Physics Courses

PHYS 0N00
Co-op Work Placement
Optional Co-op placement (4 months) with an approved employer.
Restriction: open to PHYS Co-op students.

PHYS 0N01
Co-op Work Placement I
First co-op placement (4 months) with an approved employer.
Restriction: open to PHYS Co-op students.

PHYS 0N02
Co-op Work Placement II
Second co-op placement (4 months) with an approved employer.
Restriction: open to PHYS Co-op students.

PHYS 0N03
Co-op Work Placement III
Third co-op placement (4 months) with an approved employer.
Restriction: open to PHYS Co-op students.

PHYS 1P21
Mechanics and Waves
Kinematics, Newton's laws and their applications to equilibrium and dynamics with examples from biomechanics; waves and sound.
Lectures, 3 hours per week; tutorial, 2 hours per week.
Completion of this course will replace previously assigned grade in PHYS 1F20, 1F25 and 1F90.

PHYS 1P22
Electromagnetism, Optics and Modern Physics
Charges and fields, electric currents and circuits, optics and elements of modern physics.
Lectures, 3 hours per week; tutorial, 2 hours per week.
Prerequisite: PHYS 1P21.
Completion of this course will replace previously assigned grade in PHYS 1F20, 1F25 and 1F90.

PHYS 1P23
Fluids, Heat and Light
Fluids in equilibrium, surface tension and capillary action; fluids in motion, viscosity and turbulent flow. Heat and temperature, elements of kinetic theory and the laws of thermodynamics. Electromagnetic waves and wave nature of light.
Lectures, 3 hours per week; tutorial, 2 hours per week.
Completion of this course will replace previously assigned grade in PHYS 1P10.

PHYS 1P91
Mechanics and Waves with Laboratory
Combination of lectures and tutorials in PHYS 1P21 with a laboratory session.
Lectures, 3 hours per week; tutorial, 2 hours per week; lab, alternating weeks, 3 hours per week.
Completion of this course will replace previously assigned grade in PHYS 1F20, 1F25 and 1F90.

PHYS 1P92
Electromagnetism, Optics and Modern Physics with Laboratory
Combination of lectures and tutorials in PHYS 1P22 with a laboratory session.
Lectures, 3 hours per week; tutorial, 2 hours per week; lab, alternating weeks, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: PHYS 1P91.
Completion of this course will replace previously assigned grade in PHYS 1F20, 1F25 and 1F90.

PHYS 1P93
Fluids, Heat and Light with Laboratory
Combination of lectures and tutorials in PHYS 1P23 with a laboratory session.
Lectures, 3 hours per week; tutorial, 2 hours per week; lab, alternating weeks, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: PHYS 1P91 or permission of the instructor.
Completion of this course will replace previously assigned grade in PHYS 1P10.

PHYS 2P20
Introductory Mechanics
Mechanics of particles and systems of particles by the Newtonian method; conservation of linear momentum, angular momentum and energy; elementary dynamics of rigid bodies; oscillators; motion under central forces; selected applications.
Lectures, problem sessions, 3 hours per week; lab, tutorial, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisites: PHYS 1P21 or 1P91 (recommended); one of PHYS 1P22, 1P23, 1P92 (recommended), 1P93 (one of PHYS 1F20, 1F25, 1F90); MATH 1P01 (1P93) and 1P02 (1P94).

PHYS 2P31
Electronics
Conduction in metals and semi-conductors; circuit analysis; semi-conductor junction, diode and transistor; rectification, switching and amplification; digital and linear integrated circuits; electrical measurement instruments.
Lectures, lab, 6 hours per week.
Prerequisites: PHYS 1P21 or 1P91 (recommended); one of PHYS 1P22, 1P23, 1P92 (recommended), 1P93 (one of PHYS 1F20, 1F25, 1F90); one MATH credit or permission of the instructor.
Note: laboratory will include student exercises and instructor demonstration. No previous course in electricity/magnetism/electronics is required. Secondary school algebra and some basic calculus will be used in the quantitative sections.

