Posts in category Education
Exam quantum transport
has been held on 27-01-2010. I am still having schedule problems (have not finished ERC application yet). So I’ve finished checking the results today at 1 a.m.
The results are stable: let me put it like this. I am satisfied with average level, it is better than in years past. The reasons were: the book published, enthousiastic problem-solving session of Ciprian, better contact with the audience during the lectures. From the other hand, I expected more: perhaps just because I’m too romantic. In fact, the spread of the results was smaller than in years past. There was nobody with absolute or close to absolute score in multiple choice questions.
Do not mean I am not satisfied with an effort the students put into it: I am. There were several small factors that could affect the performance: i. Updated transparency sets differed much from unupdated ones, ii. there was a small discrepancy between the examination problem and corresponding material of homework that could confuse, iii. the examination problem required unnecessary algebra.
Exam Advanced Quantum Mechanics
has been held on 19-01-2010. Today, 29-01-2010, I finished checking the results. What can I say?
This year I have had an attentive audience which has been motivating and provided strong feedback: we did have questions and discussions, I believe that we could do more together than in years past. I can see this in examination results that concern multiple choice questions and primarly check the material of the lectures. The average was significantly better than in years past. One score stopped short of absolute, there were no catastrophic scores with less then 50% points. This part of examination was awarding for me.
However, the first part, the "problem", appeared to be catastrophically difficult. I could not appreciate it in advance. I received very good reports from and about the problem-solving sessions. The problem was a modification of 2008 exam, and I dared to complicate it slightly in the end retaining first two points simple. Year 2008 was decisively not bright. Yet that time everybody could do the first two points. This year almost nobody could do them properly. Because of accumulation effect, it did not make much sense to go futher, although many did attempt. Obviously, my assertion of the effectiveness of problem-solving sessions and general readiness of students was faulty. I am frustrated. Since this is my fault, I did everything to minimize the negative impact of a way-too-difficult problem on actual marks.
However, the average result is slightly below than last year. Fortunately, as mentioned, we did not have "bad" cases of exceptionally low score.
Busy
There are many things happening that should be presented in this blog, I’m sorry, I can not write about those now. I am busy, helplessly and hopelessly, with drafting an ERC Advanced Research Grant proposal. Internal TU deadline is nearing.
Such writting is by no means my strong side. I hate the present activity very much. I do this in hope to get resources for what I’d like to do and what would be a majour accomplishment of my scientific career: UNIFIED THEORY OF QUANTUM TRANSPORT.
Well. The odds that the weeks spent writting would not go in vain are thin: propability of success is estimated as 15 %. So, consciously speaking, it is not a hope: it’s rather a dream…
I promise I will be back (some day) to write about current events.
Twelfth lecture aqvanced quantum mechanics
was a detour to relativistic world, a world which is not completely detached from ours. Yet it has special (relativity) rules, it has a special look and feel: in full accordance with pre-Chirstmas feelings we all have. We talk about Minkowski and his sudden death, we’ve derived plenties of physical laws from Lorentz invariance, got quantum-mechanical and reached Dirac equation. We have second-quantized it and filled Dirac cellar with electrons. That’s it, we would be able to proceed with quantum electrodymanics if it was an intention of the course.
The relativistic mechanics is the most ancient part of the course. At some stage I wanted to scrap it for the sake of more practical things but I was stopped by more practical colleagues who remembered a pre-Christmas feeling of the topic. So I use to gave it.
That has been the last lecture, and I have to say good-bye to the course. I will not read it at least for a number of years. Will miss it. Thanks to all students attending!
Anyway the semester is over, I could enjoy this if I did not have to finish some papers before Christmas… No time to relax yet.
Concluding nolecture quantum transport
was an attempt to summarize the course read in a less formal manner. So I started with blackboard presentation about powers of ten, Epicurus, nanoscience and, of course, the conductance quantum. I sketched all the field in a two-axis plot. Upon request, gave a list of lectures. Explained the exam and even advertised the groups related to quantum transport.
Then the students asked questions. Frankly, I expected more. I got just two from the same student: so he got an extra point for examination without much of competition.
