Physics (course of study)
This page is about a course of academic study at Knox. For the student band, see Physics (band).
Physics is a course of study offered through the Physics Department. It includes the physics major and minor. The department is located in SMC.
Contents
Overview[edit]
The physics major is one of the hardest majors at Knox. Through the study of physics, we attempt to understand the mechanisms which govern the properties of everything, including Chemistry (whose properties in turn govern Biology and so forth). In this way, physics is obscenely generalized and difficult to understand for some, exceeded in complexity only by pure mathematics and snowflakes.
Faculty[edit]
Current[edit]
Knox has four physics professors, all experimentalists, principally. They are
- Mark Shroyer, Department Chair, specializing in nuclear quadrapole magnetic resonance
- Thomas Moses, Professor of Physics, specializing in liquid crystals
- Nathalie Haurberg, Associate Professor of Physics, specializing in Astrophysics
- Charles Schulz, Professor Emeritus, specializing in Mossbauer Spectroscopy
Former[edit]
Nasser Nafari - was unliked and believed that he should run the department. Returned to Iran to do "research" on nuclear physics.
Richard Reno - was another unliked professor who apparently was Schulz's professor at one time. Mostly taught the intro physics sequence, astronomy and digital electronics.
Courses[edit]
The Senior Seminars are the courses that kill you, especially when there's only 3 people in the class and one of them is Jordan Watkins, who is way smarter than you. Each year there are senior seminars offered in:
- Analytical Mechanics
- Quantum Mechanics
- Electrodynamics
The spring 2007 section the Quantum Mechanics senior seminar was taken by only two students, Fahim Chandurwala and Tenzing Shaw . The pair also took at the same time a half-credit independent study in Partial Differential Equations. The instructor for both courses is Tom Moses, arguably one of the most intelligent professors at Knox.
Course Requirements[edit]
See department page
Notable Physics Quotations[edit]
- "You can always tell the particles apart, in principle - just paint one of them red and the other blue, or stamp identification numbers on them, or hire private detectives to follow them around. But in quantum mechanics the situation is fundamentally different: You can't paint an electron red, or pin a label on it, and a detective's observations will inevitably and unpredictably alter its state, raising doubts as to whether the two had perhaps switched places. The fact is, all electrons are utterly identical, in a way that no two classical objects can ever be. It's not just that we don't happen to know which electron is which; God doesn't know which is which, because there is no such thing as "this" electron, or "that" electron; all we can legitimately speak about is "an" electron." - David J. Griffiths, Introduction to Quantum Mechanics 2nd Ed.
Fun Facts[edit]
- The physics labs underwent a renovation in the summer of 2023, notably replacing the terribly uncomfortable and un-adjustable wooden lab chairs with much improved rolling chairs with foam seats. Relocation of all of the decades-old clutter unearthed in the process is still underway.
- The unofficial Physics Department mascot is a snail named Sam.
