PHYSICS 126
Elementary Particle Physics
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Requisites: courses 1A, 1B, and 1C (or 1AH, 1BH, and 1CH), Mathematics 32B, 33A, 33B. Corequisite: course 115C. Introduction to physics of elementary particles. The four basic interactions: strong, electromagnetic, weak, and gravitational. Properties of baryons, mesons, quarks, and leptons; conservation laws, symmetries and broken symmetries; the Standard Model; experimental techniques; new physics at the new accelerators. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Professor Cousins is, concisely, what every college professor should be. His lectures are both articulate and comprehendable; when a mistake or complication comes up in class, he is sure to clarify it in an email or in the following class period. His handouts, homeworks, midterms, and finals are all very well integrated with the lecture and reading material; no question is trivial or beyond the scope of the course, and each reinforces key ideas presented in lecture. Personally, I found him very friendly, knowledgable, genuinely concerned with student learning, and occassionally humorous. In my 4 years as a physics major, I have never been so interested, nor have I ever learned so well in any class as I did in his physics 126 class. If you are concerned with receiving a fair shake, and a real opportunity to learn well, Professor Cousins is THE professor to consider.
Professor Cousins is, concisely, what every college professor should be. His lectures are both articulate and comprehendable; when a mistake or complication comes up in class, he is sure to clarify it in an email or in the following class period. His handouts, homeworks, midterms, and finals are all very well integrated with the lecture and reading material; no question is trivial or beyond the scope of the course, and each reinforces key ideas presented in lecture. Personally, I found him very friendly, knowledgable, genuinely concerned with student learning, and occassionally humorous. In my 4 years as a physics major, I have never been so interested, nor have I ever learned so well in any class as I did in his physics 126 class. If you are concerned with receiving a fair shake, and a real opportunity to learn well, Professor Cousins is THE professor to consider.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2024 - The exams were pretty fair; the homework, not so much. There were often questions that tested knowledge or skills that weren't even mentioned in class, and that you basically wouldn't be able to do unless you went to office hours. During this quarter, the professor also introduced in-class worksheets. These were frustrating for several reasons. First, they often had questions we were not at the time equipped to answer. For example, when we just started talking about Feynman diagrams, we had a worksheet asking us to draw a bunch of them, and some could only be done with the strong force -- which isn't covered until several more weeks into the quarter. Second, a lot of class time was devoted to going over these worksheets, which is honestly more suited towards discussion section. (To be fair, ours was at 8 am so maybe nobody showed up and the professor still wanted us to get practice -- but then, the discussion section worksheets were uploaded so we still could have chosen to look at them in our own time.) Third, the professor expected us to hand the worksheets in to her by hand at the end of lecture, but almost always her lectures would go at least five minutes overtime, which was a problem for anyone with a class or other commitment immediately after the class. I emailed her with my concern, and she said she'd try to do better, but never did. So, I had a friend turn in my worksheet (which I completed myself) for me so that I could leave on time, and she emailed me accusing me of cheating (even though I've emailed her about my situation and she's the one who refuses to accommodate it). She was overall really unfriendly there, which made me hesitant to reach out to her about other class related issues. Lectures were recorded, but only the audio (which is a way to appreciate that the professor incorporated visuals a lot, wrote on the board, etc, although slides were also used and uploaded). The homework was graded pretty harshly, but that depends on the grader (I've gotten points docked for answers that were very similar to what students got full marks for in previous quarters). There is also considerable class time and homework devoted to Feynman calculus, which is considered a graduate level topic and should not appear on any exams.
Winter 2024 - The exams were pretty fair; the homework, not so much. There were often questions that tested knowledge or skills that weren't even mentioned in class, and that you basically wouldn't be able to do unless you went to office hours. During this quarter, the professor also introduced in-class worksheets. These were frustrating for several reasons. First, they often had questions we were not at the time equipped to answer. For example, when we just started talking about Feynman diagrams, we had a worksheet asking us to draw a bunch of them, and some could only be done with the strong force -- which isn't covered until several more weeks into the quarter. Second, a lot of class time was devoted to going over these worksheets, which is honestly more suited towards discussion section. (To be fair, ours was at 8 am so maybe nobody showed up and the professor still wanted us to get practice -- but then, the discussion section worksheets were uploaded so we still could have chosen to look at them in our own time.) Third, the professor expected us to hand the worksheets in to her by hand at the end of lecture, but almost always her lectures would go at least five minutes overtime, which was a problem for anyone with a class or other commitment immediately after the class. I emailed her with my concern, and she said she'd try to do better, but never did. So, I had a friend turn in my worksheet (which I completed myself) for me so that I could leave on time, and she emailed me accusing me of cheating (even though I've emailed her about my situation and she's the one who refuses to accommodate it). She was overall really unfriendly there, which made me hesitant to reach out to her about other class related issues. Lectures were recorded, but only the audio (which is a way to appreciate that the professor incorporated visuals a lot, wrote on the board, etc, although slides were also used and uploaded). The homework was graded pretty harshly, but that depends on the grader (I've gotten points docked for answers that were very similar to what students got full marks for in previous quarters). There is also considerable class time and homework devoted to Feynman calculus, which is considered a graduate level topic and should not appear on any exams.
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