That was it for this year. Ciprian will give the problem-solving session and we will begin to think about the examination.
Eleventh lectrure advanced quantum mechanics
went surprisingly smooth despite the fact it was the last and most difficult lecture in the course. Or at least I managed to do it better than in years past. The pace was unform during the whole lecture, I could have been on time: just was slow during last three minutes so I had to take a minute of students time, sorry for that. There were questions, although I did not really provoked those. I mentioned several times my emotional envolvment with the topic.
So I enjoyed, and it’s a pity that I will not give this lecture at least for a number of years. I will miss it. There’s a new geneal policy taken from Germany that a professor should not give a course for too long. So I will swap the courses with Jos Thijssen and will give Advanced Statistical Mechanics starting winter 2011. Still have to figure out how mechanics could be statistical.
Twelfth lecture quantum transport
was the last regular lecture of the course. There will be a no-lecture #13 where I summarize the whole course and students ask questions: I have promised a prize of choice to a person who asks the biggest number of those.
There were several moments I stumbled during the lecture. One is when swithching from white noise to colorful environment: I guess I have to summarize what I want to do beforehand, the flow of the lecture makes a strange turn scattering attention of the audience. Second and third came close to each other: manifestations for decoherence/dephasing for electrons and dissipation mechanisms. Also, I was stressed in time when reached these transparensies. So that the disucssion of experiments was done in some hast.
Except this, the lecture was not bad. The attention/feedback was satisfactory. I even got an explanation why tau-phi is always bigger than tau-d. Actually, I’ve figured out it for myself only in the age of forty.
Tenth lecture advanced quantum mechanics
was on disspative quantum mechanics. To summarize, I am reasonably satisfied both with my own presentation and the way the lecture has been received. I felt tired already from the begining but could stay it till the end. There was a time problem close to the end of the lecture so that we had to skip almost everything about density matrix and purity test. The attention was tight, and I got many question s about skipped hbars and missed i’s.
There was a joyful noise from outside close to the end of the lecture. I had to get out and ask them to be quiter. Surprisingly, the guys making noise looked a way yonger than even first year students: wonder what did they do in the building. Perhaps they have been looking for their older brother/sister: a sound brust heard in 15 minutes might indicate they have finally found him/her.
# 11, the thoughest of the course, is nearing…
Eleventh lecture quantum transport
has been updated in time. I’ve made a majour reshuffle of the material and skipped a topic about Luttinger luquids. The fundamentals of dissipative quantum mechanics needed are explained at more qualitative and appealing level. There are still minor inconsistencies in powerpoints, but this did not lead to any confusion. I am reasonably satisfied with the work done.
However, to put it frankly, I expected a better lecture. The interaction with the audience was at low level. Though not completely absent: the question about GQ has provoked some reaction. I did feel a certain mistrust, certain unwillingness to follow the lecture. Was it a fault of my presentation or the material still remains difficult to swallow?
If I get no comment, the question will remain for at least a year…
Ninth Lecture Advanced Quantum Mechanics
was about coherent state and could easily be more coherent. I still think the overall plan was good. Some words, side stories in the beginning. A simple realistic problem formulation: kicking an oscillator. Easy to solve at classical level. Need to sweat at quantum level. Solve. Analyze. Draw a circle. Then discuss coherence and coherent state in the context of laser. To finish: quick Cooper pair box as coherent states of particles.
I’ve started to slip up from very beginning. The citations and discussion of those suddenly appeared banal if not vulgar. Too much attention to beer: the students did not denomstrate any affection with the subject. I’ve felt the introduction that supposed to be both jovial and philosophical has been lost. Tried to compensate this by giving more attention to formulas and developed a time problem. The second half of the lecture has been hurried up, much to misunderstanding and mistrust. It looked like nobody believed me when I get to Cooper pair box.
There was however a question about coherence and coherent state, even before I was going to approach this topic. So I could recall Francis Bacon and his idol of the forum (gosh, I’ve said: daemon of the market, shoudn’t be that clumsy), a subject that in my mind every natural science student should learn by heart. There were more questions: the interaction with the audience was not a total disaster.