PHYS 2P50
Modern Physics
Special relativity, photons, the wave-particle aspects of electromagnetic radiation and matter; introduction to wave mechanics; the hydrogen atom and atomic line spectra; orbital and spin angular momenta; lasers.
Lectures, tutorial, 4 hours per week.
Prerequisites: PHYS 1P21 or 1P91 (recommended); one of PHYS 1P22, 1P23, 1P92 (recommended), 1P93 (one of PHYS 1F20, 1F25, 1F90); MATH 1P01 (1P93) and 1P02 (1P94).

PHYS 2P51
Introduction to Classical and Modern Optics
Geometrical and wave optics, reflection, refraction, lenses, matrix methods, aberrations, gradient index phenomena including fibre optics, interference, coherence, holography, Fraunhofer and Fresnel diffraction, polarization.
Lectures, lab, 6 hours per week.
Prerequisites: PHYS 1P21 or 1P91 (recommended); one of PHYS 1P22, 1P23, 1P92 (recommended), 1P93 (one of PHYS 1F20, 1F25, 1F90); MATH 1P01(1P93) and 1P02 (1P94).

PHYS 2P92
Introductory Electronics and Solid-State Devices Laboratory
Laboratory instruments, noise and cross-talk; passive filters; Thevenin equivalents; time and frequency response; Bode plots; junction diodes and rectification; operational amplifiers; active filters; lock-in amplifiers; combinatorial logic gates; sequential logic counters.
Lab, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisites: PHYS 1P21 or 1P91 (recommended); one of PHYS 1P22, 1P23, 1P92 (recommended), 1P93 (one of PHYS 1F20, 1F25, 1F90); one MATH credit or permission of the instructor.
Note: normally taken concurrently with PHYS 2P31.

PHYS 3P20
Classical Mechanics
Advanced treatment of the mechanics of particles and of rigid bodies; Lagrangian and Hamiltonian methods; Poisson brackets, applications to the theory of small oscillators and central force motions, elements of chaotic motions.
Lectures, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisites: PHYS 2P20; MATH 2F05 (2F95) or MATH 2P03 and 2P08.

PHYS 3P35
Electromagnetism I
Electric field, divergence and curl of electrostatic field; relation between electric work and energy; conductors; application of Laplace's and Poisson's equation in electrostatics; electrostatic field in matter; field in polarized object and linear dielectric.
Lectures, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: MATH 2F05 (2F00 or 2F95) or MATH 2P03 and 2P08.
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade in PHYS 2P30.

PHYS 3P36
Electromagnetism II
Magnetostatics, divergence and curl of magnetic field; magnetic vector potential; magnetic field in matter; magnetization; field of magnetic object; magnetic field inside of linear and non-linear media; electrodynamics; Ohm's law; Faraday's law and Maxwell equations; energy and momentum in electrodynamics; electromagnetic waves.
Lectures, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: PHYS 3P35.
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade in PHYS 3P30.

PHYS 3P41
Statistical Physics I
Introduction to probability distribution functions, accessible states, entropy, temperature, partition functions and relations to thermodynamic functions.
Lectures, 3 hours per week; tutorial, 1 hour per week.
Prerequisite: PHYS 2P50.

PHYS 3P70
Introduction to Quantum Mechanics
Wave particle dualism, Schrodinger equation, solution of simple one-dimensional barrier problems and the harmonic oscillator, hydrogen atom, angular momentum theory, introduction to perturbation theory and variational methods.
Lectures, lab/problem sessions, 4 hours per week.
Prerequisites: PHYS 2P50 and MATH 2F05 (2F95) or MATH 2P03 and 2P08.

PHYS 3P91
Experimental Physics I
Laboratory experiments to be selected from atomic physics, nuclear physics, solid state physics.
Lab, 1 day per week.
Prerequisites: PHYS 2P50 or permission of the instructor.

PHYS 3P92
Experimental Physics (Electronics) II
Operational amplifiers, converters, switches, microcomputers and their application to physical measurements.
Lab, 1 day per week.
Prerequisite: PHYS 2P31 or permission of the instructor.

PHYS 3P93
Solid-State Devices
Principles of operation of solid-state devices, from the point of view of the quantum theory; electronic bands and conduction in semiconductors; operation and manufacture of silicon and germanium diodes, junction and field effect transistors; thin-film deposition technology; special topics.
Lectures, lab, 6 hours per week.
Prerequisite: PHYS 3P70.

