Hello everybody and thank you for interest in our course in Quantum Physics. In this first introductory video, I'm going to give you an overview of the course. I'll tell about the course logistics, the grading policy and we'll also will discuss in more detail the material that is actually going to be covered in the course. But first of all I would like to introduce again the instructors that is the Charles Clark and myself Victor Galitski, we both are theoretical physicist working on quantum size at the Joint Quantum Institute or just JQI at the University of Maryland. JQI is a very exciting place where there's a lot of wonderful signs being done on a daily basis but within experimental physics and theoretical physics. So there are a number of very talented students working with us, for example these two guys here and this, by the way, is a picture of a new building coming up where JQI will be located. Both the University of Maryland and JQI are situated in the Washington, DC area in the United States, so this is the beltway surrounding Washington, DC, and this is the White House here and we're about five miles or so from the White House. So we at JQI are always looking for intelligent students to work with us, students and post doc's so if you're interested and would like to know more, please visit our website here and jqi.umd.edu. Well you can certainly learn more about the JQI and about the science that we do by going to our website and searching the internet. We on our side, unfortunately, know very little about you. So what we do know is that there are about 25,000 students signed up for our course, and that's it. So there is nothing else we know about you unfortunately. So Coursera has your email addresses and we can use this database to send you course announcements, but apart from that, we don't know anything about your interests, your expectations for the course, your future plans, and it would be very helpful for us to have a little bit of information about that. So we'd love to know me and so in this context, I would like to emphasize, please complete the survey that you will find on the class page on Coursera. It will take you maybe 30 seconds or a minute of your time to do so, but it will be very helpful for us to understand your expectations and also to gauge the level of the material that actually will be presented. So some of the lectures have already been recorded but. In the second part of the course, the second part of the course hasn't been recorded yet, and so this information will be really helpful. So now, let me talk about the course logistics. So as you know, this is an 8-week course, and there will be eight weeks of lectures, two lectures per week, or well, 16 lectures total. I assume you can do the math here. So each lecture will consist on the average of four segments, so 10-20 minutes each and this will add up to about two hours of video content a week. So there will be a one, two in-video quizzes in each segment, those are not going to be graded, so this is sort of to keep you awake to make sure you are still listening. And there will be one homework every week which will be graded and there will be seven homeworks total. And then the last week, we're going to have a final exam which also will be graded. So we'll discuss grading policy a little later. So one thing I would like to emphasize here under this course logistics is that there will be discussion forums and you should definitely take advantage of these discussion forums. So if you have any questions or comments or maybe you find a typo in the lecture or you want to learn something because some suggestions, please use the discussion forum. So first of all, your fellow students may be able to help you to answer some of your questions, or actually, we also will be monitoring the discussion forums, keeping an eye on good questions and good students. And also we'll have a dedicated student on our side monitoring the activity there. So use these discussion forums, it's very important. So a little more about our lectures. So just to remind you, this is a graduate/advanced undergraduate-level quantum physics course, which automatically implies that there will be a lot of math involved. So, and also remember that both your instructors are theoretical physicists. We actually don't know anything else but math. So be prepared to see quite a lot of math. But on our side, we also realized that among you, among the students who are registered for our class, so there are different variations in the level of mathematical preparation. So we tried to have different levels, also, in our lectures. So some videos are going to be pretty simple with no math involved, some videos are actually going to involve pretty complicated stuff, and we came up with a ranking of our videos by their level of mathematical complexity. So you will see maybe one or two video segments with three stars which implied that they do involve very complicated math. And those will be optional for everybody, so you don't have wedge them, it's not going to affect your final grade. So unless, you're really interested and you want to go through the details, you can skip them safely, it's not going to affect it very much. But otherwise, I would encourage you, of course, to listen to all the material that we put together. Now, there'll be quite a few lectures with two stars, which will involve standard quantum mechanics advanced math. So let's say differential equations where it transforms delta function. So these kinds of things are going to appear pretty often in the course. And in this case, for non-technical students, so I assume there are quite a few of you who are, who don't really want to go through the calculations. You're just interested in quantum physics. You've heard something, you're interested, you think is fun, you want to know a little