Ideas of Physics (103-0-1)
Instructors
Chris Jacobsen
847/467-2703
Technological Institute Building (2145 Sheridan Road), Room F-247
Meeting Info
Technological Institute L150: Tues, Thurs 2:00PM - 3:20PM
Overview of class
Modern society is reliant on energy use, with great benefits for human health, quality of life, and economic activity. We begin with a brief review of how we use energy, both in the USA and worldwide; and survey our present sources of energy (including fossil fuels and renewable sources). Economics drives society-scale solutions! Next, we take a look at the climate challenges associated with fossil fuel use, from the perspective of basic physics (Plank's blackbody radiation law, and Arrhenius' 1896 inferences from infrared spectroscopy) and considerations of Earth's geological history (including inferences from isotopic ratios). We then examine the basics of nuclear physics, including key insights from Albert Einstein, Ernest Rutherford, Lise Meitner, and others which provide a basic understanding of nuclear fission and fusion. Following a short look at the history of both nuclear power and nuclear weapons, we examine both historical and recent developments in nuclear power, including both slow and fast neutron reactors, and the new wave of nuclear power startups. We briefly review the causes and consequences of nuclear accidents, the health effects of radiation including natural background sources present since life began, and potential strategies for the reprocessing and storage of nuclear waste. The goal of the course is to learn the relevant background information, and how to evaluate it quantitatively.
Registration Requirements
None. No math beyond basic high school algebra (as required for undergraduate admissions at Northwestern). This class is aimed at students from across the university; it is not intended only for science or engineering students.
Learning Objectives
There will be short weekly assignments. Some will involve basic information gathering and simple calculations, but in most weeks there will be a short in-class quiz (on paper, with no notes or electronic devices). There will likely be two short written assignments, and one spreadsheet assignment. In addition, each student will be asked to make a single two-slide in-class presentation on information or a perspective related to the course. Midway through the course, students will propose a topic for a final paper of 10-15 pages in length. Each student will discus their final paper in a 20 minute scheduled individual meeting with the course instructor during finals week.
Class Materials (Suggested)
No laptops open on desktops during lectures; you can take notes on paper. There is no textbook for the course; instead, pointers will be provided to reputable information sources from industry, government, and technical societies (as well as books and scientific papers for optional follow-up reading). Lecture slides made available as PDF files.
Class Notes
This tentative schedule for the course will certainly evolve during the quarter!
Thursday, Sep. 24
L1: Course overview. Topics, how much math, discussion, homeworks, papers and oral summary. Unit conversion, averages per person in the USA and elsewhere, trends over the past two centuries. Correlation between energy usage and wealth, and health. World population trends.
Tuesday, Sep. 29
L2: Energy and fossil fuels. Worldwide energy budget, and usage. Fossil fuel production and reserves, including reserve-to-production ratio (R/P).
Thursday, Oct. 1
L3: How we use energy. Sankey plots of overall energy use. "Rejected energy", Carnot efficiency for work from heat, and electrical transmission line losses. Use of energy in residences, in industry, and in transportation. Hybrids and electric vehicles.
Tuesday, Oct. 6
L4: From the atom to the nucleus. The atom: Bohr and Schrödinger. Protons, neutrons, and electrons. Discrete electron states. From quantum to classical. Energy per bond for bond types. Electron volts or eV.
Nuclei: isotopes, mass differences, and E=mc2.
Thursday, Oct. 8
L5: Nuclear energies and decays. Stable and unstable isotopes. Decay chains. Half-lives, decay rates, Bequerels and mass. Liquid drop model, the curve of binding energy, and fission and fusion. Supernovae and nucleosynthesis.
Tuesday, Oct. 13
L6: Energy storage. Storage in liquid chemical fuels: ammonia, hydrogen. Heat storage: sand batteries, and molten salt systems. Electrical energy storage: first a look at the cycles of utilization, and how fast different electrical energy generating systems can adjust their power output. Pumped hydro, and then batteries. Some basics of lithium ion batteries, including NMC and LFP variations. Cost trends, and production by country.
