DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE
PHYSICS 212A
MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS
Fall 1997
Professor Dennis Silverman
- Office: Frederick Reines Hall 2174
- Phone: 824-5149
- E-mail: djsilver@uci.edu
- Office Hours: Mondays and Wednesdays, 2:30-3:30 in FRH-2174
.
- Lecture: Tuesday and Thursday, 9:30-10:50, PSCB 220
- Discussion: Friday, 10:00-10:50, PSCB 240 or the PC Lab
- Required Text: Mathematical Methods of Physics, by
Mathews and Walker, Second Edition, Addison-Wesley.
- Reference Books: Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences,
by Mary L. Boas, Second Edition, Wiley. Mathematical Methods for
Physicists, by Arfken, Third Edition, Academic Press.
- Methods of Mathematical Physics, by Courant and Hilbert, Interscience.
Margenau and Murphy.
- Also six Mathematica books are on reserve.
- URL for this course:
http://www.physics.uci.edu/~silverma/physics212a.html
Homework: Homework will be assigned weekly, and is due each Tuesday
in class. Homework will be returned in class.
Grading
- Homework 30%
- Midterm 30%. This will be in class, Tuesday, November 4, 9:30-10:50 AM.
- Final 40%. This will be on Thursday, December 11, 8:00-10:00 AM.
- Both exams will be open text book and open notes.
Mathematica Instruction at UCI
The Homepage of Mathematica: Wolfram
Research
Numerical Methods Books and Software
Problem Sets for This Year.
- Set 1:
- Reading: Chapter 1, pp. 1-27.
- Problems on Chapter 1, due Tuesday, Oct. 7
- Carry out the analysis in Example 1-14 on page 5 to bring it into the
separable form.
- Problem 1-1.
- Problem 1-17.
- Problem 1-21.
- Problem 1-26.
- Set 2:
- Reading: Chapter 1, pp. 1-28.
- Problems on Chapter 1, due Tuesday, Oct. 14
- Problem 1-2.
- Problem 1-3.
- Problem 1-4.
- Problem 1-5.
- Problem 1-6.
- Problem 1-7.
- Problem 1-13.
- Problem 1-24.
- Set 3:
- Reading: Chapter 4, pp. 96-107.
- Problems on Chapter 4, due Thursday, Oct. 23
- Problem 1-33.
- Problem 4-1.
- Problem 4-2.
- Problem 4-3.
- Problem 4-5.
- Set 4:
- Reading: Appendix A
- Problems on Chapter 4, Due Thursday, Oct. 30
- Justify in detail the steps in the example (4-30) on p. 106.
- Problem 4-7.
- Problem 4-8.
- Set 5:
- Reading: Ch. 4 pp. 107-120
- Problems on Chapter 4, Due Thursday, Nov. 13
- Problem 4-9.
- Problem 4-10.
- Problem 4-12.
- Problem 4-13.
- Problem 4-14.
- Set 6:
- Reading: Ch. 6, pp. 139-160
- Problems on Chapter 6, due Nov. 20.
- Problem 6-1.
- Problem 6-3.
- Problem 6-5.
- Do the problems on the previous problem set using Mathematica,
and print out the results.
- Set 7:
- Reading: Ch. 6, pp. 139-163
- Problems on Chapter 6, due at makeup lecture Monday, Dec. 1
(11 AM, FRH 3111).
- Mathematica Exercise
- Problem 6-2.
- Problem 6-4.
- Problem 6-6.
- Problem 6-10.
- Set 8:
- Reading: Ch. 7, pp. 167-178
- Problems on Chapters 6 and 7, due Friday, Dec. 5 in my mail box.
- Problem 6-8, double credit.
- Problem 7-1.
- Problem 7-3.
- Problem 7-4.
Course Schedule
The course schedule is intended to roughly parallel the courses
in Classical Mechanics, Quantum Mechanics, and Electrodynamics.
Fall Quarter
- Chapter 1, Differential Equations
- Chapter 4, Fourier Transforms, Appendix A: Contour Integration
- Chapter 6, Vectors and Matrices, Eigenvalue Problems
- Chapter 7, Special Functions
- Mathematica Introduction and Applications
Winter Quarter
- Chapter 7, Special Functions
- Chapter 8, Partial Differential Equations
- Chapter 9, Eigenfunctions, Eigenvalues, and Green's Functions
- Chapter 10, Perturbation Theory
- Chapter 11, Integral Equations
- Chapter 5, Further Applications of Complex Variables
- Mathematica Graphics and Programming
Spring Quarter
- Chapter 12, Calculus of Variations
- Chapter 13, Numerical Methods, Fast Fourier Transforms
- Chapter 14, Probability and Statistics
- Chapter 16, Group Theory
- Mathematica Applications to these topics