B.sc in physics, M.sc. in electrical engineering, PhD in optical communications. Ekaterina has been teaching physics and mathematics for 14 years.
Who this course will be for?
For students 7-11 grades Duration: 32 lessons
The course is a club for students who are interested to study the physics of light (optics) on an advanced level, doing projects with coding and experiments as well as participating in discussions on contemporary problems in physics. Grades and level of knowledge do not matter.
What will be on the course?
Have you ever thought that the light is a prior source to many things in our life? In this club we will go through the conceptual history of light with a lot of fun! I will guide you through the optical terrain: from geometrical optics to quantum nature of light.
This will be complimented by experimental and coding projects (in Python) that you will make at home as well as in the class. A lot of the time will be devoted to discussions, where you will analyze the concepts and their advantages/disadvantages.
At the end of the club you will be able to conduct basic optical experiments and write a code to solve optical problems. This will be a result of 4 projects that you will be doing during the club.
Program
PART I: Geometrical optics
1.Shadow and Reflection Project 1: Study of the shadow
2. Refraction of light 3. Total internal reflection. 4. Workshop 1 on reflection and refraction 5. Workshop 2 on reflection and refraction Project 2: Refraction
6. Lenses 7. Image in lenses 8. Optical power of a lens 9. Workshop on lenses 10. Eye and eyesight 11. Optical devices with lenses 12. Summary of geometrical optics
PART II: Wave optics
13. Limitations of geometrical optics and necessity of wave optics 14. Mathematical description of harmonic motion and waves. Part 1 15. Mathematical description of harmonic motion and waves. Part 2 16. Equation of harmonic motion 17. Workshop on harmonic motion Project 3: Harmonic motion and waves
18. Electric field 19. Electric charge. Interaction of charges in the electric field 20. Magnetic field 21. The origin of the magnetic field 22. Interference and beatings 23. Electromagnetic waves 24. Diffraction 25. Workshop on interference and diffraction
PART III: Quantum optics
26. Limitations of wave theory for explaining the optics 27. What is the quantum of the light? 28. Photoelectric effect 29. Principles of quantum physics Project 4: Photoelectric effect
30. Luminescence 31. Quantum tunneling. Solar panels 32. Concluding remarks and farewell game
+ 4 additional workshops to learn how to use Python (first 4 weeks):
1. Introduction 2. Variables and arrays 3. Using trigonometrical function in Python 4. Plotting the data in Python