INT 86TK: Experimenting with the Fundamental Building Blocks of the Universe

Friday 1:00 - 1:50 in ILP 3209

Instructor: David Stuart, [email protected], Broida 3001.
Office Hours: TBD

Course summary: This freshman seminar will discuss the physics experiments that revealed the fundamental building blocks of the universe over the course of the last century. We'll look at the questions that drove the experiments, the techniques that they used, and the impact that they had. We'll also discuss ways that undergraduate science majors can make their own contributions to modern experiments through undergraduate research projects.

Grading: Grading is P/NP. Students will be evaluated based on their participation in class and completion of 4 homework assignments assigned throughout the course.

Schedule: The schedule of topics is below.
Date Topic
Friday Jan. 12 Introduction
Friday Jan. 19 Discovery of the electron
Friday Jan. 26 Discovery of the neutron
Friday Feb. 2 Discovery of the positron
Friday Feb. 9 Fission
Friday Feb. 16 Fusion and discovery of the neutrino
Friday Feb. 23 Discovery of cosmic rays
Friday May 1 Discovery of the pion
Friday May 8 A particle zoo and the quark model
Friday May 15 The Higgs boson and the LHC