Final Exam date

Posted on 2013/02/16 by kiwinerd

Hi everyone,

Based on information students have given me, I have a proposed date for our PHY2404S final exam: Monday 15th and Tuesday 16th April. I chose this timeframe because later times in the schedule collided with other exams or with two business trips I have to make to Washington DC and elsewhere in Ontario in late April.

Let me know ASAP if you suddenly have new constraints that are incompatible with my proposed dates. I will also discuss this in class on Thursday 21st and will send an email blaster containing the same info to the class.

Cheers,
Prof. P.

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Homework file naming etiquette

Posted on 2013/02/16 by kiwinerd

Hi everyone,

May I make a suggestion for how you name the electronic files that you send me as your homework assignments? Please do not just name your email attachment “Homework2″ because that does not tell me your name nor does it tell me anything about the course. I prefer a filename of the form

qft2.hw2.amanda.peet.pdf

The first part “qft2.” denotes the course. The second part “hw2.” denotes which homework assignment. The third and fourth parts “amanda.peet” are my given and family names, respectively.

Thanks in advance for indulging me on this.

Prof. Peet.  :-)

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HW2 update

Posted on 2013/02/16 by kiwinerd

Hi everyone,

I fielded several questions about the HW2 assignment on Thursday and Friday from various students. (Awesome! I love questions.)

Most questions centred on aspects of group theory. Accordingly, I have modified the statement of Question 1 to make it easier for you to get started.  Another hint: if you find yourself with a divergent integral in Q3 then you may wish to regulate it by putting an upper cutoff Λ on your momentum. Overall, Q1 is easier than Q2, which is easier than Q3, which is easier than the optional Q4.

Here is the updated version of HW2.

Cheers,
Prof. P.

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Homework 2

Posted on 2013/02/11 by kiwinerd

Hi guys,

Homework 2 is due in two weeks, i.e. on Monday 25th February by 11:10am.

Note that problems 1-3 are compulsory and 4* is for extra credit (it’s the longest). Attempt as much of it as you have time for, depending on your motivation.

Cheers,
Prof. P.

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Sigma two is not sigma squared

Posted on 2013/01/28 by kiwinerd

Hi everybody,

Scott has alerted me to a potentially confusing ambiguity in Problem 2 of HW1. In part (a) I asked you to prove an identity involving ψL* and the second Pauli sigma matrix σ2. Please note that sigma superscript two is different from sigma squared.

Cheers,
Prof. P.

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Homework 1

Posted on 2013/01/21 by kiwinerd

Hi everyone,

Here is your first homework assignment. It is due in two weeks by email as a PDF file. The exact deadline is 11:10am on Monday 4th February. You may hand in up to one week late if you take the 4% per business day lateness penalty. Homeworks handed in more than one week late will not be graded.

Please note that you are required to show your working for all problems. Students who explain their reasoning always get better grades than students who gloss over important steps in their logic. If you are a math student taking this class for credit, I will still expect you to reason like a physicist. (I cannot grade problems differently for different students: you all get treated the same.)

Please also note that PDF is the only format I accept. If you handwrite your solutions, simply scan them in to PDF (ask at the Graduate Office if you don’t know how to do that on a Departmental photocopier). LaTeXed homeworks are not expected, but they do make reading your solutions easier. Learning to use LaTeX (or some other flavour of TeX) is to your advantage anyway.

Prof. Peet.

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First Announcement

Posted on 2012/06/22 by kiwinerd

Hi everyone,

Our first meeting will be on Monday 7th January 2013 from 11:10am-noon in MP1115. This will be partly organizational and partly an introduction to the course material. Please bring your calendars/datebooks and come prepared to think about physics.

Note 1: a previous version of this page contained a typo – the date of the first meeting for this course is the 7th not the 11th.  (I was in New Zealand on vacation from December 12th until just after new year; it was not until an alert student told me about the typo today that I knew it needed fixing.)

Note 2: The lecture hours for this course (MR11) and the location (MP1115) were set months in advance for disability reasons and will not be moving. So if you have other graduate classes that want to meet at 11am on a Monday, they will have to change if you want the classes not to clash.

Cheers,
Prof. Peet.

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