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The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular term. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the MyBU Student Portal for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

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  • CAS PY 107: Physics of Food and Cooking
    Physical science concepts of thermal / soft matter physics and molecular biophysics such as phase transitions and gelation, viscosity, elasticity illustrated via cooking. Labs and demos using molecular gastronomy methods of sous-vide cooking, pressure cooking, making desserts, cheese, emulsions, foams, gels, ice creams. Carries natural science divisional credit (with lab) in CAS. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Scientific Inquiry I, Quantitative Reasoning I, Critical Thinking.
    • Critical Thinking
    • Quantitative Reasoning I
    • Scientific Inquiry I
  • CAS PY 211: General Physics 1
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASMA123) or consent of instructor for students concurrently taking MA 123. ; Undergraduate Corequisites: (CASMA124 OR CASMA127) - Calculus-based introduction to basic principles of physics, emphasizing Newtonian mechanics, conservation laws, and thermodynamics. For science majors and engineers, and for premedical students who seek a more analytical course than CAS PY 105/106. Interactive, student-centered lectures, discussion, and laboratory. Carries natural science divisional credit in CAS. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Scientific Inquiry I, Quantitative Reasoning I, Critical Thinking, Teamwork/Collaboration.
    • Critical Thinking
    • Quantitative Reasoning I
    • Scientific Inquiry I
    • Teamwork/Collaboration
  • CAS PY 212: General Physics 2
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASPY211 & CASMA124) or consent of instructor for students concurrently taking MA 123. - Calculus-based introduction to basic principles of physics, emphasizing electromagnetism, circuits, and optics. For science majors and engineers, and for premedical students who seek a more analytical course than CAS PY 105/106. Interactive, student-centered lectures, discussion, and laboratory. Carries natural science divisional credit in CAS. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Scientific Inquiry II, Quantitative Reasoning II, Critical Thinking, Teamwork/Collaboration.
    • Critical Thinking
    • Quantitative Reasoning II
    • Scientific Inquiry II
    • Teamwork/Collaboration
  • CAS PY 231: The Physics in Music
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: musical performance experience, or some familiarity with the notes on the musical clef, or consent of instructor (no physics prerequisite). - An introduction to musical acoustics, which covers vibrations and waves in musical systems and sound production, intervals and the construction of musical scales, tuning and temperament, the percussion instruments, the piano, the string, woodwind and brass instruments, room acoustics, the human ear and psychoacoustical phenomena important to musical performance and perception. Examples from the musical literature that illustrate various acoustical effects are covered. Some aspects of electronic music are also discussed. Satisfies CAS natural science divisional credit. Effective Fall 2024, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Critical Thinking, Quantitative Reasoning I, Scientific Inquiry I.
    • Critical Thinking
    • Quantitative Reasoning I
    • Scientific Inquiry I
  • CAS PY 251: Principles of Physics 1
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASMA123) or equivalent. ; Undergraduate Corequisites: (CASMA124 OR CASMA127)or consent of instructor for students currently enrolled in CAS MA 12 3. - Introduction to mechanics, conservation laws, rotation, waves, and thermodynamics. Primarily for physics, mathematics, and astronomy majors, but open to other students with a strong background in mathematics. Carries natural science divisional credit (with lab) in CAS. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Scientific Inquiry I, Quantitative Reasoning I, Critical Thinking, Teamwork/Collaboration.
    • Critical Thinking
    • Quantitative Reasoning I
    • Scientific Inquiry I
    • Teamwork/Collaboration
  • CAS PY 252: Principles of Physics 2
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASPY251) or equivalent. - Introduction to electric and magnetic fields, circuits, electromagnetic waves, and optics. Primarily for physics, mathematics, and astronomy majors, but open to other students with a strong background in mathematics. Carries natural science divisional credit (with lab) in CAS. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Scientific Inquiry II, Quantitative Reasoning II, Critical Thinking. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Scientific Inquiry II, Quantitative Reasoning II, Critical Thinking, Teamwork/Collaboration.
    • Critical Thinking
    • Quantitative Reasoning II
    • Scientific Inquiry II
    • Teamwork/Collaboration
  • CAS PY 313: Waves and Modern Physics
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASPY211 & CASPY212 & CASMA124) - Graduate Prerequisites: (CASPY211 & CASPY212 & CASMA124) - Waves and physical optics, relativistic mechanics, experimental foundations of quantum mechanics, atomic structure, physics of molecules and solids, atomic nuclei and elementary particles. Along with CAS PY 211, 212, PY 313 completes a three-semester introductory sequence primarily intended for students of engineering. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Scientific Inquiry II, Critical Thinking.
