takes place
 
 

Table of Contents


Physics Department Links

Physics Department Home Page

Instructor Contact Information

  617 Professor: Tom Banks
Office   Serin E 36
Phone   445-3731
Office Hours By appointment
e-mail banks@physics.rutgers.edu



            














AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT:

 
   The Mentos Diet Coke Experiment 
 

This page contains all class handouts and other items of interest for students of Physics 617 at Rutgers University .

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS

new!!! 9/23/08- Problems 2.7 and 2.9 on this weeks HW are postponed to next week.  See HW 3 below. HW1 solutions are available.
 
I.

Class Lectures and Office Hours

Lectures [Tom Banks -- Physics 617 Professor]:


Required Textbook

Spacetime and Geometry by Sean M. Carroll, Addison Wesley, NY

Additional Reading: Gravitation, An Introduction to Einstein's General Relativity, by J.B. Hartle (I especially recommend Chapters 6,7,9,12,13), Addison Wesley   AND  General Relativity by R.M. Wald, University of Chicago Press

Course Lecture Schedule and Assigned Readings

This is approximate. Actual lectures may overlap these dates

Brief Course Outline for Physics 617
TOPIC Lectures dates Readings
Special  Relativity,  Tensors,  Fields
September  8,11
Carroll, Chapter 1
Manifolds
September  15, 17,18
Carroll, Chapter 2
Curvature
September 22, 25, 29
 Carroll, Chapter 3
Gravitation
October 2, 6, 9, 13
 Carroll, Chapter 4
The Vielbein formalism
 October  16
Carroll, Appendix J
The Schwarzschild Solution
 October 20, 23, 27, 30 Carroll, Chapter 5
Gravitational  Radiation
November 3, 6
 Carroll, Chapter 7
Cosmology
 November 10, 13, 17, 20, 24,27 Carroll, Chapter 8
Hawking Radiation
 Dec 1, 4, 8, 11
Carroll,  Chapter  9


Course Grading and Requirements


Solving problems is an integral and essential part of learning physics. The entire grade in this class will be based on homework. Weekly homework assignments will be handed out each Thursday and are due at the beginning of class on the Thursday of the following week.  There may be some longer assignments which
stretch over 2 weeks. You are encouraged to discuss the class material and homework problems with your classmates and to work in groups, but all submitted problems should represent your own work and understanding. In order that homework can be graded efficiently and returned quickly, late homework WILL NOT be accepted (except for special circumstances, if you have made arrangements with me prior to the due date).  Your homework sets will be graded based on the clarity of your method of solution as well as on your final answers.


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II. Homework Problem Sets and Exams

Problem sets and exams are available in PDF format. 

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III. Solutions to Homework Problem Sets

The homework set and exam solutions are available in PDF format. Solutions will be posted shortly after the homework is due.

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IV. Articles of Interest

1. A detailed experimental study of the diet coke and mentos reaction and some of its implications has been published recently in the American Journal of Physics 76, 551--557 (2008)     [  Abstract   |   HTML ].


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V. Applets for Physics 617


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VI. Web pages of Interest

1. The Diet Coke and Mentos experiment. A history of the experiment and a short discussion of the underlying physics principles can be found on Wikipedia.A video demonstration of the experiment can be found here.   This page has nothing to do with our course, but it's fun to watch.   See the article above for an explanation.


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