Course Description
PHY3107 is Modern Physics II — the second term of the course that introduces a physics student to everything discovered after 1900. The Statewide Course Numbering System lists its content explicitly: "topics in modern physics, atomic structure, molecular structure, atomic and molecular spectra, physics of solids, band structure, nuclear structure, nuclear forces, radioactive decay and nuclear reactions, elementary particles, fundamental interactions." The statewide prerequisite is Modern Physics I.
⚠ That list is the shape of the course: having met quantum mechanics in the first term, this one applies it — outward from the atom to molecules, to solids, to the nucleus, and finally to particles and the fundamental interactions. It is the term in which a physics student sees, for the first time, how the whole of matter hangs together from one framework.
Only two Florida public universities carry the number, and ⚠⚠ they title it very differently:
| Institution | Its title | Credits |
|---|
| Florida International University | Advanced Modern Physics | 3 |
| University of West Florida | Calculus-Based Physics IV | 3 |
⚠⚠⚠ UWF's title counts from a different place, and a student searching for "Modern Physics II" at UWF will not find it. "Calculus-Based Physics IV" numbers the course by its position in the whole introductory sequence — Physics I and II being the standard mechanics and electromagnetism courses (`PHY2048`/`PHY2049`), Physics III the first modern physics course, and Physics IV this one. The statewide title counts within modern physics. ⚠ Both are correct; they are the same course; and the naming makes it invisible to anyone reading the other's catalog.
⚠⚠ And a second, more consequential problem sits behind this number: Florida numbers "modern physics" at least seven ways, and one of them is a ONE-TERM course covering what this two-term sequence covers across two. Read *Special Information* before you plan a sequence or a transfer — this is the part that costs students a term.
Learning Outcomes
Required Outcomes
- Apply the quantum framework from the first term — wavefunctions, operators, eigenvalues, the Schrödinger equation — to new physical systems.
- Describe the hydrogen atom quantitatively: quantum numbers, orbital angular momentum, degeneracy, and the origin of the spectrum.
- Explain electron spin, the Pauli exclusion principle, and the construction of the periodic table from them.
- Analyse multi-electron atoms — screening, shell structure, spin–orbit coupling, fine structure, and the Zeeman effect in outline.
- Analyse atomic spectra: selection rules, transition probabilities, emission and absorption, and ⚠ why a spectrum is a fingerprint.
- Describe molecular structure — covalent and ionic bonding from quantum mechanics, and rotational and vibrational spectra.
- Describe the physics of solids: crystal structure, the free-electron model, and ⚠⚠ band structure — and use it to explain why some materials conduct, some insulate, and some are semiconductors.
- Explain semiconductor behaviour, doping, and the operation of a junction in outline.
- Describe nuclear structure — the constituents, binding energy, the mass defect, nuclear models, and the nuclear force.
- Analyse radioactive decay — alpha, beta and gamma, decay law, half-life, decay chains — and compute activity.
- Analyse nuclear reactions, fission and fusion, and compute energy release from mass differences.
- Describe the Standard Model in outline: quarks, leptons, gauge bosons, generations, and the four fundamental interactions.
- Apply conservation laws and symmetry — energy, momentum, charge, lepton and baryon number — to decide whether a reaction is allowed.
- ⚠ Use relativistic kinematics in particle and nuclear problems, including invariant mass.
- ⚠ Connect theory to the experiments that established it — the historical measurements are part of the content, not decoration.
Optional Outcomes
- Address lasers and quantum optics, stimulated emission and population inversion.
- Address superconductivity and other low-temperature phenomena.
- Address astrophysics and cosmology — stellar nucleosynthesis, the early universe, dark matter.
- Address nuclear applications — reactors, medical imaging and radiotherapy, dating methods.
- Address particle detection and accelerators.
- Perform computational modelling of a quantum or nuclear system.
- Address quantum information and computing in outline.
- Read and present a primary research paper or a historical original.
Major Topics
Required Topics
- Review and extension of quantum mechanics — the Schrödinger equation in three dimensions, angular momentum, central potentials.
- The hydrogen atom — solution, quantum numbers, radial and angular distributions, spectrum.
- Spin and identical particles — the Pauli principle, symmetric and antisymmetric states.
- Multi-electron atoms — shell filling, the periodic table, screening, coupling schemes, fine structure.
- Atomic and molecular spectra — selection rules, transitions, X-ray spectra, rotational and vibrational bands.
- Molecular structure and bonding from quantum mechanics.
- Solid-state physics — crystal lattices, free-electron gas, ⚠ band theory, conductors, insulators and semiconductors.
- Nuclear structure — size, binding energy, the liquid-drop and shell models, the nuclear force.
- Radioactivity — decay modes, decay law and statistics, chains, dating.