more about it. So in this case, I would suggest that you definitely should skip the three stars and you maybe should listen to the beginning of the lectures with two stars, which I normally will try to provide a summary of the results in the beginning. So that even if you don't understand all the calculations, you can still get the main idea. So in this case, basically what I'm saying is that you can listen just to part of the lectures with two stars and this would be fine. Now, there will be lectures with just one star which will imply that there is some math involved but it's not really crucial to understand the main results. We may watch it and it's not about math. It's about some other thing. So, and finally, there will be lectures with no ranking in some sense, so those don't really involve heavy math and anybody can listen to them. Whether or not you have physics background or math background, you still should be able to understand. Now let me say a few words about the material you're actually going to learn in this class. So this is the syllabus page for our course on Coursera. So you can take a look at it. So it's available already. So, let me mention first of all that we did not even try to cover all conceivable aspects of quantum physics in this eight week online course. I don't think it's possible. So even when we teach our graduate students here who already had some exposure to quantum physics, so it takes about a year for us to over all aspects of quantum physics. And then there are some advanced courses on top of that. So, it takes some time to learn quantum mechanics at the professional level. But I think we have a very good selection of topics here nevertheless. So among them I would like to emphasize this Feynman formulation of quantum theory that I personally like very much, I think it's one of the most elegant theories developed by Feynman in quantum theory. And in the fourth week, we're actually going to get to a rather modern result, so quantum localization. So, we're also going to discuss a little bit theory of superconductivity which is another fascinating phenomenon which relies on quantum science. So, Charles will start his lectures in the fourth week and he's going to talk about the very important problem of hydrogen atom. He discuss atomic spectra and present a solution to the Schrodinger equations in the Coulomb potential, it's a very important result, so he'll talk about symmetry and conservation laws and quantum physics. So later on, actually, we'll touch upon modern developments, more modern developments in the quantum science like say the quantum hole effect and very modern developments of multiple insulators. Some of you might have heard about that. So in the end of the course, we're going to talk about other interesting phenomena, quantum mechanics, topological vary phase, quantum optics and lasers in the last week. So the last lecture, we keep it open. So we don't know yet what's going to happen in the last lecture, so it might depend on actually your interest, your response. So let's say if you request something in discussion forums, we may you see I've to cover in the last lecture, so we'll see about that. No, I think it's a very good selection of topics and you're going to learn, well, the basics of quantum mechanics and also some of the advance topics. So, the last comment here I'd like to make is that, when you read in your book on anything, so, before you get to the action, it takes some time to introduce characters. While sometimes you may find it a little boring. Likewise, before we can get to the actions, some sense here in quantum mechanics. It will take me well a few lectures to introduce the basics to tell, to remind you or, tell you little more about the history of quantum mechanics, how it was actually discovered, the main equations that governed quantum behavior and tell you about the mathematical formulas. So I would encourage you to keep with me during this first few weeks before we get to the interesting stuff which is going to appear a little later. Finally, let me talk about the grading policy. So I assume that it might be of interest to many of you who would like to get a certificate of accomplishment. So the grading is going to be based entirely on your homeworks. There will be seven homeworks each week. At the end of the week there will be homework. And these seven homeworks are going to contribute 70% to your course grade. And finally, in the last week, there will be a final exam which essentially is a long homework which will cover all the topics we will have studied by that time, and the final exam will constitute 30% of the course grade. So each assignment will have a soft due date where you will get the full credit for whatever you have done by that time and a hard due date, after which no submissions will be accepted and there will be some penalty after the soft due date, 5% per day is I think what's recommended by Coursera. Now in the end, we are going to issue two types of certificates, either regular or with distinction, and the precise title for those will be determined later, so it will be curved based on the performance of other students, but I would estimate that regular certificate cut off will be around, let's say, 60% of the grades. So you will have to provide 60% of correct answers. And the certificate with distinction will be at about 90%, so. But otherwise, I think it will be pretty democratic sort of grading policy. And most of you who make an effort to complete the homeworks are going to do very well. Okay? And after all, if you don't want to do the homework, it's fine. If you just want to listen to some lectures, of course you should feel free to do so and we understand of course that you all have busy schedules and other things to do so just have fun. Okay? And I'll see you in the first lecture soon.
