Course Name: Physics of Contemporary Challenges

Course Number: PH 315

Year/Term: 2026
Display other available years here.

Course Credits: 3

Class meeting times: 3 hours of lecture per week

Prerequisites: Recommended: PH 211

Course description: An introduction to thermal and quantum physics in the context of contemporary challenges faced by our society, such as power generation, energy efficiency, and global warming.

Topic/Day

Activities

Resources

Homework Due

Course Overview

Course Info

Course Lecture Notes
Course Canvas
PH 315 Syllabus (full length version)

Textbooks

Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air (SEWHA)
Six Ideas, Unit T (OSU login required)
Six Ideas, Unit Q (OSU login required)

Homework and LaTeX

Writing answers to HW questions
9 Rules for Typography in Physics
A quick guide to LaTeX

Gradescope (homework submission site)
315 Homework Template (from LA Alex!)

Help Hours

Wednesday 2-3: Alex in 304F
Thursday 9-10: Alex in 304F
Thursday 2-3: Patti in 485
Friday 3-4: Patti in 485

Term Project Info

Introduction to Term Project

Week 0 Wednesday (9/23)

Introduction

Lecture notes for today

SEWHA Ch 1 - Motivations
SEWHA Ch 2 - Balance Sheet
Optional: Lecture by David MacKay, the author of SEWHA.

Hydroelectric power from a coarse-grained model.

Columbia river gorge

SEWHA Ch 8 - Hydroelectricity

Week 0 Friday (9/25)

Coarse-Grained Models

Rain Power Estimate

Magnitude Analysis by Simon Clark (4min30sec)

Homework 0 w/Solution

Classroom Norms

Classroom norms

Week 1 Monday (9/28)

Energy for transportation - a coarse-grained model.

A coarse-grained model for transportation
Car efficiency

SEWHA Ch 3 - Cars
SEWHA Appendix A: Cars II

Week 1 Wednesday (9/30)

Models for Transportation

TEDx Talk by Sanjoy Mahajan (aerodynamics)

Week 1 Friday (10/2)

Rolling Resistance

Homework 1 w/Solution

Thermal radiation

Thermal radiation
Thermal radiation at twice the temperature

Week 2 Monday (10/5)

Wind energy - a coarse-grained model.

Wind energy

SEWHA Ch 4: Wind
SEWHA Appendix B: Wind II

Week 2 Wednesday (10/7)

Uncertainty analysis

Propagating uncertainty
Uncertainty in air density

Week 2 Friday (10/9)

Energy flow. Energy conservation. The need to define entropy.

Conservation of Energy: First Law of Thermodynamics
Introducing entropy
Dropping hot metal into water

"6 Ideas Unit T" by Thomas Moore:

Ch 1 pages 4-14
Ch 2 (first half of chapter) pages 20-24 “Macrostates and microstates”
Ch 3 pages 38-47 “Entropy and Temperature”

YouTube videos:

How entropy powers the Earth by MinutePhysics
What is not random? by Veritasium

Monte Carlo video (redundant with today's lecture?): Monte Carlo and multiplicity (6:28)

Homework 2 w/Solution

Intro to Nuclear Physics

Six Ideas, Unit Q Chapter 13.1

Size of the Nucleus

Six Ideas, Unit Q Chapter 13.2

Week 3 Monday (10/12)

Entropy from multiplicity. Example - Einstein solid.

Irreversibility

Week 3 Wednesday (10/14)

Temperature from S(U). Maximizing the work from heat.

Temperature and Entropy

HW1 review. Review degrees of freedom. Energy in the degrees of freedom fluctuate at the microscopic level - but averages out over time.

Week 3 Friday (10/16)

Continue discussing work from heat (including sunlight, which is a form of heat). Heat capacity predicted by the equipartition theorem. Degrees of freedom.

Equipartition theorem
Applying the equipartition theorem

"6 Ideas Unit T" by Thomas Moore:

Section T5.4 Equipartition Theorem

Homework 3 w/Solution

12 Monday 10/21

Heat Engines

The Carnot cycle
Basics of heat engines

13 Wednesday 10/23

Midterm exam

14 Friday 10/25

Heat capacity measurements of H2 gas suggest quantization of energy.

Quantum mechanical correction to the equipartition theorem

15 Monday 10/28

Quantum mechanics: Introduction to partial differential equations and functions of space and time.

"6 Ideas Unit Q" by Thomas Moore:

Chapter 1 pages 4-12 Wave Models
Chapter 2 pages 20-29 Standing Waves and Resonance

16 Wednesday 10/30

Quantum mechanics: Standing waves on guitar string.

17 Friday 11/1

Quantum mechanics: Superposition, frequency level diagrams, and spectrograms

Homework 4 w/Solution

18 Monday 11/4

Quantum mechanics: Introduction to the Schrodinger equation, wavefunctions describing matter waves.

19 Wednesday 11/6

Quantum

"6 Ideas Unit Q" by Thomas Moore:

Chapter 11 “Spectra”
Chapter 5 “The Wave Nature of Particles (de Broglie wavelength)”
Section 10.3 “A Quanton in a Box”

Videos to watch:

Electron microscopes explained by Physics Girl

20 Friday 11/8

Quantum Weirdness

Solvable quantum systems
Interference and quantum weirdness
de Broglie wavelength after freefall

"6 Ideas Unit Q" by Thomas Moore:

Chapter 4 “The Particle Nature of Light”

Draft of Term Project

21 Monday 11/11

Holiday (Veteran's Day)

22 Wednesday 11/13

Quantum

Photons

Double Slit Experiment on YouTube (9 minutes).
Quantum entanglement on YouTube (5 mins)

23 Friday 11/15

More Photons

Seeing stars

Homework 5 w/Solution

24 Monday 11/18

Midterm 2

Practice problems for midterm 2 w/Solution

25 Wednesday 11/20

Project Draft Peer Review

26 Friday 11/22

Blackbody Model

Homework 6 w/Solution

27 Monday 11/25

Planck's radiation law

Planck spectral distribution
Spectral intensity at twice the temperature
Blackbody PhET

Stephan Boltzmann Law

Wavelength of peak intensity
Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law
Grey space capsule
Black space capsule

28 Wednesday 11/27

Planck's Radiation Law

Temperature of the Earth
Optical depth of atmosphere
Earth under plexiglass

Friday 11/29

Thanksgiving Break

Day 29 Monday 12/2

Size scale and energy scale of nuclei

Fission and fusion

30 Wednesday 12/4

Hydrogen fusion

31 Friday 12/6

Contemporary Challenges Review

Term Project
Homework 7 w/Solution