Recent content by Isaiah Gray

Hello, Grad school admissions are about over, and it looks like I will be choosing between UIUC, Cornell, or U Chicago for CME. I have research fellowships from Cornell and U Chicago, still waiting for financial details from UIUC. I'll visit UC and Cornell over spring break, but location...

I have the option of doing either a one-semester QM course with Griffiths or a two-semester course with Shankar. Background is Eisberg and Resnick's "Quantum Physics". I really like quantum mechanics and would rather do two semesters, but will Shankar be too formal for an upper-level undergraduate?

I have the option of taking one of two thermal physics/statistical mechanics courses this semester. One uses Kittel's Thermal Physics, and one Schwabl's Statistical Mechanics. Do you guys have any recommendations; which one is more advanced, clearer, etc? My background is Schroeder's Thermal...

I'm trying to build a non-contact displacement sensor, sensitive to motion in the micrometer to millimeter range, for a research project. My two best choices are a self-mixing laser interferometer and a capacitive displacement sensor. Has anyone had enough experience with these types of sensors...

Summer: Research Fall: Upper-division Mechanics Methods of Experimental Physics 1 Sequences, Series, and Foundations Partial Differential Equations 1 This fall is going to be so much fun.

So I guess measuring noise in conductivity wouldn't tell me much then? Man, I just wanted a simple experiment with water and magnetic fields. Maybe if I measured noise in a solid, it would be easier.

Yes; I am specifically interested in an external magnetic field applied to water and electrolytic solutions.

Would the frequency spectrum of Johnson noise change at all when a magnetic field is applied? My guess is not much, since the field changes only the direction of motion of the electrons, not their speed.

Assuming there is a mass on a scale, and they move with the same velocity. I know mass increases for a moving object, but the scale's mass will also increase. So would the scale read any more than if they were both at rest?

Hi, I am a sophomore currently doing research in experimental condensed matter physics, and I'm happy with that. However, I have a lingering fascination with general relativity. If I get to graduate school and decide I'd rather work in GR, would I be able to do that?

Hi, I am trying to get a useful heuristic picture of a line integral, like the area under a curve for an ordinary integral. My current one is: if I place a particle in a force field, then the line integral from point A to B is the change in kinetic energy of the particle from A to B. This...

Hi, I'm another senior in HS, but I'm taking sophomore classes at the U of MN. If you want to self-study physics and mathematics, I would recommend MIT OpenCourseWare. They have full video lectures, assignments, exams, and lecture notes for many classes including Physics I and Calculus I. Also...

Introduction to Analysis I Axiomatic treatment of real/complex number systems. Introduction to metric spaces: convergence, connectedness, compactness. Convergence of sequences/series of real/complex numbers, Cauchy criterion, root/ratio tests. Continuity in metric spaces. Rigorous treatment...

Wow; thanks for all the advice. I'm new here, and did not expect so many posts within a few hours. Here real analysis is a two-semester course and is supposed to be extremely difficult. That doesn't scare me, but I just wanted to know if it'd be worth the effort.

Hi, Would it be possible to simulate the sound of a musical instrument such as a clarinet by finding the Fourier series of the waveform and then hitting a bunch of tuning forks with the corresponding frequencies and amplitudes?