Physics

the Physics/Geology building sign

Website

Official Website

How to Tell if You Are a Physics Major

The Department of Physics consists of 44 faculty members active in research, ten Emeritus Professors, 20-25 research associates and post-doctoral physicists, 112 graduate students, and over 150 undergraduates majoring in physics and applied physics. During 2005 they joined in celebrating the World Year of Physics.

The Physics Department is located in the Physics building and offers B.S. and B.A. as well as Masters and Ph.D. degrees. They have many classes in Roessler Hall and the Earth and Physical Sciences Building.

See also the UC Davis General Catalog

Class web pages

• 1 series - "Principles of Physics"
  

General physics for majors that don't require a full year; this 2-quarter sequence doesn't require calculus.


• 5 series (obsolete)
  

Some departments still use this sequence as a prerequisite in the general catalog. It was last offered in fall of 1996, when its more traditional pedagogy was replaced by the 7 series.


• 7 series (http://physics.ucdavis.edu/physics7) - "General Physics"
  

General Physics. Consists of 7A, 7B, and 7C. The emphasis is placed on Discussion Labs (DL) where students participate in hands-on experiments, rather than lectures. This course uses a constructivist pedagogy that many people seem to dislike.


• 9 series - (http://maxwell.ucdavis.edu/) - "Physics"
  

• General Physics for engineers and physical science majors. This series of physics is a general requirement for most science and ALL engineering majors.
  

• This series is, as a whole, more math intensive than the 7 series, requiring students to take the MAT 21 and MAT 22 series instead of just 16 or 17.
  

• PHY 9A-C have 3 hours for lecture, 1 hour for discussion and 2.5 hours for lab per week. 9D has no lab. 9ABC are five unit courses, 9D is a 4 unit course.
  

• 9A covers Newtonian mechanics and related stuff.
  

• 9B covers a grab bag of topics, including waves, sound, light, thermodynamics, and statistical mechanics.
  

• 9C covers electromagnetism.
  

• 9D covers various topics in modern physics, including quantum mechanics and special relativity.
  

• SISweb requires that you sign up for both lab and lecture at the same time (i.e. put in two CRNs in Add/Drop Classes) or you will get a cryptic "LINK ERROR".
  

• 9H series - "Honors Physics"
  

Honors Physics. Consists of 9HA-9HE. Each course consists of 3 hours lecture (sometimes MWF, sometimes TH), 2 hours discussion, and 2 hours lab. The order of topics covered is a bit different from the traditional 9 series and gears more towards modern physics. The course breakdown is as follows: 9HA-Classical Mechanics, 9HB-Special Relativity and Statistical Mechanics, 9HC-Wave Mechanics, Optics, and very basic Quantum Mechanics, 9HD-Electricity and Magnetism, 9HE-More advanced QM with applications to topics such as material science and the behavior of semiconductors and superconductors. If you're a Physics major, I'd highly recommend taking it. The material is harder than 9, but there is a generous curve to compensate, and you'll learn a lot of cool stuff - AV

• 104A - "Introductory Methods of Mathematical Physics"
  

The content of this course varies over the years, though its overall goal is to provide an adequate introduction to the various mathematical methods that an aspiring physics student will use in their career. In Fall 2005, this course covered delta functions, linear algebra (first applied to matrices, then to function spaces), leading to Fourier and Legendre series, and ultimately to solving partial differential equations using separation of variables (which involves nearly all of the previous topics covered in the course).


• 104B - "Computational Methods in Mathematical Physics"
  

This course's content varies, but its basic aim is using computers to analyze and solve interesting problems in Physics. Prior programming experience is expected for this course.


• 105AB - "Analytical Mechanics"
  

The first part of the series covers Newtonian mechanics, harmonic oscillators, and gravitation (lots of solving differential equations), then proceeds to an introduction of variational calculus and leading up to Lagrangian/Hamiltonian mechanics. The second part covers central force motion (basic orbital dynamics, etc), the dynamics of systems of particles and rigid bodies, non-inertial reference frames, coupled oscillations, and waves.


• 110ABC - "Electricity and Magnetism"
  

This is the three course series that covers electricity and magnetism. The first quarter covers electrostatics (electric fields, potentials, work, conductors), boundary solutions of Laplace's equation, multipole expansions, and electric fields in matter (polarization, displacement field, dielectrics). The second quarter covers magnetostatics (Lorentz force law, Biot-Savart law, divergence and curl of the B-field, vector potential, etc), magnetic fields in matter (magnetization, fields, etc), and basic electrodynamics (emf, induction, Maxwell's equations, momentum conservation). The third quarter covers electromagnetic waves (in a vacuum and in matter, absorption, dispersion, waveguides), revisits potentials and fields (gauge, retarded potentials, fields due to point charges), and then proceeds with radiation (due to dipoles and point charges) and special relativity in the context of electrodynamics.


In recent times, this course has been taught by Linton Corruccini, using the book Introduction to Electrodynamics by Griffiths.


Griffiths is the best physics book I've owned. Corruccini is alright nothing to get excited about. I like the rigorous pace he sets. Homework is due twice a week with about 4 problems per homework set. - BryanBell


• 115AB - "Quantum Mechanics"
  

This is a two course series that covers the basics of quantum mechanics. The first quarter concentrates on the mathematical framework: the wave function, the uncertainty principle, the Schroedinger equation and some basic solutions (square wells, harmonic oscillator, free particle, etc), Hilbert spaces and operators. The second quarter involves applications of the math built up in the first part by solving the Schroedinger equation for the Hydrogen atom, then proceeds to examine approximation methods with perturbation theory, etc, and touches on scattering theory at the end.


This course typically uses the book Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, also by Griffiths.

• Condensed Matter
  

• Cosmology
  

• High Energy Experiment
  

• High Energy Theory
  

• Nuclear Experiment
  

• if you like biophysics or fluid dynamics you might consider CLIMB