Waves

and

Oscillations

A few words about the course

We will study the basics of wave phenomena and oscillatory dynamics in physics, from simple Harmonic oscillator to Quantum wave function and gravitational waves. It is amazing how such simple parts of physics lead to some of the most exciting field of active research today. For more details on the course, see the course syllabus.

Updates

The grades of the final exam are in.

Please come see me for your grades. I'll be in my office between 10-12 and 1:30-3 from Saturday to Tuesday.

Solutions of the last set of assignment

You can find the solutions for the last assignment here. Make sure that you study these solutions for the exam.

Assignemnets were revised.

To further simplify the last assignment, some changes were made. Please make sure that you use the latest version. Also a mathematica notebook is included to help with problem 4. See the assignment section.

Projects for the course

Here you can find a list of projects that you can do for bonus points as well as the howto.

Mid-term exam with Solutions

You can find the mid-term exam with solutions here

If you can't take the mid-term exam

Your final exam and assignments would respectively contribute 13 and 6 marks towards your final grade. If you decide not to take the mid-term exam, you should see me and explain why you cannot take the exam.

New Assignmet set is Posted

Fourth set of assignment is posted. See the assignment. You can submit your assignments here. Please note that this Problem set has only two problems.

Session on Mathematica on Sunday

We will cover some of the basics of working with Mathematica on Sunday.

Course telegram Channel

You can follow us on our channel on telegram. Join here.

Course telegram Group

You can communicate with us through our channel on telegram. Join here.

Resources

Here's a list of books and materials that could be helpful for this course. We may add more material as we proceed.

The Physics of Waves

by Howard Georgi

This will the main source of our course, with a few exceptions that will be pointed out.

Download

waves

By Frank Crawford

This is a classic book for this course. But it's a bit old for my taste.

The Physics of Vibrations and Waves

by Pain

This book also offers a comprehensive overview of wave phenomena. We may refer to this book on some topics.

Video lecture

by Lewin

1.5 hr lectures from an MIT course.

Download

Calendar of the Course

Here you can find all the sessions with what will be covered in each session.

Assignments

Set 1

In this set, you will learn how to work with the phase space and use that to understand the behaviour of couple of interesting examples, such as a nonlinear LC oscillator.

Deadline: 1st of Esfand

Set 2

In this set, you will deal with dissipation and how it would affect the dynamics.

Deadline: 17st of Esfand

You can submit your assignments here.

Set 3

In this set, we will cover the normal modes, symmetry and some other stuff we learned in the past few weeks.

Deadline: 18st of Farvardin

You can submit your assignments here.

Set 4

In this set, we will cover preliminary introductions to Waves, we start with coupled oscillations and add the tranlational invariance in space to see how waves form.

Deadline: 2nd of Ordibehesht

You can submit your assignments here.

Mid-term exam with Solutions

You can find the mid-term exam with solutions here.

Set 5

Deadline: 26th of Khordad

Mathematica Notebook for problem 4

You can submit your assignments here.

You can find the solutions for the last assignment here

Demos

Here are a bunch of demos that I prepare using Mathematica. This should help us play around with different pieces of Physics that we learn in the class to get a better sense of how it all works.

Harmonic Oscillator

No dissipation, no external force, just a simple quadratice potential.

Harmonic Oscillator

No dissipation, no external force, just a simple quadratice potential.

Non-linear Oscillator

Instead of the quadratic potential, consider V(x)=f0|x| and see how the dynamics would look like.

Forced Oscillations

We'll investigate the case where an external force, drives a HO.

H.O. + Dissipation

Now we add some dissipation and see how it changes the oscillations.

The course TAs

Noushin Rasti

MSc student at
Nanoparticles and coating lab

  • TA time: Sunday 16:30-17:30
  • TA location: Physics room 2

    • Mohammadhosein Sharifi

  • TA time: Monday 17:30-18:30
  • TA location: Physics room 1