Modern Physics

Mathematica Notebooks

The Mathematica electronic notebooks developed for Modern Physics (Physics 205) are available below along with a description of how to load them onto your computer. All of the notebooks have been tested on a Linux machine using Mathematica. If you have any problems send me email at ggilfoyl@richmond.edu

The Mathematica Notebook files contain ASCII text, and can be transferred by email, scp, or other text-file transfer utility. If you click on the file with a web browser you will see all the formatting instructions in addition to the actual contents of the notebook. You should save the file as it appears with a name ending with ".nb" to allow Mathematica to recognize it as a Notebook. The file can then be read or edited using a copy of Mathematica or MathReader. If you received a file through another route (e.g., email) copy/paste to save everything in the file from the line containing (*^ down to the line containing ^*) into a plain text file.

  1. Introduction.nb Laboratory that introduces one to the Mathematica computing environment.

  2. minkowski_events.nb First encounter with Minkowski or spacetime diagrams used to describe events and their relationships.

  3. pole_and_barn_complete.nb Visualization of an apparent paradox in relativity associated with length contraction and the postulate that physics is the same in all intertial frames.

  4. TravelingWaves.nb Laboratory that demonstrates the functional form required for any wave that propagates through space.

  5. CentralPotentials.nb Laboratory that illustrates some of the classical features of radial potential energy functions.

  6. Lists.nb Laboratory that demonstrates how to make a list in Mathematica and plot it.

  7. plotting1.nb Notebook to show how to make simple plot of data sets with uncertainties, curves, etc.

  8. integrals.nb Doing definite, indefinite, and numerical integrals in Mathematica.

  9. semilogPlots.nb This can be a useful way to present your data or calculations when the plots cover a wide range of values.

  10. inputOutput.nb Some simple cases of reading in data from file that is arranged in columns and writing out a list in column format.


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