Teaching

Following are my notes used for 9B discussion in the Summer and Fall of 2019. These notes were adapted from the prescribed textbook – “University Physics” and the gifs used are from online resources. In addition, a handout with problems to solve in groups was given to students in class which is not currently publicly available.

Please feel free to report any errors, typos or your feedback to kvch@ucdavis.edu. Thank you!

1. Waves (Slides: Click here)
   1. Introduction to waves
      1. Simple Harmonic Oscillator: An intuition
      2. Why are sine waves important to physics and engineering?
   2. Traveling Waves
      1. Traveling waves : An intuition
      2. Standing waves
      3. Vibrating string fixed at both ends
         1. Even and Odd harmonics
   3. Doppler Effect
      1. Visualizing Doppler effect using ripple tanks
      2. How to remember all the Doppler effect formulas?
   4. Interesting topics
      1. Rolling Shutter and ‘online guitar videos’
      2. Leslie speaker, Doppler effect and the Nobel Prize in Physics 2019
      3. Beats + Doppler effect : How do radar guns work?
2. Light (Slides : Click here)
   1. Nature of Light
      1. Deriving Law of reflection and Snell’s Law from Fermat’s principle (Check handout)
      2. Some solved problems in Snell’s Law
   2. Ray Optics
      1. Reflection, Refraction and Total Internal Reflection (check slides)
      2. How to draw Ray diagrams for lenses and mirrors? (check slides)
         1. Using ray diagrams to better understand everyday reality – Demo
         2. Using ray diagrams to better understand everyday reality – Exercise
   3. Wave Optics
      1. Wave Interference – Exercise
      2. Thin film interference and Phasor diagrams
   4. Interesting topics
      1. Van Gogh’s ‘Starry night’, Turbulence and Adaptive Optics
      2. Physics of invisibility
3. Thermodynamics (Slides : Click here )
   1. Some basic terminology
      1. Thermal Expansion
         1. Railway tracks and thermal expansion
      2. Latent heat and Specific heat
      3. Zeroth law of thermodynamics and why do we need it ?
   2. Interesting problems
      1. Heat sinks in computers and dinosaurs
      2. Physics of popcorn
      3. Bending light using heat (Heat Haze)
      4. Non-Reflective coating on glasses
4. Fluids (Part of Summer – 2019)
   1. Buoyancy
      1. What is Buoyancy and how to derive Archimedes law ?
      2. How do hot air balloons work?
      3. Note on Average density and why ships do not sink
      4. Can you swim in a sea of Sulphur Hexafluoride?

Useful Resources:

Beats phenomenon with sound

Leslie Speaker demonstration

Ray Optics simulation app