Symmetry and Relativity (3rd year)
- Lecture plan.This plan is only a rough guide; some reordering will take place.
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Lecture notes.
These notes cover some areas very fully, others not at all. The material omitted is either not needed for this course or is simple and well-covered elsewhere (e.g. in
the lecture!).
The Section C notes are much more extensive than is needed for the course, but are included because this material is harder to find in textbooks. The lectures will clarify how much of this is needed for Oxford 3rd yr physics.
Section A, Section B, Section C: Spinors, Classical fieldsChanges in 2011/12. There are modest changes in the problem set, an improved discussion of headlight effect (3.7.2) and constant acceleration (4.2.1), a comment on group velocity (5.4.3), a clarification of wave equation solution (6.5.2), and various other minor corrections. 2012/13. These online notes have not changed since last year, but in many areas I have clarified or otherwise improved the discussion for my textbook (below). 2015/16. Reduced and also updated problem set.
Lecture summaries: Summary section A, Summary section B, Summary section C - Problems 2015 (and an older version of the problems is here)
- List of example Oxford finals questions, and some answers.
- Two spinor questions for exam revision
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Books. The course assumes some basic knowledge of relativity. Introductory books such as
Taylor and Wheeler, French, W.S.C Williams, Steane (see below)
are all recommended. The course is closely matched to my own text book called `Relativity made relatively easy' (OUP) which covers the whole of this course except for spinors (see above) as well as giving some further material on related subjects. Other books suited to the course are those by Rindler, Jackson (for classical electrodynamics) and Muirhead (especially for particle physics).
"The Wonderful World of Relativity", Steane (pub OUP). This is an introductory book intended to give a well-thought-through grasp of spacetime, and an introduction to energy and momentum, suitable to high school (i.e. pre-university) readers or as background to first year university physics. 
"Relativity made Relatively Easy", Steane (pub OUP). This is an undergraduate textbook, intended to strike a balance between being extensive and rigorous yet friendly and carefully explained.
Atomic Physics
- Lecture notes
- Problems
- Example finals questions in large format (for revision lecture): 1
- Answers to Oxford physics finals questions: 1 (large format), 2 (small format),
- Answers to Oxford physics finals questions, selected questions appropriate to new syllabus: 1 (large format), 2 (small format),
Quantum mechanics and atomic physics
Thermodynamics
"Thermodynamics: a complete undergraduate course", Andrew M. Steane (Oxford University Press, 2016)
- Problem sets (2023)
- Course outline (2023-24)
- some basic information
- lecture 1 (slides); lecture 2 (slides); lecture 3 (slides); lecture 4 (slides); lecture 5 (slides); lecture 6 (slides); lecture 7 (slides); lecture 8 (slides); lecture 9 (slides); lecture 10 (slides); lecture 11 (slides); lecture 12 (slides); lecture 13 (slides); lecture 14 (slides)
- Previous problem sets (2022)
- older problems (2006)
- Selected problems (2008)
Statistical Mechanics
- Derivation of the Boltzmann factor, including an explanation of why a widely used argument is spurious or incomplete.
- Reminder of basic results; lecture 1 (slides); lecture 2 (slides); lecture 3 (slides); lecture 4 (slides);
- Modes in a box, thermal radiation and photons including an explanation of why the photon picture involves some hand-waving but the mode picture is clear and correct (that is, it invokes quantum electrodynamics correctly) and furnishes all the thermodynamic information.
Classical Mechanics, 1st year undergraduate
- Notes in the two-body problem (reduced mass, orbits, etc.) These are not by me; they are "TBP.pdf" downloaded from http://web.physics.ucsb.edu/~fratus/phys103 which is listed under Keith Fratus at the University of California, Santa Barbara.