Issued Wed, Sept 4 Due Wed, Sept 11

Required reading for this week: Gas. Ch. 2, start Ch. 3.

There are HINTS for this homework!

1) Gas. Problem 2-1

2 Gas. Eqn's 2.2 - 2.5 tell us what g(k) we need in order to get , i.e. a particle "located" at x=0. Using this:

a) what g'(k) would you need to get ,

i.e. a particle "located" at x=x0?

Is your answer unique?

Gas's g(k) in 2.2 is real - is your g'(k) also real? Could you make it be real?

b) If you use the same g'(k) you found for part a, and put in the time dependence as Gas. has done in Eqn's 2.11-2.17, what will the travelling wave look like for this particle, i.e. find |f'(x,t)|^2.

3) Gas. 2-3. Also: describe briefly but as clearly as you can, in words, what the change in the size of the wave packet means, physically.

4) Gas. 2-4

5) Last week you used to Bohr model to estimate the allowed energies of a harmonic oscillator, for which the energy is (that is, the force is , where k is a constant, the spring constant of the oscillator). This week, use the uncertainty relation to estimate the lowest energy of this harmonic oscillator.

6) Gas. 2-12

Go to Prof. Pollock's home page.

Go to the Physics Department's home page.