Undergraduate Courses | Graduate Courses
TEACHING
I enjoy teaching at all levels. This includes introductory Physics courses for students majoring in the life sciences, upper level undergraduate courses for Physics majors and graduate level courses for M.Sc. students and advanced undergraduates. My teaching accomplishments were formally recognized with a divisional teaching award in 2005 and a merit award for excellence in teaching and research in 2007.
Below is a list of Physics courses and lectures I have taught at Bishop’s. Course material is on the Bishop’s Moodle system which is password protected for access by enrolled students.
Undergraduate Courses
Physics for Life Sciences I
PHY193 with lab PHY083
Physics for the Life Sciences II
PHY194 with lab PHY084
PHY193-4 is a two-semester sequence of introductory Physics for Biology, Chemistry or Biochemistry majors which emphasizes applications to biological systems. There is a separate lab course associated with each lecture course. Calculus is not emphasized greatly in these courses.
Introductory Physics I (Mechanics)
PHY191 with lab PHY081
Introductory Physics II (Electricity and Magnetism)
PHY192 with lab PHY082
PHY191-2 is a two-semester sequence of introductory physics for Math, Computer Science or Physics majors. There is a separate lab course associated with each lecture course. The course is calculus-based.
Modern Physics I
PHY213
Modern Physics II
PHY214
PHY213-4 is a two-semester sequence of courses on Modern Physics for Physics majors. The mathematics is light and we cover a large number of topics: special relativity, quantum mechanics, atomic and nuclear physics, particle physics (standard model) etc.
Introduction to Mechanics
PHY117
Newton’s laws and the conservation laws of energy and momentum are applied to classical phenomena using the tools of vector calculus. One of the highlights of the course is an excursion into the physics of baseball.
Electricity & Magnetism I
PHY210
Electricity & Magnetism II
PHY211
PHY210-11 is a two-semester sequence of courses on electricity and magnetism for Physics majors taught at the level of the text by Griffith. It is a joy to teach this course and the students love the text.
Statistical Mechanics
PHY220
PHY220 is a one semester course on thermodynamics taught from the statistical mechanics point of view. It is taught at the level of the text by Kittel and Kroemer. Due to my gravity background, I supplement the course with special lectures on the entropy of black holes.
Quantum Mechanics I
PHY461
Quantum Mechanics II
PHY462
PHY461-2 is a two-semester sequence of courses on quantum mechanics for Physics honours students taught at the level of the text by Griffith. A great set of courses with students still perplexed at the end with the probabilistic interpretation!
Graduate Courses
Advanced General Relativity
PHY573
This is a course for M.Sc. students that covers advanced topics such as the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formulations of General Relativity, hypersurfaces, thin-shell collapse and black hole thermodynamics. I also give lectures on General Relativity to prepare undergrad students for their honours thesis projects and graduate school.
Quantum Field Theory
PHY 571
This is a course for M.Sc. students that covers perturbation theory and Feynman diagrams for a self-interacting scalar field and quantum electrodynamics. I also give lectures on Quantum Field Theory to prepare undergrad students for their honours thesis projects and graduate school.