Department of Engineering Science of the University of Oxford by 
Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16No, they couldn't be like everyone else and be a "department", proud mathematicians had to be an "Institute"!
The normal navigation to them was paywalled, but the static files are served without login checks if you know their URL. One way to go about it is to search by prefix on the Wayback Machine: web.archive.org/web/*/https://www2.physics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/contentblock/2011/06/03/*
The last handbooks we can find are 2020/2021, they might have move to a new more properly paywalled location after that year.
- 2020/2021:
- Year 1: www2.physics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/contentblock/2011/06/03/y1-ug-handbook-2020-2021-final-47501.pdf
- Year 2: www2.physics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/contentblock/2011/06/03/y2-ug-handbook-2020-2021-final-47495.pdf
- Year 3: www2.physics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/contentblock/2011/06/03/y3-ug-handbook-2020-2021-final-47496.pdf
- Year 4: www2.physics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/contentblock/2011/06/03/y4-ug-handbook-2020-2021-final-47497.pdf
- Physics and Philosophy: www2.physics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/contentblock/2011/06/03/pphandbook-47524.pdf
- 2019/2020. They seem to have split the handbook up per year after some point.
- Year 1: www2.physics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/contentblock/2011/06/03/y1-ug-handbook-2019-2020-final-8october2019-45541.pdf
- Year 2: www2.physics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/contentblock/2011/06/03/y2-ug-handbook-2019-2020-final-8-october2019-45542.pdf
- Year 3: www2.physics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/contentblock/2011/06/03/y3-ug-handbook-2019-2020-updated-21november2019-45955.pdf
- Year 4: www2.physics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/contentblock/2011/06/03/y4-ug-handbook-2019-2020-final-8october2019-45544.pdf
2011- professor: Steven H. Simon. His start date is given e.g. at: www-thphys.physics.ox.ac.uk/people/SteveSimon/condmat2012/LectureNotes2012.pdf which is presumably an older version of: www-thphys.physics.ox.ac.uk/people/SteveSimon/QCM2022/QuantumMatter.pdf
Notes/book: www-thphys.physics.ox.ac.uk/people/SteveSimon/QCM2022/QuantumMatter.pdf Marked as being for Oxford MMathPhys, so it appears that this is a 4th year course normally. TODO but where is it listed under the course list of MMapthPhys? mmathphys.physics.ox.ac.uk/course-schedule
Course page index: www-thphys.physics.ox.ac.uk/people/SteveSimon/
www-thphys.physics.ox.ac.uk/people/SteveSimon/QCM2023/quantummatter.html mentions it is given in Hilary term
2023 syllabus as per www-thphys.physics.ox.ac.uk/people/SteveSimon/QCM2023/quantummatter.html#Syllabus:
- Fermi Liquids
- Weakly Interacting Fermions
- Response Functions and Screening
- Thomas Fermi
- RPA
- Plasmons
- Landau Fermi Liquid Theory
- Superfluidity
- Two Fluid Model and Quantized Circulation
- Landau Criterion for Superfluidity
- Two Fluid Model for Superconductors
- London Theory
- Flux Vortices
- Type I and Type II superconductors
- Microscopic Superfluidity
- Coherent States
- Bose Condensation
- Gross Pitaevskii Equation
- Off Diagonal Long Range Order
- Feynman Theory of Superfluidity (in book, but will skip in lectures. Not examinable)
- Ginzburg Landau Theory of Superfluids
- BCS Theory of Superconductors
Year 2 of the mathematics course of the University of Oxford by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16 Year 3 of the mathematics course of the University of Oxford by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16 Year 4 of the mathematics course of the University of Oxford by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16Sample official source of the term "MMath": www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/courses/course-listing/mathematics
Students choose only one of the Cx courses.
Then there are PhDs corresponding to each of them: www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/graduate/courses/mpls/physics
users.ox.ac.uk/~corp0014/B6-lectures.html gives a syllabus:
- Heat capacity in solids, localised harmonic oscillator models (Dulong-Petit law and Einstein model)
- Heat capacity in solids, a model of sound waves (Debye model)
- A gas of classical charged particles (Drude theory)
- A gas of charged fermions (Sommerfeld theory)
- Bonding
- Microscopic theory of vibrations: the 1D monatomic harmonic chain. Mike Glazer's Chainplot program.
