radiation and matter; introduction to wave mechanics; the hydrogen atom and atomic line spectra; orbital and spin angular momenta; lasers.

Lectures, tutorial, 4 hours per week.

Prerequisites: one of PHYS 1F20, 1F25, 1F90 (preferred); MATH 1P01 (1P93) and 1P02 (1P94) (1F00).

PHYS 2P51

Introduction to Classical and Modern Optics

Geometrical and wave optics, reflection, refraction, lenses, matrix methods, aberrations, gradient index phenomena including fibre optics, interference, coherence, holography, Fraunhofer and Fresnel diffraction, polarization.

Lectures, 3 hours per week; lab, 3 hours per week.

Prerequisites: one of PHYS 1F20, 1F25, 1F90 (preferred); MATH 1P01(1P93) and 1P02 (1P94).

PHYS 2P92

Introductory Electronics and Solid-state Devices Laboratory

Laboratory instruments, noise and cross-talk; passive filters; Thevenin equivalents; time and frequency response; Bode plots; junction diodes and rectification; operational amplifiers; active filters; lock-in amplifiers; combinatorial logic gates; sequential logic counters.

Lab, 3 hours per week.

Prerequisites: one of PHYS 1F20, 1F25, 1F90; one MATH credit or permission of the instructor.

Note: normally taken concurrently with PHYS 2P31.

PHYS 3P20

Classical Mechanics

An advanced treatment of the mechanics of particles and of rigid bodies; Lagrangian and Hamiltonian methods; Poisson brackets, applications to the theory of small oscillators and central force motions, elements of chaotic motions.

Lectures, 3 hours per week; tutorial, alternating weeks, 2 hours per week.

Prerequisites: PHYS 2P20 and MATH 2F05 (2F95).

PHYS 3P35

Electromagnetism I

Electric field, divergence and curl of electrostatic field; relation between electric work and energy; conductors; application of Laplace's and Poisson's equation in electrostatics; electrostatic field in matter; field in polarized object and linear dielectric.

Lectures, 3 hours per week.

Prerequisite: MATH 2F05 (2F00 or 2F95).

Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade in PHYS 2P30.

PHYS 3P36

Electromagnetism II

Magnetostatics, divergence and curl of magnetic field; magnetic vector potential; magnetic field in matter; magnetization; field of magnetic object; magnetic field inside of linear and non-linear media; electrodynamics; Ohm's law; Faraday's law and Maxwell equations; energy and momentum in electrodynamics; electromagnetic waves.

Lectures, 3 hours per week.

Prerequisite: PHYS 3P35.

Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade in PHYS 3P30.

PHYS 3P41

Statistical Physics I

Introduction to probability distribution functions, accessible states, entropy, temperature, partition functions and relations to thermodynamic functions.

Lectures, 3 hours per week, tutorial, 1 hour per week.

Prerequisite: PHYS 2P50.

PHYS 3P70

Introduction to Wave Mechanics

Wave particle dualism, Schrodinger equation, solution of simple one-dimensional barrier problems and the harmonic oscillator, hydrogen atom, angular momentum theory, introduction to perturbation theory and variational methods.

Lectures, lab/problem sessions, 4 hours per week.

Prerequisites: PHYS 2P50 and MATH 2F05 (2F95).

PHYS 3P91

Experimental Physics I

Laboratory experiments to be selected from atomic physics, nuclear physics, solid state physics.

Lab, 1 day per week.

Prerequisites: PHYS 2P20 and 3P35 or permission of the instructor.

PHYS 3P92

Experimental Physics (Electronics) II

Operational amplifiers, converters, switches, microcomputers and their application to physical measurements.

Lab, 1 day per week.

Prerequisite: PHYS 2P31 or permission of the instructor.

PHYS 3P93

Solid-State Devices

Principles of operation of solid-state devices, from the point of view of the quantum theory; electronic bands and conduction in semiconductors; operation and manufacture of silicon and germanium diodes, junction and field effect transistors; thin-film deposition technology; special topics.

Lectures, lab, 6 hours per week.

Prerequisites: PHYS 3P70.

PHYS 4F50

Quantum Mechanics

Operator formalism, Hilbert space, Dirac's transformation theory, matrix mechanics, creation and annihilation operators, second quantization, variational method, perturbation theory, scattering theory.

