Welcome to From Quasars to Quarks! This is a class about physics at all (length) scales - beginning with a very blurry snapshot of the entire universe as a homogeneous, featureless entity, week by week, we'll "increase the resolution" and "zoom in" to a new length scale, from galaxies to planets to cells to atoms and beyond. At each level, we'll encounter unique phenomena, but also explore similarities and connections between scales. Of course, physics as a whole is too rich a subject for us to claim this course is in comprehensive, but we hope to equip you with the basic tools you will need to be able to dive deeper into your favorite topics, while appreciating the big-picture perspective and how various subfields mesh together, in preparation for more advanced classes and research. It is easy to treat each class as standalone in the physics major, not thinking about how it all fits together.

At its heart, this course is largely motivated by a fairly simple question: what is a particle? Although it is easy to think of fundamental particles like quarks, electrons, or neutrinos, the answer is really dependent on the context: for example, in many cosmological simulations, the "particles" are individual galaxies, each with masses upwards of 10^{40} kg and intricate structure that is completely (reasonably) neglected! The choice of what constitutes a "particle" isn't just a trivial simplification, either, as it often has significant consequences for the physics, even down to how we choose to state physical laws -- as we'll see, general relativity, classical mechanics, and quantum mechanics are formulated very differently but work equally exceptionally well in their respective regimes.

There will be weekly homework, but these will all be manageable and are more about you making sure you followed the lecture than stressing you out. In addition, attendance will be graded and there will be a final project so you get an excuse to look into what interests you! Overall, as long as you show up to most lectures, do most of the homework, and do the final project you should have no trouble passing.

This is a course intended for (prospective) physics (or other STEM!) majors, and as such in order to be well-prepared for the content covered in the course, students should have taken or be concurrently enrolled in Physics 5A or 7A, and Math 1B. If you are unsure of whether you meet these prerequisites or have other enrollment concerns, please feel free to reach out to the facilitators to discuss your options!

CCN: 34246 The enrollment is first-come, first-serve, but if the class fills up and you want to take it, email us and we will see what we can do :)