- Microscopic theory of vibrations: the 1D diatomic harmonic chain
- Microscopic theory of electrons in solids: the 1D tight-binding chain
- Geometry of solids: crystal structure in real space. VESTA, 3D visualization program for structural models; an example crystal structure database.
- Geometry of solids: real space and reciprocal space. Reciprocal Space teaching and learning package.
- Reciprocal space and scattering. A fun way to discover the world of crystals and their symmetries through diffraction.
- Scattering experiments II
- Scattering experiments III
- Waves in reciprocal space
- Nearly-free electron model
- Band structure and optical properties
- Dynamics of electrons in bands
- Semiconductor devices. Intel's "A History of Innovation"; Moore's Law; From Sand to Circuits.
- Magnetic properties of atoms
- Collective magnetism. A micromagnetic simulation tool, The Object Oriented MicroMagnetic Framework (OOMMF); OOMMF movies of magnetic domains and domain reversal.
- Mean field theory
Problem set dated 2015: users.ox.ac.uk/~corp0014/B6-materials/B6_Problems.pdf Marked by: A. Ardavan and T. Hesjedal. Some more stuff under: users.ox.ac.uk/~corp0014/B6-materials/
The book is the fully commercial The Oxford Solid State Basics.
- qubit.guide/ HTML version od the book.
- github.com/thosgood/qubit.guide. Source code. Written in Bookdown.
- www.arturekert.org/iqis links to the lectures: www.youtube.com/@ArturEkert/playlists Well done in splitting those videos up!
- zhenyucai.com/post/intro_to_qi/
Interesting presentation cycle at Merton BTW: www.arturekert.org/teaching/merton
users.physics.ox.ac.uk/~lvovsky/B3/ contain assorted PDFs from between 2015 and 2019
Syllabus reads:
- Multi-electron atoms: central field approximation, electron configurations, shell structure, residual electrostatic interaction, spin orbit coupling (fine structure).
- Spectra and energy levels: Term symbols, selection rules, X-ray notation, Auger transitions.
- Hyperfine structure; effects of magnetic fields on fine and hyperfine structure. Presumably Zeeman effect.
- Two level system in a classical light field: Rabi oscillations and Ramsey fringes, decaying states; Einstein
- A and B coefficients; homogeneous and inhomogeneous broadening of spectral lines; rate equations.
- Optical absorption and gain: population inversion in 3- and 4-level systems; optical gain cross section; saturated absorption and gain.
Professor in 2000s seems to beBut as of 2023 marked emeritus, so who took over?
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ewart. He actually fought not to be dismissed by age and won!
- www.physics.ox.ac.uk/our-people/ewart
Ewart is actually religious:This dude is pure trouble for Oxford!
- www.youtube.com/watch?v=aulL-Qa65i0 Paul Ewart, Chance, Science and Spirituality by Faraday Institute for Science and Religion. Oh, he is/was actually chairman of that crap
- www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVX2F4XvGYo Chaos and the Character of God by Prof. Paul Ewart
Undated materials Ewart:
- users.physics.ox.ac.uk/~ewart/index.htm
- users.physics.ox.ac.uk/~ewart/Atomic%20Physics%20lecture%20notes%20C%20port.pdf
- slides: users.physics.ox.ac.uk/~ewart/Atomic%20Physics%20Lecture%20PPT%20slides%201_8.pdf. Also under: www2.physics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2011-10-19/atomic_physics_lectures_1_8_09_pdf_pdf_18283.pdf. The course was previously B1, they just change the IDs randomly from time to time to fit the B1-7 numbering.
- web.archive.org/web/20170907092044/http://www2.physics.ox.ac.uk/students/course-materials/c3-condensed-matter-major-option it wasn't paywalled in the past up to 2017, but later became. Bastards.
- www2.physics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/page/2011/10/04/c3-intro-vacprobs17-41753.pdf gives the 2016 structure:
- Crystal Structure & Dynamics 10 lectures Dr Roger Johnston
- Band Theory 10 lectures Prof Michael Johnston
- Magnetism 7 lectures Prof Radu Coldea
- Optical Properties 6 lectures Prof Laura Herz
- Superconductivity 7 lectures Dr Peter Leek and Dr Amalia Coldea. web.archive.org/web/20170912021658/http://www2.physics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/page/2011/10/04/cmpsc-handout-2017-41006.pdf
Unlisted articles are being shown, click here to show only listed articles.