PHY313/CEI544 Home Page

Spring 2007 Thursdays, 6:50 to 9:50 Harriman Hall

This is the information home page for the PHY313 and CEI544 courses entitled "Mystery of Matter" and "From Quarks to the Cosmos"

respectively for the spring 2007 semester. After the beginning of the semester all further material, including all lecture notes, will be placed onto Blackboard. You will be able to download all the lecture notes from the blackboard class account. All students have access to the blackboard class file for which they are registered. Please be sure you know how to log into Blackboard!

The Goal of the Course

The highlight of this course is usually an excursion to nearby Brookhaven National Laboratory where we will see the relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and the two large

experiments, STAR and PHENIX. This trip will fill one class period. We do not yet know when BNL can accommodate us since the accelerator must be turned off in order for us to see

the inners of the experiments and the accelerator.At this time the budget for the operation of RHIC is not yet clear. We will schedule the trip when we have a firmer date.

The last decade has seen stunning advances in mankind’s understanding of the building blocks of nature, the forces between them, and how this all relates to the evolution of the Universe, and our daily lives. At the same time science and the tools of scientific inquiry are becoming more and more expensive. Thus the educated citizen should be informed about the scientific advances and have an understanding what his or her tax money is being spent on.

We believe that a citizen with a basic education can understand the concepts of the new discoveries and the reasons why scientists in high energy and nuclear physics, and in cosmology, are pushing for new, large and very expensive facilities. This course is intended to introduce and explain at a qualitative (i.e. largely non-mathematical), but conceptually rigorous level the progress physics has made during the fifty years in understanding the way in which the universe “works”. We will surpass the "common sense" understanding each of us has learned through our five senses by exploring how the concepts of modern physics were discovered, what they mean, and how they impact our lives today. We will explore:

The Big Picture

The universe is believed to have been born of intense heat sufficient to generate all the mass and energy we see today, as well as a bunch of mass and energy that we can't yet see. The Big Bang is the origin of all the particles, such as quarks, gluons and leptons, like electrons and neutrinos. As the universe cooled and expanded, matter condensed out, forming neutrons and protons, nuclei, and finally the atoms and molecules that surround us. One route to understanding this origin is to recreate, thirteen billion years later, a small chunk of the early universe using powerful accelerators to reheat a tiny region of space (about the size of a nucleus) to conditions we believe existed at a few millionths of a second after the Big Bang. This is done at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at nearby Brookhaven National Laboratory. We will visit this facility and see some of the large particle detectors used there.

We will discuss how the universe evolved from that moment, about 0ne millionth opf a second after the big bang to what we observe today.

Development of the Concepts

We will quickly go over the foundations of modern physics, sufficient to understand the concepts that we need in order to understand the scientific discoveries of the last 50 years:

• Quantum Mechanics: The struggle to grasp how all things carry the seemingly opposite properties of both waves and particles. Why bound systems of particles such as electrons trapped by an atom of protons and neutrons residing in a nucleus are like notes on a musical instrument. How particles can leap forbidden regions to appear unscathed on the other side.

• Special Relativity: The fact that the experience of time itself is not common to all things, but varies with the velocity of a particle. How the speed of light becomes the ultimate speed limit.

• The nucleus and nuclear decays: What holds nuclei together and what makes them fall apart. The phenomenon of Radioactivity, how it works and ways in which we put it to good use.

• The Standard Model of matter: Our current best description of the zoo of subatomic particles and how they fit together to make the world as we know it. We'll also use this model to predict how quarks and gluons existed in a "quark gluon plasma" back when the Universe was a lot hotter and smaller.

• Neutrinos: What are they and what are they good for; how measurement of neutrinos coming from the sun tought us that neutrinos can change their appearance.

• Antimatter: What it is and how it was predicted. How antiparticles were discovered experimentally and what's being studied now. • Evolution of matter and energy in the cosmos, and how we find out that we don’t understand today why we “see” only 5% of the matter that

we know should be there.

The Players

• If we look at matter extremely closely, we see that it is made of "atoms"...bound systems of electrons orbiting a positively charged nucleus. • Looking more closely, the nucleus is seen to be made from protons and neutrons bound together by a force different from the familiar

gravity and electromagnetism. • Looking yet more closely, the protons and neutrons are themselves composed of smaller pieces called quarks and gluons. • If we turn our microscope around and look at phenomena at large scales, we see stars and galaxies, all the way to the edge of the visible

Universe. We will discuss how the facts learned by studying the smallest scales impact our understanding how large objects work.

