What Are the Key Theories and Mathematics Behind Notable Phenomena in Physics?

[Yousif]

Hellow everyone,
I've just sat my final A-level physics exam and next year its university for me, I'll be studying theoretical physics.

I am looking into the following phenomenae - in a tad more detail as curious general interest;

1. Newton's Corpuscular theory of light ( I know its not right but I'm interested on how he came up with it and the math he supported his theory with).
2. Photoelectric Emission (The kinetic energy of emitted electrons is dependant on the frequency of light and not intensity, experimentally has been proven, what's the mathematics and theory behind it?)
3. CP violation ( What are the theories and mathematical calculations used to determine the symmetries?)
4. Hadron specrtroscopy

I am interested in both the physics and the math associated with the phenomenae I have mentioned, I've been trying to look them up on the net however since its such a vast resource of info, one hardly finds what they want.

I would be extremely grateful if anyone here can give me resources, net based or books on how to proceed with finding more about what I have mentioned.

One last favour, can I have a list of reccomended books for first year theoretical physics courses so that I can have a good idea of what I'm going to explore next year.

Thanks a lot everyone.

Regards,
Yousif

 

[FZ+]

1. Well... it wasn't really derived. It was a natural progression from Newton's work on particle kinetics to impose the same laws on light. This still allows refraction etc by changing the spell of corpuscles (only in the opposite way), and it had an advantage in being able to define sharp edges (wave theory was thought to lead to blurring at edges due to diffraction).

2. The work was done initially by max Planck, who derive by numerology an equation for black body decay (avoiding the old "ultraviolet catastrophe"), but could not find theoretical backing. By applying Boltzmann's statistical method with added discrete particles, he could derive his equation. He first proposed that this was due to quantisation of electron oscillators which create em waves. Einstien worked on it and created a solution using quantised light wavepackets, and giving them each energy related to frequency, which also explained the photoelectric effect. This led to other conclusions and predictions which were later proven.

For a better explanation read say, Gribbin's "The Search for Schrodinger's Cat". Or just ask around here at PF.

 

[plus]

Physics by Paul Tipler is a fairly standard 1st year physics textbook. Once you start getting to university, there is not much point in the popular science books other than to try to maintain interest in the subject and to see what the longer term material may be.