The School of the Physical Universe · physics, chemistry, earth & sky
Quantum & Particle Physics
What matter does at its smallest scales, where certainty gives way to probability and the vacuum itself has structure.
Superposition, uncertainty, and entanglement explained without calculus and without mysticism.
Syllabus · 3 units · ~12 hours
Unit I — Where Classical Physics Failed
Glowing coals and the ultraviolet catastrophe · The photoelectric effect · Atoms that should not have been stable
Unit II — The Quantum Rules
Quantization: energy comes in steps · Superposition, stated carefully · Measurement and probability · The uncertainty principle, without the folklore
Unit III — Entanglement and Its Uses
The double-slit experiment · Entangled pairs and Bell's question · What the interpretations actually disagree about · Quantum technology today: sensors, cryptography, computing
The Schrödinger equation and what it governs — states, operators, and the first exactly solvable systems.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~42 hours
Unit I — The Wavefunction
Complex amplitudes and probability · The Born rule · Normalization and expectation values · The Schrödinger equation
Unit II — One-Dimensional Problems
The particle in a box · Tunneling through barriers · The harmonic oscillator · Scattering states
Unit III — The Structure of the Theory
Operators and observables · Commutators and uncertainty · Eigenstates and measurement
Unit IV — Angular Momentum and Hydrogen
Orbital angular momentum · Spin one-half · The hydrogen atom, solved · Why the periodic table has its shape
Quarks, leptons, and the forces between them — the full inventory of matter as tested at colliders.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~34 hours
Unit I — The Particle Inventory
From cathode rays to the muon · Hadrons and the quark model · Leptons and their three flavors · Antimatter
Unit II — Forces as Exchanges
Feynman diagrams as bookkeeping · Quantum electrodynamics and the photon · The strong force and color charge · The weak force and parity violation
Unit III — The Electroweak Theory
Symmetry and conservation laws · Electroweak unification · The Higgs mechanism · The 2012 discovery and what it settled
Unit IV — Open Questions
Neutrino mass and oscillations · Dark matter candidates · The matter-antimatter asymmetry · Searches beyond the Standard Model
Inside the nucleus — why some are stable and some are not, and how binding energy runs both reactors and stars.
Syllabus · 3 units · ~26 hours
Unit I — The Nucleus
Protons, neutrons, and isotopes · Nuclear size and binding energy · The valley of stability
Unit II — Radioactivity
Alpha, beta, and gamma decay · Half-life and radiometric dating · How radiation interacts with matter · Dose, shielding, and honest risk
Unit III — Fission and Fusion
Chain reactions · Reactor design in outline · Fusion in stars · The engineering road to fusion power