The Tools

• Accelerators (Atom smashers). Why they are useful. How they work. Why they are so big and getting bigger. • Detectors. How they work. What we learn. How some of the developments for better particle detectors turn into things we use in our daily

lives. We will tour the PHENIX experiment located at the Brookhaven National Laboratory's RHIC Accelerator.

• Applications of the tools of modern physics to other areas of modern life, such as nuclear reactors, nuclear medicine, radiocarbon dating, high density computer farms, the world-wide-web, GPS, and more.

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The Textbook(s):

We shall not use any particular book as the text for this course. Instead, I will follow a power point presentation that will be available on Blackboard for downloading along with the web links I have attached on the lecture pages. However, there are several popular books that make for interesting reading plus other popular books that are most pertinent to the course. Manay of them are available on Amazon.com at a relatively low price.

The most recent ones are Lisa Randall: Warped passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Hidden Dimensions ($10.95 new on Amazon)Frank Wilczek: Fantastic Realities: 49 Mind Journeys and a Trip to Stockholm (21.98 new at Amazon) Go to the Anazon.com web site for reviews by ordinary readers.Older ones are:

Professor Peter Paul, Office Physics Department 4th floor; Office D-143 Office Phone 632-8138

Office hours: Wednesday from 1 – 3 pm Thursday from 3 – 5 pm e-mail: PPaul@bnl.gov, or Peter.Paul@Stonybrook.edu I am an experimental nuclear physicist working right now on neutrinos and their amazing ability to change their appearance, or flavor, as they travel through space.

The Fly In The Cathedral From Quarks to the Cosmos The God Particle Thirty Years that Shook Physics

Web Resources: HyperPhysics web site. Congratulations. This resource is absolutely free and is the web site that most accurately follows the material of the course. How Stuff Works website and Wikipedia website These two are also free and are excellent places to look up interesting things. Just search on the topic you are after, or follow the science-related links from their home pages. Course procedures:As we are not following any given text, you should follow the lecture links and my posted lecture notes as your principle resource. Roughly 1/2 of the material for the home works can be determined directly from the web link and my posted material: However, the other 1/2 will require your attendance in lecture.

The grade in the course is determined entirely by the homework assignments. All homework assignments will be posted on the Blackboard site and shown in class. Assignments will be due the following week and must be turned in at the beginning of class. PLEASE NOTE THAT HOMEWORKS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED ELECTRONICALLY. IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO MAKE IT TO CLASS, YOU WILL NEED TO GET IT TO MY OFFICE BEFORE 5:30PM ON THURSDAY. Solutions to all assigned problems will also appear on the Blackboard site after the problems due date has passed. Late homework will not be accepted after the solutions have been published. All homework is graded by me!

Location of Lecture:Lectures take place on Thursdays from 5:20 to 8:20 pm. The lectures will be held in Harriman 137 (the main lecture hall) since this facility has proper projection equipment for displaying the web links during lecture.

Office Hours:Office hours will be held in D-143 (my office) on Wednesdays from 1-2pm, Thursdays from 4-5pm, or by appointment. The best way to make an appointment is to send me an email: Peter.Paul@stonybrook.edu.

Lectures:

January 25: The topic is the troubles in 19th century physics and the quantum solution. We'll discuss particles and waves. February 1: Topics are waves, quantum numbers, wave functions, and the uncertainty principle. We will discuss particle decays February 8: Topics include Rutherford scattering, nuclei and radioactivity. February 15: Topics are nuclear structure, nuclear decay and neutrinos, nuclear medicineFebruary 22: The topic is nuclear fission, nuclear bombs, and reactors.March 1: The topic is fusion power and how stars work. March 8: The topics are the Big Bang, life and death of a star, black holes, and evolution of the UniverseMarch 15: The topics are particle accelerators and particle detectors March 22: The topic is Quarks, gluons and the “melting of all matter”March 29: The topic is Leptons and the Standard Model of Particle Physics. April 12: Topic is Symmetries in Nature, how they determine the laws of nature, and how the neutrino is so peculiarApril 19: Topic is the generation of mass, super symmetry and the Large Hadron ColliderApril 26: Topic is science deep underground: looking for dark matter and neutrinos from outer spaceMay 5: Topics are the mass and energy in the universe May 9: Last homework handed in. Quiz for extra credit.

Some Cool Links Related to Course

Read about the Double-Slit Garage Experiment. Here is a clickable Periodic Table. Here is a clickable Chart of the Nuclides. Here is a Mendeleev Table. Here is a website that shows the shape of many electron orbitals.

The "HyperPhysics" web site is the best reference at the right level for the course. You can simply surf on by and find a detailed resource for working the homework problems.