Physics

GRE Flashcards Clarifications/Corrections January 18, 2013 Dear owner of our flashcard set, version 3.2. Please go through and correct or clarify the following cards as instructed below. Some corrections are vital, while other comments are improvements and additions. (For owners of previous versions, please add these to the earlier correction sheet. For owners of version 3.2, please note that this list supersedes the August 2012 list.) In our next version, we will fix these shortcomings and also improve many figures (especially the hand-drawn ones) and some poor text printing at the end of lines.

Card Number 7CM 8CM 15CM 4EM 14EM 16EM 7QM 11QM 14QM 15QM

! ! ! ! 2 2 If radially outward is positive, use: a ! = ! " (! " r) # a ! = - ! r! = - v / r!

Clarifications/Corrections (either on question or answer side)

the centrifugal force should read +mv 2 / r! so I! = the number of scattered particles/time/target It is the time rate of work (i.e., power) density referred to, and not work density. ! ! Replace by m in the magnetic dipole energy ! H|| is discontinuous across a surface for nonzero (i.e., true or excess) surface ! current density K . Also xm and should both have been written as m . 2 the h2 in the first two lines should read !
w is really and the Hermite argument x should be x m! / ! . should read: What are the position (Also, a comma is misplaced.) Note that one would be free to define a new lowering operator as i times the one we give (and hence a+ would be minus i times ours). This accounts for differences in phases found in various books for both operators and states. The subscript m should be n in the first-order energy change. The first-order superscripts should read E1n and 1n . The brackets < > are missing in the second-order energy change. For SI units, insert the factor 1/4!" 0 in En Rnl refers to the associated Laguerre polynomials.

16QM

18QM 19QM 34QM 4T 5T

. Hermiticity means The first two Q s in answer (2) should be replaced by Q

=Q + (complex conjugate and transpose) ! " = " * (real eigenvalues). Q
The sums over energies include all degenerate energies (all states, really). For interacting and/or identical systems, drop the N factor and consider the whole system partition function Z : F = - ! !nZ The grand partition function in the grand potential already refers to the whole system. The Stefan-Boltzmann constant is 5.67 x 10-8 W/m2K4 The light path should bisect the angles between the time and space axes for all coordinate systems. (Thus the ct and ct axes should have a smaller angle.) Note p2 = p2 where p is the magnitude of the three-momentum vector. We should refer to the four-momentum vector as p to distinguish it from the ! magnitude p of the three momentum vector p . A factor of c2 is missing such that we should have v CM = ptotalc / Etotal
2

14T 10SR

13SR 14SR 15SR/16SR 1O 3O 7O

"

and 0 are defined in card 2O. Delete the word energy at the end of the question. Replace !" by !2 " in the second term for the 1D wave equation.

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Physics GRE Flashcards Clarifications/Corrections

January 18, 2013

3WO 8WO 14WO

Notice how ! is defined below the horizontal. This accounts for the minus ! sin"i the term in the formula for the maxima. sign in

All formulas refer to reflections.

To relate the two path differences explicitly to L and L, we have 1. m! = 2 !l (constructive path) 2. ( m + 1/ 2)! = 2 !l (destructive path) where !l = | L - L'| ni > nc should be replaced by ni > nt in the answer to the third part. Note that you can calculate s here via the master formula 1/s + 1/s' = 1/f < 0 for focal length f (which is negative for the focal point F located on the right). We meant to just say lens instead of converging lens on the front of the card. Both cases are diverging. The a, b labels were switched for the answers. To start with, is the angle subtended by the object at the eyes natural near point N. is the (bigger) angle subtended by the object when we move it closer to a lens focal point (so s = f in the answer). Change the figure to look like Both theorems can be in terms of equivalent voltage or current sources. The graph is particle energy E versus k. It roughly follows p2/2m but there are bands of energy with band gaps shown between them see 4CO. delete the second of composites in the 8th line of the answer. In addition, all leptons have spin 1/2. The neutrino here is an electron neutrino (e). Replace the 3He in the second reaction by 3H (tritium). Threshold occurs when all particles present are at rest in the overall center- of-momentum frame. Note first that BE is positive if the nucleus is stable (so its mass is less than the sum of the masses of all its nucleons). Replace N;Z by N=Z in description of asymmetry term (note that BE is less if N ! Z so less stable then). Also, in the pairing effect, decrease should read increase and vice versa, along with (=-1) should read (=+1) and vice versa. Thus the pairing effect for even- even and odd-odd is opposite to what was written there. Delete the spurious z2 factor in the last term shown in the general series. Replace N by N-1 in the Standard Deviation for a set of samples.

4RO 12RO 21RO 23RO 25RO

3L 3CO 2NP 5NP 14NP 15NP 17NP 19NP

5MS 7MS

Please contact us (rwb@case.edu) if you find any additional errors or ambiguities in any of the flashcards. Well be most grateful! Best luck, Doc Brown, January 2013 P.S. I am most grateful (in alphabetical order) to the following wonderful people who recently pointed out many of the above corrections or clarifications (this list does not include folks who contributed to earlier improvements for the earlier versions) Arya Afshari

Tal Einav
Cathleen Fry Allison Reinsvold Fabio Sanches

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