BOOKS: The New College Physics: A Spiral Approach

Baez, Albert V.; Benumof, Reuben

doi:10.1119/1.2352423

Cited by 3 publications

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“…Quoting (with minor adjustments.) A. V. Baez [56], «the reader may go through this section rapidly, as it takes him through a round of the spiral; the treatment may strike him as light, even inadequate. But he/she should rest assured, however, that we are laying a good foundation for a more concise and mathematical treatment in the following chapters ».…”

Section: Parode: Enunciation Of the Main Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effective Fluctuation and Response Theory

Polettini

Esposito

2019

J Stat Phys

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The response of thermodynamic systems slightly perturbed out of an equilibrium steady-state is described by two milestones of early nonequilibrium statistical mechanics: the reciprocal and the fluctuation-dissipation relations. At the turn of this century, the so-called fluctuation theorems extended the study of fluctuations far beyond equilibrium. All these results rely on the crucial assumption that the observer has complete information about the system: there is no hidden leakage to the environment, and every process is assigned its due thermodynamic cost. Such a precise control is difficult to attain, hence the following questions are compelling: Will an observer who has marginal information be able to perform an effective thermodynamic analysis? Given that such observer will only be able to establish local equilibrium amidst the whirling of hidden degrees of freedom, by perturbing the stalling currents will he/she observe equilibrium-like fluctuations nevertheless? We address these two fundamental problems, providing a broad theory of the statistical behavior of some out of many currents that flow across a thermodynamic system.We model the dynamics of open systems as Markov jump processes on finite networks. Configurationspace currents count the net number of transitions between pairs of configurations; conjugate forces quantify their thermodynamic cost. Phenomenological currents are linear combinations of configuration currents, and only ensue when affinities enjoy appropriate symmetries, granting thermodynamic consistency. A complete thermodynamic description is achieved when the set of currents under consideration covers all cycles in the network, otherwise the set is marginal.Within this formalism, we establish that: 1) While marginal currents do not obey a full-fledged fluctuation relation, there exist effective affinities for which an integral fluctuation relation holds; 2) Under reasonable assumptions on the parametrization of the rates, effective and "real" affinities only differ by a constant; 3) At stalling, i.e. where the marginal currents vanish, a symmetrized fluctuation-dissipation relation holds while reciprocity does not; 4) There exists a notion of marginal time-reversal that plays a role akin to that played by time-reversal for complete systems, which restores the fluctuation relation and reciprocity; 5) The effective affinity is the putative affinity of an observer who only has marginal information about a system and formulates a minimal model accounting for his/her steady-state observations; 6) There exist fluctuation relations across different levels in the hierarchy of more and more "complete" theories. The above results hold for configurationspace currents, and for phenomenological currents provided that certain symmetries of the effective affinities are respected -a condition that we call marginal thermodynamic consistency, which is stricter thermodynamic consistency and whose range of validity we deem the most interesting question left open to future inquiry. Our results are construc...

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Section: Parode: Enunciation Of the Main Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Inspired by the pedagogical principle by Albert V. Baez in his unconventional physics textbook Ref. [56], we use a spiralling approach to the presentation of the material. The title, the abstract and this prologue represent the first three spirals of five more and more in-depth variations on the theme.…”

Section: Figmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effective Fluctuation and Response Theory

Polettini

Esposito

2019

J Stat Phys

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“…The original set of study guides were prepared mainly from two books: Physics, an Experimental Science (White et a1 1968), regarded as the text book, and Problems and Solutions in General Physics (MacDonald 1967), used as a problem solving book. These two books were supplemented by three other books (Baez 1967. Resnick and Halliday 1966.…”

Section: Original Plan Of the Coursementioning

confidence: 99%

“…(i) In the year 1979-80 it became apparent that both the textbooks (White et a1 and MacDonald) had gone out of print. With careful consideration we chose Physics (Halliday and Resnick 1978) as the text book and kept the other books (White et a1 1968, MacDonald 1967, Baez 1967, Shortley and Williams 1971 on reserve in the university library for reference reading.…”

Section: Problems Arising and Changes In The Planmentioning

confidence: 99%

Report on a Kellar plan course in first-year university physics

Srivastava¹

1989

Phys. Educ.

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A slightly modified version of the self-paced Kellar plan has been used for 11 years to teach an undergraduate course in Introductory Physics at the (New) University of Ulster; it was well received by the students and produced excellent results.Self-paced courses, such as the one first proposed by Kellar (1968). have been employed in many universities in America (Green 1971) and in Europe. Many schools, colleges, and polytechnics in the UK have also started to offer courses which are based on similar principles. These include the Nuffield course in physics at A-level. the APPIL scheme for physics course at A-level. ACCESS courses offered by some universities in their Continuing and Adult Education departments. and so on.At the New University of Ulstert a Kellar plan course in Introductory Physics was introduced by my predecessor (Higginbotham 1975). This course was offered to (i) mature students seeking admission to physics-based courses after being out of touch with A-level physics and mathematics for some time, (ii) students who did not have the required standards (e.g. good A-level grades in physics and in mathematics) to be admitte.d to a three-ye'ar honours course in physics-based subjects offered by the physics department, and (iii) students who were admitted to a fouror three-year honours course in chemistry. mathematics. education. environmental science or combined sciences and had opted to do physics as a free-choice unit. The first year of our

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“…However, the book is lacking in detail and occasionally in accuracy. Where these deficiencies needed rectifying, reference was made to three other texts (Baez 1967, Resnick and Halliday 1966, Shortley and Williams 1971 which were chosen for their level of presentation and their attention to detail. Derivations, definitions, notes, hints and dia-286 grams were given in the study guides, if it was felt these could be more relevant than any of the four texts, within the limited context of a particular objective.…”

Section: Keller Plan For Introductory Physicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Keller plan course in first year university physics

Higginbotham

1975

Phys. Educ.

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Describes a Keller plan course in introductory physics at the New University of Ulster. The motivation behind the introduction of a new teaching form was not primarily to increase contact between staff and students, since numbers on the course have always been small (14, 9 and 8 in the past three years). Rather, lectures were abandoned because they showed no evidence of helping students to understand the material in the course. The two main factors contributing to this failure of the lecture courses were its necessarily broad syllabus and the fact that the course was largely 'remedial'. These factors are explained by the degree structure at this university.

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BOOKS: The New College Physics: A Spiral Approach

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Effective Fluctuation and Response Theory

Effective Fluctuation and Response Theory

Report on a Kellar plan course in first-year university physics

A Keller plan course in first year university physics

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