Research group of the Department of physics of the University of Oxford by 
Ciro Santilli 37 Updated 2025-07-16
Ciro Santilli 37 Updated 2025-07-16 Superconducting qubits are bad because it is harder to ensure that they are all the same by Ciro Santilli 37 Updated 2025-07-16
Ciro Santilli 37 Updated 2025-07-16This is unlike atomic systems like trapped ion quantum computers, where each atom is necessarily exactly the same as the other.
From the 2020/2021 Oxford physics course handbooks we can determine the following structure:
- Year 1 (CP, "Coure Preliminaries", "Prelims"). Take all of:
- CP1 Classical mechanics, Special relativity
- CP2 Electromagnetism, circuit theory and optics
- CP3 Mathematical methods 1. Complex Numbers and Ordinary Differential Equations. Vectors and Matrices.
- CP4 Mathematical methods 2. Multiple Integrals and Vector Calculus. Normal Modes, Wave Motion and the Wave Equation.
- Year 2 (Part A). Take all of:
- A1 Thermal physics. Kinetic Theory, Heat Transport, Thermodynamics.
- A2 Electromagnetism and optics
- A3 Quantum physics. Quantum Mechanics and Further Quantum Mechanics.
- Short options: at least one of:
- Mathematical Methods
- Probability and Statistics
- S01 Functions of a Complex Variable
- S07 Classical Mechanics
- S10 Medical Imaging and Radiation Therapy
- S13 Teaching and Learning Physics in Schools
- S14 History of Physics
- S20 History of Science
- S21 Philosophy of Science
- S22 Language Options
- S25 Climate Physics
- S27 Philosophy of Space-Time
- S29 Exploring Solar Systems
- S33 Entrepreneurship for Physicists
- Year 3 (Part B). Take all of:
- Michaelmas term
- Hilary term
- B1 Fluids
- B3 Atomic and laser physics
- B5 General relativity
- B7 Classical Mechanics (for MPhysPhil only?)
- B8 Computational Project
- B9 Experimental Project
- Year 4 (MPhys). Select two from:
Trinity term, the third and final term of each year, contains mostly revision from the previous two terms, after which students take their final exams, which basically account for their entire grade. Trinity is therefore a very tense part of the year for the students. After that they have summer holidays, until coming back for the next year of madness.
The official external course landing page: www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/courses/course-listing/physics. 2021 archive: web.archive.org/web/20221208212856/https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/courses/course-listing/physics) In those pages we see the rough structure, except that it does not have the course codes "A1" etc., and some courses are missing.
At web.archive.org/web/20221229021312/https://www2.physics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2011-06-03/course_v3_pdf_80151.pdf page 11 we can see the global course structure giving the two options, 3 year BA or 4 year Oxford physics masters:
Year 1
(Prelims)
|
|
v
Year 2
(Part A)
|
+-----------+
| |
v v
Year 3 BA Year 3 (MPhys)
(Part B) (Part B)
| |
| |
v v
BA Year 4
(Part C)
|
|
v
MPhysPractical courses notes: www-teaching.physics.ox.ac.uk/
Some others with lecture notes:
Example where this level is sufficient: nodejs/sequelize/raw/parallel_update_async.js.
Quantum field theory lecture by Tobias Osborne (2017) Lecture 4 by Ciro Santilli 37 Updated 2025-07-16
Ciro Santilli 37 Updated 2025-07-16- quantization. Uses a more or less standard way to guess the quantized system from the classical one using Hamiltonian mechanics.
- youtu.be/fnMcaq6QqTY?t=1179 remembers how to solve the non-field quantum harmonic oscillator
- youtu.be/fnMcaq6QqTY?t=2008 puts hats on everything to make the field version of things. With the Klein-Gordon equation Hamiltonian, everything is analogous to the harmonic oscilator
Quantum field theory lecture by Tobias Osborne (2017) Lecture 14 by Ciro Santilli 37 Updated 2025-07-16
Ciro Santilli 37 Updated 2025-07-16On Ubuntu 20.10 PostgreSQL 12.6, login with
psql on my default username without sudo fails with: stackoverflow.com/questions/11919391/postgresql-error-fatal-role-username-does-not-existThis is the one that worked on Ubuntu 21.04: stackoverflow.com/questions/11919391/postgresql-error-fatal-role-username-does-not-exist/38444152#38444152Explanation:
sudo -u postgres createuser -s $(whoami)
createdb $(whoami)You can now run shows that peer authentication is available to all users apparently:
psql without any password. This works without password due to peer authentication:sudo cat /etc/postgresql/12/main/pg_hba.conflocal all postgres peer
# TYPE DATABASE USER ADDRESS METHOD
# "local" is for Unix domain socket connections only
local all all peerList users:output:
psql -c '\du' List of roles
Role name | Attributes | Member of
-------------+------------------------------------------------------------+-----------
ciro | Superuser, Create role, Create DB | {}
owning_user | | {}
postgres | Superuser, Create role, Create DB, Replication, Bypass RLS | {}Delete user later on:
psql -c 'DROP USER username;'Help toplevel:
helpList supported SQL commands:
\hShow syntax for one type of command:
\h SELECTList all databases:which shows:
psql -c '\l' Name | Owner | Encoding | Collate | Ctype | Access privileges
-------------+----------+----------+-------------+-------------+-----------------------
ciro | postgres | UTF8 | en_GB.UTF-8 | en_GB.UTF-8 |
postgres | postgres | UTF8 | en_GB.UTF-8 | en_GB.UTF-8 |
template0 | postgres | UTF8 | en_GB.UTF-8 | en_GB.UTF-8 | =c/postgres +
| | | | | postgres=CTc/postgres
template1 | postgres | UTF8 | en_GB.UTF-8 | en_GB.UTF-8 | =c/postgres +
| | | | | postgres=CTc/postgres
testdb0 | postgres | UTF8 | en_GB.UTF-8 | en_GB.UTF-8 |
(6 rows)If you didn't give a database from the command line e.g.:you can do that afterwards with:
psql\c testdb0Let's create a table and test that it is working:
psql testdb0 -c 'CREATE TABLE table0 (int0 INT, char0 CHAR(16));'List tables, no special tables:gives:
psql testdb0 -c '\dt' List of relations
Schema | Name | Type | Owner
--------+--------+-------+-------
public | table0 | table | ciro
(1 row)View table schema: stackoverflow.com/questions/109325/postgresql-describe-tableoutput:
psql testdb0 -c '\d+ table0' Table "public.table0"
Column | Type | Collation | Nullable | Default | Storage | Stats target | Description
--------+---------------+-----------+----------+---------+----------+--------------+-------------
int0 | integer | | | | plain | |
char0 | character(16) | | | | extended | |Insert some data into it and get the data out:output:
psql testdb0 -c "INSERT INTO table0 (int0, char0) VALUES (2, 'two'), (3, 'three'), (5, 'five'), (7, 'seven');"
psql testdb0 -c 'SELECT * FROM table0;' int0 | char0
------+------------------
2 | two
3 | three
5 | five
7 | seven
(4 rows)Delete the table:
psql testdb0 -c 'DROP TABLE table0;'An optical multiplexer!
This section discusses the pre-photon understanding of the polarization of light. For the photon one see: photon polarization.
People were a bit confused when experiments started to show that light might be polarized. How could a wave that propages through a 3D homgenous material like luminiferous aether have polarization?? Light would presumably be understood to be analogous to a sound wave in 3D medium, which cannot have polarization. This was before Maxwell's equations, in the early 19th century, so there was no way to know.
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