PHYS 4F50
Quantum Mechanics
Operator formalism, Hilbert space, Dirac's transformation theory, matrix mechanics, creation and annihilation operators, second quantization, variational method, perturbation theory, scattering theory.
Lectures, 4 hours per week.
Prerequisites: PHYS 3P70, MATH 3P08 and 3P09 (3F94).
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade in PHYS 4P51.

PHYS 4F90
Research Project I
Small experimental, theoretical or applied physics research project to be carried out under the supervision of a member of the department.
Restriction: open to PHYS (single or combined) and CAST majors with either a minimum of 14.0 overall credits, a minimum70 percent major average and a minimum 60 percent non-major average or approval to year 4 (honours).
Note: the project may, under special circumstances, be started in the summer months. Students must consult with the Department Chair regarding their proposed program during the first week of lectures.

PHYS 4F91
Research Project II
Small experimental, theoretical or applied physics research project to be carried out under the supervision of a member of the department.
Restriction: open to PHYS (single or combined) majors with either a minimum of 14.0 overall credits, a minimum 70 percent major average and a minimum 60 percent non-major average or approval to year 4 (honours) and permission of the department.
Prerequisite: PHYS 4F90.
Note: the project may, under special circumstances, be started in the summer months. Students must consult with the Department Chair regarding their proposed program during the first week of lectures. PHYS 4F90 and 4F91 may be taken concurrently.

PHYS 4P30
Electromagnetic Waves
Electromagnetic wave propagation in vacuum, dielectrics, conductors and ionized gases; reflection, refraction, polarization at the plane boundary between two media; wave guide and transmission line propagation; dipole and quadrupole radiation fields; antenna systems; electromagnetic radiation pressure; transformation of the electromagnetic fields.
Lectures, problem sessions, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisites: PHYS 3P35, 3P36, MATH 3P08 and 3P09 (3F94).

PHYS 4P41
Statistical Physics II
Fundamental postulates, equilibrium statistical mechanics and its relation to thermodynamics. Maxwell-Boltzmann, Bose-Einstein and Fermi-Dirac statistics are derived and applied in appropriate physical situations of non-interacting and interacting particles; fluctuations; elementary treatment of transport theory.
Lectures, 3 hours per week; tutorial, 1 hour per week.
Prerequisites: PHYS 3P41, 3P70, MATH 3P08 and 3P09 (3F94).

PHYS 4P51
Quantum Mechanics I
Postulates about states, observables, probabilities, change of state in a measurement, and time evolution. Dirac's bra and ket notation; representation and transformation theory. Two-level systems. Complete set of commuting observables and classification of states. Symmetries and their usage in classification of states.
Lectures, 3 hours per week.
Restriction: open to PHYS Co-op students with a minimum of 14.5 overall credits.
Prerequisites: PHYS 3P70, MATH 3P08 and 3P09.
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade in PHYS 4F50.

PHYS 4P61
Nuclear Physics
Intrinsic properties of nuclei, nuclear binding energy; qualitative treatment of shell model; alpha, beta and gamma radioactivities, nuclear fission, characteristics of nuclear reactions.
Lectures, problem sessions, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisites: PHYS 2P50 and 3P70.

PHYS 4P70
Condensed Matter Physics I
Crystal structures and crystal binding; the vibration of atoms in solids and the thermodynamics of solids; introduction to transport properties of solids.
Lectures, 3 hours per week; tutorial, 1 hour per week.
Prerequisite: PHYS 3P70.

PHYS 4P71
Condensed Matter Physics II
Energy bands in metals and semiconductors, lattice vibrations, transport properties of solids, magnetism, defects in solids.
Lectures, 3 hours per week; tutorial, 1 hour per week.
Prerequisite: PHYS 4P70.

PHYS 4P92
Advanced Electronics Laboratory
Families of logic devices, selection and implementation techniques; synchronous and asynchronous sequential circuits; safety and physical constraints; programmable array logic designs; digital signal processing, optoelectronics; CAD; circuit layout.
Lab, 1 day per week.
Prerequisite: PHYS 3P92.
Note: completion of a project from design to a working device is required.

PHYS 4V80-4V89
Special Topics
Examples of topics are relativity and cosmology; surface physics and electronic states in ordered and disordered systems.
Lectures, problem sessions, 4 hours per week.
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade in PHYS 4P80.