PHY 256 - Links to videos

Contents

• Preliminary mathematical background/review (for 11 September 2023)

  N.B. Probably you're already familiar with some of these topics, such as complex numbers. Then you may want to fast-forward past the beginning, or even watch the whole thing at double-speed (that's one of the few advantages of videos!).
  But we do get up to some topics (such as Euler's formula and complex exponentials) which you are probably unfamiliar with, so I encourage you to watch those segments.
  Also note the parallel reading assignments -- Appendices B and C are 3.5-page summaries of the basics of complex numbers and matrices, respectively.

  • Pre-lecture vid 1 = Complex Numbers and Euler's Formula (or try via Microsoftstream, which some have told me is better)
  • Pre-lecture vid 2 = Matrices, eigenvalues, and eigenvectors (Adarsh Patri)
  • If you want to see something more technical about fooling around with matrices, give Noah Lupu-Gladstein's video on Rotation matrices and non-commutation in the real world a try! [It's not in any way required for the class.]

• Pre-lecture videos
  • To watch before lecture 2, Wednesday 13 Sep 2023
    • Pre-lecture video 3 = Polarized Light
  • Pre-lecture video 3 = Polarized Light
• To watch before lecture 3, Monday 18 Sep 2023
  • Pre-lecture video 4 = The Photon
  • Pre-lecture video 5 = Polarized photons: an introduction to states and measurements
  • Post-pre-lecture A: What is the sound of half a photon?
• Pre-lecture video 6 = Going in circles (complex polarisations)
  
  • While we won't be explicitly using this material on M18Sep or W20Sep (there will be another pre-lecture video for W20Sep), it complements the reading material from the first chapter, so I recommend watching it sometime the week of the 18th.
    
  • EXTRA CREDIT (not really): although the equations as written are correct, I believe there are one or two places where my mouth got ahead of me and I said "minus one" when I should have said "i," and so forth. Once Microsoft processes the transcript, these will become embarrassingly obvious. I encourage you to find my mistakes and offer the corrections on Piazza for the benefit of your classmates!
• To watch before lecture 4, Wednesday 20 Sep 2023
  • Pre-lecture video 7 = 1st "Conceptual Complement": Interference (part 1)
• To watch before lecture 5, Monday 25 Sep 2023
  • Pre-lecture video 8 = Spins & polarisations
• To watch by Wednesday 27 Sep 2023
  • Pre-lecture video 9 = Observables and operators (towards the axioms)
• Short silent video about unitarity: phase shifts at beam splitters and amplitudes in interferometers
• Another short silent movie about complementarity: momentum, which-path information, and interferometers. Recommended to watch before Mon 2 Oct 2023.
• To watch before class 7, Monday 2 Oct 2023
  • Pre-lecture 10 = Operators, commutators, and uncertainty
• To watch before Monday 9 Oct 2023
  • Pre-lecture 11 = Intro to multi-particle states ("tensor product") spaces)
• To watch before 23 Oct 2023
  • Pre-lecture 12 = Schrödinger's equation continued: momentum and energy eigenstates
• To watch before 20 Nov 2023
  • Pre-lecture 13 = Quantum Reflection and Tunneling
  
  
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