Thursday, Oct. 15
L7: Solar, wind, and geothermal power. Direct solar conversion via photovoltaic panels. Regional variations in insolation. Wind power (provided as an indirect effect of the sun's heating): costs for manufacture and installation. Geothermal. The challenges of variability of power supply. "The grid": National grids (common in many countries) versus regional grids (common in the USA). Load leveling, the challenges of intermittency for solar and wind, and grid-scale energy storage.
Tuesday, Oct. 20
L8: Earth's thermal balance. Measuring Earth's temperature (including with isotope ratios, and ice cores). The Planck blackbody radiation law, and radiation spectra of the sun and the earth. Svante Arrhenius and his 1896 estimate of temperature changes from CO2 concentration changes and their infrared absorption bands. Keeling's atmospheric CO2 measurements. Methane and water infrared absorption.
Thursday, Oct. 22
L9: Earth's thermal balance (more). The Milankovic cycles. The Pleistocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM). Complicating factors: clouds, albedo, heat absorption and transfer in the ocean. Large-scale climate models and their improvements with time. Ice and sea level changes.
Tuesday, Oct. 27
L10: Producing carbon, mitigating carbon. Carbon intensity of different fossil fuel sources. Historical and regional contributions. The Tragedy of the Commons. Volcanos and aerosols. Land use. Geoengineering. New and old carbon in the atmosphere as measured from isotope ratios; correlation with fossil fuel use.
Thursday, Oct. 29
L11: The discovery of nuclear fission, and the leadup to the Manhattan Project. The experiments of Fermi's gang in Rome, and Hahn and Strassmann in Berlin, and the understanding arrived at by Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch. Neils Bohr and the realization of the important role of 235U. The news spreads like wildfire in the USA. The Uranium Committee moves with lethargy in the USA, while the MAUD Committee moves decisively in England.
Tuesday, Nov. 3
L12: The Manhattan Project goes full bore. Enrico Fermi and CP-1, the first human-controlled fission chain reaction. The realization of the potential of plutonium. The launch of massive industrial-scale isotope separation and plutonium production. Los Alamos lab: figuring how to make bombs. Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Thursday, Nov. 5
L13: The development of nuclear power. Guest lecturer: Roger Blomquist. Water and graphite moderators. Rickover, pressurized water reactors, and the nuclear navy. Boiling water reactors. Reactor control systems. Actinide population versus time. Thermal delay after a scram.
Tuesday, Nov. 10
L14: Famous reactor accidents. Guest lecturer: Roger Blomquist. Early-generation nuclear reactor designs. SL-1 in Idaho, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. Modern operations knowledge, and comparison with the history of risk rates in aviation. Accident rates in fossil fuel production, and health effects of fossil fuel burning.
Thursday, Nov. 12
L15: The health effects of radiation. Conclusion of the Manhattan Project: Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Quantifying dose and exposure. The early radiation environment of earth, and DNA repair mechanisms. The effects of high doses based on Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors. The challenges of linear extrapolation of high dose risks to low doses. Linear no-threshold risks: challenges in estimating individual and collective risks.
Tuesday, Nov. 17
L16: New developments in nuclear power. Metal versus ceramic versus liquid fuel. Fast neutron sodium-cooled reactors. Helium cooled graphite/uranium pellets. The thorium fuel cycle. The role of microreactors versus traditional gigawatt reactors.
Thursday, Nov. 19
L17: International nuclear power; nuclear fusion. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the USA, and USA construction costs. France and its nuclear power fraction in total electrical energy generation. Modern commercial developments in Russia, South Korea, and China. Nuclear fusion: inertial versus magnetic confinement.
Tuesday, Nov. 24
L18: Nuclear waste disposal. High-level waste: cooldown periods and transuranic mixes versus reactor type, and local storage at the nuclear power station. Nuclear waste reprocessing. Weapons material: the relative difficulties of using nuclear waste, versus centrifuges for uranium and reactors for plutonium production..
Class Attributes
Natural Sciences Foundational Discipline
Enrollment Requirements
Enrollment Requirements: REASON: Pre-registration is not allowed for this class. Please try again during regular registration.