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"Paper in white the floor of the room, and rule it off in one-foot squares. Down on one's hands and knees, write in the first square a set of equations conceived as able to govern the physics of the universe. Think more overnight. Next day put a better set of equations into square two. Invite one's most respected colleagues to contribute to other squares. At the end of these labors, one has worked oneself out into the door way. Stand up, look back on all those equations, some perhaps more hopeful than others, raise one's finger commandingly, and give the order `Fly!' Not one of those equations will put on wings, take off, or fly. Yet the universe 'flies'." -- Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler, Gravitation, pg. 1208.
We began by discussing the test. Much of the information on this is also contained in relevant section of the course web page.
We then reviewed the Double Slit experiment. We showed a quotation from Feynman:
"I think it is safe to say that no one understands quantum mechanics. Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, ' But how can it be like that?' because you will go 'down the drain' into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that."
-- Richard Feynman
Towards the end of the class, a rough consensus was reached that it was a good time to "let the dust settle" and go on to other things. Once armed with further knowledge, we shall return to Quantum Mechanics.
We began a review and extension of Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity. This will probably occupy us for a few classes. There are Supplementary Notes on Special Relativity. The html version is available here and the pdf version is available here. With reference to those Notes, we discussed the material in the Introduction and introduced the Michelson interferometer discussed in the Michelson-Morley Experiment sub-section of the Constancy of the Speed of Light section.