- Nuclear reactions — cross-sections, fission, fusion, energetics.
- Particle physics — the particle zoo and its resolution, quarks and leptons, the Standard Model, ⚠ conservation laws as the working tool.
- The fundamental interactions — strong, weak, electromagnetic, gravitational; unification in outline.
Optional Topics
- Lasers, masers and quantum optics.
- Superconductivity and superfluidity.
- Nuclear and particle astrophysics; cosmology.
- Reactors, medical physics and radiation applications.
- Accelerators and detectors.
- Computational methods.
- Quantum information and computing.
- Neutrino physics and beyond-Standard-Model topics.
Resources & Tools
- Modern Physics by Krane — the most widely adopted text for exactly this course, and unusually strong on the nuclear and particle half that occupies the second term. Modern Physics by Serway, Moses and Moyer and Tipler and Llewellyn are the standard alternatives.
- Concepts of Modern Physics (Beiser) — shorter and more descriptive; ⚠ fine for a survey course and thin if your section is quantitatively serious.
- ⚠ Where the course goes deep on one half: Introduction to Solid State Physics (Kittel) for the band-structure material, Introductory Nuclear Physics (Krane) for the nuclear half, and Introduction to Elementary Particles (Griffiths) for the particle half — ⚠ Griffiths is unusually readable and worth knowing about even if it is not assigned.
- ⚠⚠ Free and genuinely excellent: MIT OpenCourseWare 8.04/8.05 (quantum) and 8.701 (particle); the Feynman Lectures (free online at Caltech) volume III on quantum mechanics; the Particle Data Group's Review of Particle Physics (free, and the authoritative source for every particle property — ⚠ use it instead of any secondary table); the NNDC / NuDat nuclear data tables from Brookhaven; and NIST atomic spectra databases.
- ⚠ The mathematics you will actually use: multivariable calculus, separation of variables and the solution of ordinary differential equations, spherical coordinates and spherical harmonics, linear algebra for operators and eigenvalues, and special relativity's kinematics. Multivariable calculus and differential equations are the real gate.
- Computational tools — Python with NumPy, SciPy and Matplotlib, free, and ⚠ plotting a hydrogen radial distribution or a decay chain yourself is worth more than reading about either.
- ⚠⚠ Florida context, and it is unusually strong for this subject: the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at Florida State (the highest-field magnet laboratory in the world); FSU's John D. Fox Superconducting Accelerator Laboratory — ⚠ an operating nuclear-physics accelerator with undergraduate involvement, which is rare; UF's particle and gravitational-physics groups (⚠ Florida groups contributed to the LIGO gravitational-wave detections); CREOL at UCF for optics and lasers; and the Space Coast for radiation environments and detectors. These are the research placements this course is the gateway to — ask a faculty member in the term you take it.
Career Pathways
- ⚠ This is a required core course in a physics degree rather than a route to a named job. Its value is that it is the gateway to every specialisation. Students frequently choose their subfield during this term, because it is the first time they see condensed matter, nuclear and particle physics as real options.
- Physicist and Astronomer (SOC 19-2012) — ⚠ requires a PhD; this course is standard graduate-admission content and a large part of the Physics GRE.
- Materials Scientist (SOC 19-2032), Materials Engineer (SOC 17-2131) — ⚠ the band-structure material is the foundation of semiconductor and device work.
- Electronics and semiconductor engineering (SOC 17-2072) — ⚠⚠ and this deserves emphasis: the solid-state half of this course is why a physics graduate is employable in the semiconductor industry. Doping, junctions and band gaps are the daily vocabulary.
- Nuclear Engineer (SOC 17-2161), Health Physicist and radiation-safety roles (SOC 19-2099, 29-9799), Nuclear Medicine Technologist (SOC 29-2033) — ⚠ the nuclear half maps directly, and medical physics is a substantial, well-paid and under-advertised career requiring a graduate degree and board certification.
- Optical and photonics engineering (SOC 17-2199) — ⚠ a real Florida cluster around UCF's CREOL.
- Data science and quantitative roles (SOC 15-2051, 13-2051) — physics graduates are recruited heavily, and the modelling and statistical habits this sequence builds are the reason.
- Secondary Physics Teacher (SOC 25-2031) — ⚠ Florida has persistent and severe physics-teaching vacancies, and a physics degree plus certification is among the most reliably employable combinations in the state.
- Florida employers and facilities: the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, FSU's accelerator laboratory, NASA Kennedy Space Center and the Space Coast contractors (Blue Origin, SpaceX, L3Harris, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman), Siemens Energy (Orlando), the photonics and laser firms around CREOL, the medical-physics departments of the large hospital systems, and the nuclear utilities — Florida operates commercial nuclear generation (Turkey Point and St. Lucie), which supports health-physics and reactor-engineering roles.
