Physics 114B, Mathematical Methods

Place: Earth and Marine Sciences B214.

Time: Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays 11:00--12:10 pm.

Office Hour: Wednesdays, 2:00-3:00 pm, 212 ISB.

TA: Jeff Jones, jeff@physics.ucsc.edu

TA's Office Hour: Fridays, 12:30-1:30, 217 NatSci II.

Discussion Section: Thursdays 6:00-7:30 pm, 231 ISB

TWO MIDTERMS: In class, Wednesday October 13, and Friday November 5.

FINAL EXAM: Tuesday December 7, 12:00-3:00 pm.

OVERFLOW ROOM FOR FINAL EXAM: This will be 231 ISB (not 340 E+MS as stated before). Go there if your family name begins with a letter in the range R-Z.

Table of contents:

• Course Description
  
• Homework:
• Handouts:
  • Asymptotic expansion of the error function
  • The "method of steepest descents" and Stirling's approximation
  • The differential equation satisfied by Legendre polynomials
  • The differential equation satisfied by Bessel functions
  • Plots of Bessel functions: J_n(x)     N_n(x)     K_n(x)     I_n(x)     j_n(x)     n_n(x)    
  • The orthogonality relation satisfied by Bessel functions
  • Helmholtz's equation in spherical polar coordinates; spherical Bessel functions
  • Approach to the central limit theorem
  • Estimating an error bar from data
• Exams:

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