Podcast Categories: Science

The newest EM:RAP project and the first to be done by and for residents. We will cover the cardinal presentations, the canonical literature, and the coolest cases all with an eye to board-review appropriate chunky nuggets of clever goodness. Note: no funny Australian accents but we do have a French-Canadian.

Revolutionary new concepts about elementary particles, space and time, and the structure of
matter began to emerge in the mid-1970s. Theory got far ahead of experiment with radical new ideas
such as “grand unification” and “supersymmetry,” but the concepts have never been experimentally
tested. Now all that is about to change; the LHC— the Large Hadron Collider—has finally been built
and is about to confront theory with experiment. The next three quarters of our ongoing physics
series with Leonard Susskind will be devoted to these theoretical ideas and how they will be tested.

The Basic Concepts course marks the beginning of a three-quarter sequence of courses that will explore the new
revolutions in particle physics. During this quarter, basic concepts will be covered, including the fundamental
particles such as electrons, photons, neutrinos, quarks, and gluons. We will also encounter the four basic forces
of nature: gravity, electromagnetism, the strong or nuclear force, and the weak force. The series will continue in the
Winter with quantum field theory, symmetries, and the “standard model.” In the Spring, we will discuss
supersymmetry, grand unification, string theory, and cosmology. While these courses build upon one another,
each course also stands on its own, individually covering topics that relate to modern particle physics.

This course was originally presented in Stanford’s Continuing Studies program.

Released with a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license.

The Fall 2012 quarter of the Modern Physics series concentrates on Einstein’s theory of gravity and geometry: the General Theory of Relativity. Beginning with the basic ideas of Riemannian and curved space, and Minkowski’s “space-time,” we learn about Einstein’s discovery of how gravity is really the curvature of space-time. We also cover the theory of black holes and their strangely paradoxical properties. The final weeks of the course develop the essential ideas of Big Bang cosmology.

Particle Physicist Dr Brian Cox invites a series of unlikely guests around the biggest experiment in the history of the universe (well this one) ever. Is it a chat show? Is it an introduction to particle physics? Is it just a jolly day out in Gevena? Maybe all three.

This course is comprised of a six-quarter sequence of classes that will explore the essential theoretical foundations of modern physics. The topics covered in this course sequence will include classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, the general and special theories of relativity, electromagnetism, cosmology, and black holes. While these courses will build upon one another, each course also stands on its own, and both individually and collectively they will let students attain the “theoretical minimum” for thinking intelligently about modern physics.
Quantum theory governs the universe at its most basic level. In the first half of the 20th century physics was turned on its head by the radical discoveries of Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, and Erwin Schroedinger. An entire new logical and mathematical foundation—quantum mechanics—eventually replaced classical physics. We will explore the quantum world, including the particle theory of light, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and the Schroedinger Equation.