    • Critical Thinking
    • Scientific Inquiry II
  • CAS PY 351: Modern Physics 1
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASPY251 & CASPY252) (or CASPY211, CASPY212) and CASMA124. ; Undergraduate Corequisites: (CASMA225) - This course traces the historical and intellectual developments that led to the formulation of modern physics. It introduces students to special relativity, quantum mechanics, classical and quantum statistics, emphasizing scientific inquiry and critical thinking. Labs are a required course component. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Scientific Inquiry II, Critical Thinking.
    • Critical Thinking
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Scientific Inquiry II
  • CAS PY 355: Methods of Theoretical Physics
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: ( (CASPY251 & CASPY252 & CASMA225) OR (CASPY211 & CASPY212 & CASM A225)) or consent of instructor. - Survey of mathematical and computational methods used in modern theoretical physics. Vectors, fields, differential and integral vector calculus. Matrices, matrix transformations, rotations, eigenvalues and eigenvectors. Function spaces, orthonormal functions, Fourier analysis, bras and kets. Basics of ordinary and partial differential equations with solutions by series and numerical methods. Complex variables and analytic functions. Scientific programming in python, computational visualization and numerical methods complementing each of the analytic topics. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Quantitative Reasoning II, Digital/Multimedia Expression.
    • Digital/Multimedia Expression
    • Quantitative Reasoning II
  • CAS PY 371: Electronics for Scientists
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASMA124 & (CASPY212 OR CASPY252)) or consent of instructor. - A survey of practical electronics for all College of Arts and Sciences science students wishing to gain a working knowledge of electronic instrumentation, and in particular, its construction. Two four-hour laboratory-lecture sessions per week. Effective Spring 2020 this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Digital/Multimedia Expression, Creativity/Innovation, Research and Information Literacy.
    • Creativity/Innovation
    • Digital/Multimedia Expression
    • Research and Information Literacy
  • CAS PY 405: Electromagnetic Fields and Waves I
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASPY355) or consent of instructor. - Electrostatics; electric fields in matter; magnetostatics; Laplace's equation; magnetic fields in matter; electrodynamics; conservation laws.
  • CAS PY 406: Electromagnetic Fields and Waves II
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASPY405) or consent of instructor. - Electromagnetic waves; potentials and fields of moving charges; radiation; electrodynamics and special relativity.
  • CAS PY 408: Intermediate Mechanics
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASPY355) - Dynamics of particles and rigid bodies. Chaos and phase space. Oscillatory motion, motion under a central force, and scattering off a central potential. Non-inertial frames of reference. Lagrangian and Hamiltonian dynamics. Coupled oscillations, normal modes, and continuum mechanics.
  • CAS PY 410: Statistical Thermodynamics
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASPY355) and (CASPY313 or CASPY351); or consent of instructor. - The laws of thermodynamics, statistical and information basis of thermodynamics, ensemble theory, equilibrium statistical mechanics and its application to physical systems of interest, irreversibility.
  • CAS PY 421: Introduction to Computational Physics
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASPY351) or consent of instructor. - Undergraduate-level introduction to computer programming and methods used to formulate and solve physics problems on the computer. Also touches on more advanced topics such as parallel computing and graphical visualization.
  • CAS PY 451: Quantum Physics 1
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASPY313 OR CASPY351) AND CASPY355); or consent of instructor. - Uncertainty principle; Schrödinger wave equation and applications; operators; hermitian operators and unitary transformations; harmonic oscillator; angular momentum and spin; hydrogen atom.
  • CAS PY 452: Quantum Physics 2
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASPY451) or consent of instructor. - Degenerate and non-degenerate perturbation theory: hydrogen fine structure, Zeeman effect, helium splitting; time-dependent perturbation theory; Variational Principle; Adiabatic Approximation; scattering theory.
  • CAS PY 501: Mathematical Physics
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASMA226 & CASPY355) or equivalent. - Graduate Prerequisites: (CASMA226 & CASPY355) or equivalent. - Introduction to complex variables and residue calculus, asymptotic methods, and conformal mapping; integral transforms; ordinary and partial differential equations; non-linear equations; integral equations.
  • CAS PY 502: Computational Physics
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor. - Graduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor. - Fundamental methods of computational physics and applications; numerical algorithms; linear algebra, differential equations; computer simulation; vectorization, parallelism, and optimization. Examples and projects on scientific applications.
  • CAS PY 511: Quantum Mechanics I
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASPY451 & CASPY452) - Graduate Prerequisites: (CASPY451 & CASPY452) - General theory of quantum mechanics, including the Schrodinger, Heisenberg, and interaction pictures. The path integral formulation. Angular momentum: orbital and spin angular momentum, addition of angular momenta, Wigner-Eckart theorem. Scattering theory: time-independent, partial waves and phase shift, identical particles, time dependent, and propagators.

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