Classical Waves

3.00 credits · Undergraduate

Prereq: PHYS 1551; MATH 1121; or permission of the Department In this course the study of free, forced and damped harmonic oscillator is followed by a treatment of discrete coupled oscillators in one dimension. This is then generalized to the study of traveling and standing waves in continuous media. Ideas of Fourier components of signals are introduced. A number of examples will be taken from physical optics, and the topics in this course provide the theoretical basis for understanding modern photonic devices. (Format: Lecture 3 Hours, Laboratory 3 Hours)