Category: NUS Physics

The current Department of Physics can be traced back through a long and rich history: its earliest forerunner was founded in 1904 as Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States Government Medical School. It was renamed to Raffles College in 1929 and established as a proper university as University of Malaya in 1949. After a further renaming to University of Singapore in 1962 and a merger with Nanyang University in the year 1980, the National University of Singapore was established. It is worth mentioning that famous physicists visited the department, such as Paul A. M. Dirac – a picture of him during a lecture is on display still in the departmental meeting room.

Until around 1990, the department was essentially a teaching department with little research activities. At that time, NUS began to transform itself into a research university. Over these past two decades, tremendous efforts have been made in developing the research capabilities of our department, which is now classified as “research intensive”. Below we list the current major research directions.

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This 2000 level module is designed to give students an indepth grounding in fundamental aspects of modern physics. The module concentrates on modern optics and quantum mechanics (QM), with a focus on the applications of these two topics in electrical engineering.

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This is the fourth module of an interdisciplinary program covering nature at different scales from ‘Atoms to Molecules, ‘The Cells’, ‘The Earth’ and ‘The Universe’. This module traces the developments in theoretical and observational cosmology, starting from Newtonian cosmology, Hubble’s observations, the Big Bang, formation of stars and black holes to recent ideas in the origin and fate of the Universe.

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This is the third module in a series of four covering scales from ‘Atoms to Molecules’, through ‘The Cell’ and ‘The Earth’ to ‘The Universe’. This module focuses on the physical, chemical and biological processes that have shaped the development of the Earth. The module takes a systems approach in order to understand the interconnectivity between the various components of the Earth system, i.e. the atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere. Using this approach, students will study the impact that anthropogenic activities, such as burning fossil fuels, has had on the Earth system.

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This is the second module of an interdisciplinary program covering nature at different scales from “Atoms to Molecules”, “The Cell”, “The Earth” and “The Universe”. Using simple bacteria as the model organism, key chemical and physical principles underlying several biological processes which cells can integrate and function as an autonomous machine in order to regenerate (selfreplicate), repair and re-program (differentiate), respond (energy harness and utilization) and re-model (community formation) will be explored. These processes will be examined at single molecule, single cell to multi-cellular levels under their general ability to store, decode and process information (“Information”), to self-assemble, migrate (“Dynamics”) and to harness and utilise energy (“Energy”).

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SP1541 is the continuation of ES1103 for science students that are also a requirement to graduate for FoS Students. This module focuses on how to “communicate” science, i.e. how to tell the results of our research to the general public so they can appreciate the finding, although they do not have a deep knowledge on that field. We also learned how to do an oral presentation of a scientific research.

Every lecture, the instructor will go through a topic, explain the usage / formula and gives illustrative examples for these. The lecture expects high participations from the students, with the lecturer actively asking students their opinions about the topic. Because of this, a focus is needed to keep track in the lecture and net participation points.

There are various types of writing assignments in the module. The Book Chapter Review assignment is about reviewing a book chapter where we are asked to identify how the author delivers “science” and asks for our opinion (~250 words). The news article(s) is about writing a popular science article based on a recent research using techniques discussed in class so that non-specialist can understand the research paper (~800-1000 words). The reflection is more like “free” style, with writing a small piece about the module. These are pretty tiresome, so please finish them ASAP and to score well, adhere to the moves described.

Finally, the oral presentation consists of making a recorded powerpoint presentation about one of the mentioned news article using guidelines explained in the lecture. After the presentation, there will be a small QnA session for everyone to ask questions. To score, prep the video well, anticipate questions and be active asking questions.

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The module aims to understand Lagrangian mechanics, Hamiltonian mechanics, and basic ideas of nonlinear dynamics and chaos. Topics discussed are: variational principle and Lagrangian mechanics, Hamiltonian mechanics, the Hamiltonian formulation of relativistic mechanics, symplectic approach to canonical transformation, Poisson brackets and other canonical invariants, Liouville theorem, the Hamilton-Jacobi equation, Hamilton’s characteristic function, action-angle variables, integrable systems, transition from a discrete to continuous system, relativistic field theory, Noether’s theorem, Lie groups and group actions, Poisson manifolds, Hamiltonian vector fields, properties of the Hamiltonian fields, conservative chaos, the Poincare surface of section, KAM theorem, Poincare-Birkhoff theorem, Lyapunov exponents, global chaos, effects of double dissipation and fractals.

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This module aims to give graduate students additional training in the foundations of solid state physics and is intended to prepare them for research work and other graduate coursework modules. Topics to be covered include: translational symmetry and Bloch’s theorem, rotational symmetry and group representation, electron-electron interaction and Hartree-Fock equations, APW, OPW, pseudopotential and LCAO schemes of energy band calculations, Boltzmann equation and thermoelectric phenomena, optical properties of semiconductors, insulators and metals, origin of ferromagnetism, models of Heisenberg, Stoner and Hubbard, Kondo effect. Students are expected to read from a range of recommended and reference texts, and will be given an opportunity to present their reading as part of the regular lessons

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We covered Feynman path integrals, Identical particles, Relativistic single-particle QM, and Quantum field theory (Scalar fields, Spinor fields, and EM field). Note scattering and appoximation theory are listed in the description but not really covered.

One of only three physical modules I had in the sem! I can proudly say that for once I attended very nearly every lecture. Mostly because a) the lectures are good, and b) because the lecture notes only really have an outline of the topics, and have typos here and there, so you basically *have* to be present to take physical notes. Almost all the derivations are done on the board, line by line, so you don’t miss out on your understanding.

We had two term tests and a finals, along with weekly homework. The homework is only one, usually straightforward question. None of the tests were too difficult per se, although the exam was definitely the hardest of the lot. Practice all the tutorial questions well and you should be able to handle the assessments relatively well. The exams are designed in such a way that you learn a lot: through the exam questions I learnt about spontaneous symmetry breaking, the dirac cone, amongst other things.

MM2 really should be a pre-requisite for this module: we use quite freely contour integrations, tensors, and bits of group theory. The module also complements GR well, in that in both modules you will spend quite some time playing with indices. If you had the pleasure of taking CFT with Dr. Yeo Ye, go through as much of it as you can. In particular, the parts on rotations, Hamiltonian mechanics, and Noether’s theorem are useful. I used these notes as a reference throughout this module. It is not strictly necessary, all of this is covered again here but it’s nice to know.

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This module introduces advanced mathematical methods that are essential in many areas of theoretical physics. The topics covered are: differentiable manifolds, curved manifolds, tangent and dual spaces, calculus of differential forms, Stokes’ theorem, and applications to electromagnetic theory; symmetries of manifolds, Lie derivatives, Lie groups and algebras, their representations and physical applications. The module is targeted at students who wish to study theoretical physics.

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