Lectures, 4 hours per week.

Prerequisites: PHYS 3P70 and MATH 3P08 and 3P09 (3F94).

Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade in PHYS 4P51.

PHYS 4F90

Research Project I

Small experimental, theoretical or applied physics research project to be carried out under the supervision of a member of the department.

Restriction: open to PHYS (single or combined) majors with either a minimum of 14.0 overall credits, a minimum70 percent major average and a minimum 60 percent non-major average or approval to year 4 (honours).

Note: the project may, under special circumstances, be started in the summer months. Students must consult with the Department Chair regarding their proposed program during the first week of lectures.

PHYS 4F91

Research Project II

Small experimental, theoretical or applied physics research project to be carried out under the supervision of a member of the department.

Restriction: open to PHYS (single or combined) majors with either a minimum of 14.0 overall credits, a minimum 70 percent major average and a minimum 60 percent non-major average or approval to year 4 (honours) and permission of the department.

Prerequisite: PHYS 4F90.

Note: the project may, under special circumstances, be started in the summer months. Students must consult with the Department Chair regarding their proposed program during the first week of lectures. PHYS 4F90 and 4F91 may be taken concurrently.

PHYS 4P30

Electromagnetic Waves

Electromagnetic wave propagation in vacuum, dielectrics, conductors and ionized gases; reflection, refraction, polarization at the plane boundary between two media; wave guide and transmission line propagation; dipole and quadrupole radiation fields; antenna systems; electromagnetic radiation pressure; transformation of the electromagnetic fields.

Lectures, problem sessions, 3 hours per week.

Prerequisites: PHYS 3P35, 3P36 and MATH 3P08 and 3P09 (3F94).

PHYS 4P41

Statistical Physics II

Fundamental postulates, equilibrium statistical mechanics and its relation to thermodynamics. Maxwell-Boltzmann, Bose-Einstein and Fermi-Dirac statistics are derived and applied in appropriate physical situations of non-interacting and interacting particles; fluctuations; elementary treatment of transport theory.

Lectures, 3 hours per week, tutorial, 1 hour per week.

Prerequisites: PHYS 3P41, 3P70, MATH 3P08 and 3P09 (3F94).

PHYS 4P51

Quantum Mechanics I

Postulates about states, observables, probabilities, change of state in a measurement, and time evolution. Dirac's bra and ket notation; reprereutation and transformation theory. Two-level systems. Complete set of commuting observables and classification of states. Symmetries and their usage in classification of states.

Lectures, 3 hours per week.

Restriction: open to PHYS Co-op students with a minimum of 14.5 overall credits.

Prerequisite: PHYS 3P70, MATH 3P08 and 3P09.

Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade in PHYS 4F50.

PHYS 4P61

Nuclear Physics

Intrinsic properties of nuclei, nuclear binding energy; qualitative treatment of shell model; alpha, beta and gamma radioactivities, nuclear fission, characteristics of nuclear reactions.

Lectures, problem sessions, 3 hours per week.

Prerequisites: PHYS 2P50 and 3P70.

PHYS 4P70

Condensed Matter Physics I

Crystal structures and crystal binding; the vibration of atoms in solids and the thermodynamics of solids; introduction to transport properties of solids.

Lectures, 3 hours per week, tutorial, 1 hour per week.

Prerequisite: PHYS 3P70.

PHYS 4P71

Condensed Matter Physics II

Energy bands in metals and semiconductors, lattice vibrations, transport properties of solids, magnetism, defects in solids.

Lectures, 3 hours per week, tutorial, 1 hour per week.

Prerequisite: PHYS 4P70.

PHYS 4P92

Advanced Electronics Laboratory

Families of logic devices, selection and implementation techniques; synchronous and asynchronous sequential circuits; safety and physical constraints; programmable array logic designs; digital signal processing, optoelectronics; CAD; circuit layout.

Lab, 1 day per week.

Prerequisite: PHYS 3P92.

Note: completion of a project from design to a working device is required.

PHYS 4V80-4V89

Special Topics

Examples of topics are relativity and cosmology; surface physics and electronic states in ordered and disordered systems.

Lectures, problem sessions, 4 hours per week.

Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade in PHYS 4P80.