Honors Research Topics in Physics

If enough people express an interest a course on a few topics in physics will be presented. The course will probably be run under the heading Honors Research, will meet in seminar style three times a week and be for 3 credits.

Here is a preliminary description of the course:

This course is designed to allow the student to explore topics in physics in more depth than a traditional lecture course allows. Subjects will be chosen by the students [except for the first quarter because of advance preparation requirements – unless students choose one in the spring of the preceding year]. The format of the course is as follows.

The class meets three times per week. In each quarter the class will choose a specific but somewhat broad area of physics to study. The quarter will begin with prescribed readings and some lectures and presentations on the general aspects of the topic and some supporting material required for understanding the subject in general.

The instructor will provide guidance about references and outside resources, such as Rutgers physics department outreach, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Fermilab Quarknet; Columbia University.

After two to three weeks, students will select subtopics within the quarter’s topic and begin independent research. The instructor will support their efforts by supplying texts, recommending sources, and answering ( or attempting to answer) questions. Independent research can be performed by individuals, or groups of up to 3 or 4, at the instructor’s discretion.

The product of the independent research will be a report or project, and a presentation to be made within the last two weeks of the quarter. Students should pursue the topic to a level they find challenging, but not overwhelming in detail or difficulty.

Some examples of topics and subtopics from the last year the course ran are:

Topic: Controlled fusion for electric power production

Subtopics: steam cycles for electric power production; electric generators; waves in plasmas; fusion nuclear reactions; magnetic fields for fusion plasma confinement; how to heat particles to 100 million degrees;

Topic: Particle physics

Subtopics: Accelerator design, nuclear reaction cross sections; particle detectors

Topic : Electromagnetic Radiation including light

Subtopics: Corrective lenses; how the eye works; how TV signals are received and converted; antenna design; how the electron beam in a monitor produces an image; how a strobe light works; Maxwell’s equation

If preferred, a more focused course can be provided such as thermo dynamics of energy conversion for two quarters, and particle physics for two quarters.