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History 181B:  Modern Physics

Extra credit options
 
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Parameters Any two extra credit assignments count as much as one short writing assignment. (You can do one, two, or many.) Extra credit work can only improve your grade.
Visual option Drawing the three roadmaps for the course
Classical world pictures
Challenges
The quantum mechanical era
taxes my visual capacities to the limit. Is there a better way to represent this? Can you fit it all on one map? A series of maps stacking one atop the next? Three-dimensionally? With Venn diagrams? In a simulation (using the time dimension)?

The new maps have to capture all the relationships diagrammed in the old ones. (To know what those are, you need to follow the course.) I am happy to brainstorm with you. Any thoughtful, successful representation will get extra credit. The best one will be used the next time I teach the course (with an acknowledgment to you).
Artistic option Many of the course's physics songs come from the site Singing Science Records. But we have lots of lectures without songs. Can you write and record one? If you give me a good song in mp3 format, I will use it next year (with an acknowledgment to you).

The song needs to be keyed to a lecture and say something non-trivial about the subject (though not necessarily as extended as the professional science songs). I am happy to brainstorm or check your lyrics. I can't be any help on music or recording. Please keep it wholesome family entertainment. Original songs only; if you are setting preexisting lyrics to music, please ask first. You may work in a group if you like.
Nobel Prize option You can research one or more Nobel Laureates or Prizes (in physics, of course). Your task is to describe the work that won the prize and its place or significance in the history of physics. Write it up in a two-page paper.

Sources

The Nobel Foundation website is an excellent source of information:
    • If you already know what interests you, start from The Nobel Prize in Physics - Laureates: links to information on laureates and their work grouped by date, or search on a name.
    • If you want an overall list or a prize in a particular time period, try the Laureate search: generate names listed by date with the prize citation.
    • If you are looking for a prize in a particular field or just browsing for a topic, see The Nobel Prizes in Physics 1901-2000: a topical narrative and another good place to start.


    The Physics Library has print sources:
     

    • Nobel Lectures: Physics 
        • 1901-1921, 1922-1941, 1942-1962, 1963-1970: Reference QC71.N613 
        1971-1980, 1981-1990, 1991-1995: Reference QC6.2.P46 
    • Frank N. Magill, The Nobel Prize Winners: Physics: Reference QC25.N63 1989
        • 1901-1937, 1938-1967, 1968-1988
    • The Dictionary of Scientific Biography: Reference Q141.D52


    In addition to secondary sources, you must use and cite from the prize lecture(s) by the appropriate laureate(s). You are welcome to use the presentation address, but you must use the prize lecture.

Due dates
When the paper is due depends on when the prize was awarded:
Before 1922 Monday, March 17
1922-1951 Wednesday, April 9
After 1951 Monday, May 5
If you are less comfortable with the physics, you would do well to pick an earlier prize. You can do up to one paper for each of the three time periods.
Documentation
For this paper, much of the information is commonly known. Therefore you do not need to use citations except when you quote from a prize lecture. For such citations, a parenthetical reference will suffice: e.g., (Pauli, 28).  However, at the end of your paper, you must provide a list of your sources with full bibliographic information. Follow this example:

Pauli, Wolfgang. "Exclusion Principle and Quantum Mechanics." In Nobel Lectures:
            Physics, 1942-1962, 27-42. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1964.

Include in the bibliography any secondary sources you use. Do not make up your own citation format.

The report must be typed, double-spaced in normal-sized fonts with reasonable margins. It may not be submitted by e-mail or in any other electronic form. The paper is due at the beginning of class on the day specified. (You may of course turn it in earlier.) Standard penalties for lateness apply: each day reduces the paper grade by 2/3 of a mark.
 Other options If you end up doing the first short writing assignment and then deciding to write a research paper, the first short writing assignment will count as extra credit.

If you have chosen the reading journal option and do more than three entries in a single unit, you will get extra credit. Three extra entries over the course of the semester count as a single extra credit assignment.
Copyright © Cathryn Carson 2003