Related papers: Remembering a Great Teacher
In a letter to Born, Einstein wrote: "Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the old one. I, at…
We describe the development and in-class evaluation of a Quantum Interactive Learning Tutorial (QuILT) on quantum key distribution, a context which involves an exciting application of quantum mechanics. The protocol used in the QuILT…
These lectures comprise the second half of a quantum field theory course given in 2004. Topics include the path integral, loop expansion, Feynman rules, various regularization methods, renormalization, running couplings and the…
We study Feynman checkers, an elementary model of electron motion introduced by R. Feynman. In this model, a checker moves on a checkerboard, and we count the turns. Feynman checkers are also known as a one-dimensional quantum walk. We…
We report on a large-scale study of student learning of quantum tunneling in 4 traditional and 4 transformed modern physics courses. In the transformed courses, which were designed to address student difficulties found in previous research,…
This paper collects and extends the lectures I gave at the "XXIV International Fall Workshop on Geometry and Physics" held in Zaragoza (Spain) August 31 - September 4, 2015. Within these lectures I review the formulation of Quantum…
This is the English version of a friendly graduate course on Classical Mechanics, containing about 80% of the material I covered during the January-June 1999 semester at IFUG in the Mexican city of Leon. For the Spanish version, see…
Simultaneously with inventing the modern relativistic formalism of quantum electrodynamics, Feynman presented also a first-quantized representation of QED in terms of worldline path integrals. Although this alternative formulation has been…
In the Italian education system, secondary students (ages 14-19) are confronted with the foundations of quantum physics during the final term of scientific high school (pre-university year). The Italian Ministry of Education, University and…
Physical quantities and physical dimensions are among the first concepts encountered by students in their undergraduate career. In this pedagogical review, I will start from these concepts and, using the powerful tool of dimensional…
We discuss a less known aspect of Feynman's multifaceted scientific work, centered about his interest in molecular biology, which came out around 1959 and lasted for several years. After a quick historical reconstruction about the birth of…
These notes are based on a lecture course by L. Chekhov held at the University of Manchester in May 2006 and February-March 2007. They are divulgative in character, and instead of containing rigorous mathematical proofs, they illustrate…
This is a set of lecture notes for an introductory course (advanced undergaduates or the 1st graduate course) on foundations of supervised machine learning (in Portuguese). The topics include: the geometry of the Hamming cube, concentration…
The subject of this special issue is quantum models of cognition. At first sight it may seem bizarre, even ridiculous, to draw a connection between quantum mechanics, a highly successful theory usually understood as modeling sub-atomic…
Assorted questions: Time as a parameter in Quantum Mechanics. No-Go theorems for a time operator. Localization, time and causality. Causality violation. Localization again. Lesson 1: Evading the troubles: Im E finite. Lights and shadows of…
Taking Heisenberg's and Schrodinger's theories of quantum mechanics as his case study, De Regt's contextual theory of understanding argues that recognizing qualitatively characteristic consequences of a theory T without performing exact…
In the fall of 1924, Enrico Fermi visited Paul Ehrenfest at Leyden on a 3-month fellowship from the International Education Board (IEB). Fermi was 23 years old. In his trip report to the IEB, Fermi says he learned a lot about cryogenics and…
Presented here is a transcription of the lecture notes from Professor Allan N. Kaufman's graduate statistical mechanics course at Berkeley from the 1972-1973 academic year. Part 1 addresses equilibrium statistical mechanics with topics:…
The following is an exposition of a course of algebra that Prof. Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Zykov (1922-2013) distributed among the participants of his seminar in graph theory not far away from Odessa, Ukraine, on September, 1991. It is a…
English abstract: In the "Intuitive Quantum Physics" course, we use graphical interpretations of mathematical equations and qualitative reasoning to develop and teach a simplified model of quantum physics. Our course contains three units:…