Courses

This course aims at developing an understanding of the physical processes that influence our climate. It is suitable for science students interested by atmospheric sciences, climate and air quality issues.

 Topics include: introduction to radiation, atmospheric composition, planetary atmospheres, introduction to molecular spectroscopy and photochemistry, radiation balance - natural variability and anthropogenic effects, greenhouse effect, ozone depletion, clouds, methods of sounding atmospheric constituents, instrumentation, introduction to climate modeling.

Recommended rerequisites: MATH111, MATH112, CHEM100 or CHEM120, PHYS 100 or 120. 3 credits.

This course explores configurations and states; entropy; laws of thermodynamics; Boltzmann distribution; Helmholtz free energy and partition function; blackbody radiation and Planck’s distribution; chemical potential and Gibb’s distribution; ideal gases; Fermi, Bose; heat and work; Gibb’s free energy, enthalpy.

Prerequisites: PHYS 242; ENGR 144 or CSCI 161. 3 credits and lab.

This course provides an overview of our knowledge about the Solar System: how it began and evolved, its components and their properties, and how these elements interact as a system.

Covered topics include: an overview of the solar system, observation techniques, celestial mechanics, the sun, the solar wind, planetary formation, terrestrial and Jovian planets, and life in the solar system.

This course requires a basic understanding of mathematics and is therefore intended mainly for science students. Students unfamiliar with mathematical concepts should consider taking PHYS 171/172 (Introduction to Astronomy for Art students) instead.

Recommended pre-requisites: PHYS 100 and/or 120. 3 credits

This course is designed to be an introduction to the principles of optics. It is divided in two main parts. The first part will present the theory of geometrical optics where light is treated as a ray to grasp the basics of light reflection and refraction. These principles will be applied to the study of image formation, lenses, mirrors, aberrations, prisms, fibre optics, optical system design and optical instruments.

The second part will present the theory of physical optics (also called wave optics or modern optics) where light is treated as waves. Topics studied include coherence, interference, diffraction, polarization, Fourier optics, etc.

Covered topics include: the nature of light; geometric optics, aberrations, optical instruments; Maxwell’s equations, vector nature of light, polarization; coherence and interference; Fourier transform spectroscopy and interferometry; Fraunhofer diffraction, Fresnel diffraction; optics of solids.

Prerequisites: PHYS 201, 241; MATH 221/ENGR 221 or MATH 367.  3 credits and lab.