PHYSICS 17
Elements of Quantum Mechanics and Statistical Mechanics
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Enforced requisites: courses 1A, 1B, and 1C (or 1AH, 1BH, and 1CH), Mathematics 32A, 32B. Enforced corequisite: Mathematics 33A. Photons, photoelectric effect, uncertainty principle Bohr atom, Schrödinger equation, hydrogen atom, Gaussian and Poisson distributions, temperature, entropy, Maxwell/Boltzmann distribution, kinetic theory of gases, laws of thermodynamics, black body radiation. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2018 - This class was extremely difficult I would recogmend not taking it with him. This class is also technically skippable. If you must take this class take it with a diffrent professor. He is a great guy, funny, and lectures well. But his exams can be astronomically difficult.
Fall 2018 - This class was extremely difficult I would recogmend not taking it with him. This class is also technically skippable. If you must take this class take it with a diffrent professor. He is a great guy, funny, and lectures well. But his exams can be astronomically difficult.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2021 - If you take Physics 17 with Rahul Roy you will be forced to teach yourself Physics 17. We were behind the syllabus the whole quarter and Professor Roy isn't great about uploading lectures, or uploading them alongside his notes, or starting the recording at the beginning of class. I personally preferred the clarity of the textbook (Serway) over lectures in general
Winter 2021 - If you take Physics 17 with Rahul Roy you will be forced to teach yourself Physics 17. We were behind the syllabus the whole quarter and Professor Roy isn't great about uploading lectures, or uploading them alongside his notes, or starting the recording at the beginning of class. I personally preferred the clarity of the textbook (Serway) over lectures in general
Most Helpful Review
It's a shame that you can't read a review by the floor, blackboard, etc. That's essentially who he gives the lecture to. No, really. He is extremely boring. You'll discover nothing from lecture that you can't get from the course reader (a statistical mechanics text by Wein which is very dry but all there) or textbook (Modern Physics by Serway, well written, interesting, and all there). What all other reviewers said is true: he is unengaging, his writing is some cryptic squiggle-language (no known cipher exists), and even if you go to his office and stand one foot away from him he still won't look you in the eyes. Poor guy. Just be lucky that you have him for some easy class like 17 (easy if you read the book) and not some more nuanced class like in the 115 series. Unfortunately, you'll have to digest the foundations of modern physics without any enthusiasm from the teacher.
It's a shame that you can't read a review by the floor, blackboard, etc. That's essentially who he gives the lecture to. No, really. He is extremely boring. You'll discover nothing from lecture that you can't get from the course reader (a statistical mechanics text by Wein which is very dry but all there) or textbook (Modern Physics by Serway, well written, interesting, and all there). What all other reviewers said is true: he is unengaging, his writing is some cryptic squiggle-language (no known cipher exists), and even if you go to his office and stand one foot away from him he still won't look you in the eyes. Poor guy. Just be lucky that you have him for some easy class like 17 (easy if you read the book) and not some more nuanced class like in the 115 series. Unfortunately, you'll have to digest the foundations of modern physics without any enthusiasm from the teacher.
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