Special Information
⚠⚠⚠ "Modern physics" is numbered at least SEVEN ways in Florida — and one of them is a ONE-TERM course
This is the most consequential thing in this guide.
| Number | Statewide title | Level | Statewide prerequisite |
|---|
PHY1033 | Descriptive Classical and Modern Physics | lower | — ⚠ a non-majors survey |
PHY2100 | Topics in Modern Physics for Teachers | lower | — |
PHY2102 | Applications of Modern Physics Research | lower | — |
PHY2105 | Modern Physics | lower | PHY2048 |
⚠⚠ PHY3101 | ⚠⚠ Elements of Modern Physics | upper | one year of college physics with calculus |
PHY3106 | Modern Physics I | upper | PHY2054 or PHY2049 and MAC2313 |
PHY3107 | Modern Physics II | upper | Modern Physics I |
PHY3110 | Honors in Modern Physics | upper | physics for engineers |
PHY4822, PHY4823 | Modern Physics Laboratory I & II | upper | modern physics |
⚠⚠⚠ The critical distinction: `PHY3101` "Elements of Modern Physics" is a ONE-TERM upper-division treatment, while `PHY3106`/`PHY3107` is a TWO-TERM sequence covering the same field at greater length. This is a sequence-LENGTH divergence, and it has three consequences:
- ⚠⚠ A student who completed `PHY3101` has done one term of modern physics, not the first half of two. Transferring into a programme that expects `PHY3106` before `PHY3107` may leave a genuine gap — a one-term course necessarily compresses, and what gets compressed is usually the nuclear, solid-state and particle material that this course is mostly about.
- ⚠ Conversely, a student who completed `PHY3106` and transfers to an institution running only `PHY3101` may find there is no second course to take, and the material in this guide simply is not offered.
- ⚠⚠⚠ And the practical scarcity matters: only TWO Florida public universities carry `PHY3107` at all. So a Florida physics student cannot assume a second modern-physics term exists at their institution. Check before planning a major around it, and if it is not offered, ask which course covers nuclear and particle physics — it may be a separate `PHY4xxx` number, or it may be left to graduate study.
⚠ What to do on transfer: send the syllabus and the topic list to the receiving physics department. Physics departments place by content coverage, not by title — they will look at whether you have met the hydrogen atom, band structure and the Standard Model, and that is the right question.
Offering Notes — offerings and hours, school by school
| Institution | Its title | Credits | Contact hours |
|---|
| Florida International University | Advanced Modern Physics | 3 | not published |
| University of West Florida | Calculus-Based Physics IV | 3 | not published |
⚠ Only two public carriers, both State University System, both at 3 credits — ✅ no credit divergence. The statewide record also shows one private institution carrying the number as "General Physics II" with a natural-science general-education designation; this repository documents Florida public-institution offerings, so it is not listed above — ⚠ but it is worth noting as a warning, because "General Physics II" describes a very different and much lower-level course than the statewide definition.
⚠⚠ Two readings of the title, and neither is wrong
- FIU's "Advanced Modern Physics" reads the number as the advanced continuation of modern physics — which matches the statewide "Modern Physics II" sense directly.
- ⚠⚠ UWF's "Calculus-Based Physics IV" is an ORDINAL-BASE divergence. It counts the course by position in the whole calculus-physics sequence: Physics I and II are mechanics and electromagnetism (`PHY2048`/`PHY2049`), Physics III is the first modern physics course, and Physics IV is this one. Same course, different counting base — and ⚠ a student searching a UWF catalog for "Modern Physics II" will not find it, while a student elsewhere reading "Calculus-Based Physics IV" on a transcript cannot tell what it covered.
⚠ Practical consequence of UWF's naming: on a transcript or an application, "Calculus-Based Physics IV" conveys the position but not the content. Keep the syllabus and the topic list — for graduate applications and transfer evaluations, the topic list is what answers the question.
⚠ The 45 contact hours at the top of this guide are derived — the Florida convention for a 3-credit lecture course. No institution publishes an hour figure. ⚠ No laboratory is attached to this number: Florida numbers Modern Physics Laboratory I and II separately as `PHY4822` and `PHY4823`. If your programme requires a modern-physics laboratory, it is a separate registration — and it is where the historically decisive experiments get reproduced, which is worth doing.
⚠⚠ Prerequisites: what is stated, and what is actually assumed
The statewide prerequisite is simply Modern Physics I. ⚠ The sibling numbers reveal what that itself requires: `PHY3106` Modern Physics I is gated on `PHY2054` or `PHY2049` and `MAC2313` — that is, the second term of calculus-based introductory physics and multivariable calculus.
So the real chain into this course is: `PHY2048` → `PHY2049` → `PHY3106` → `PHY3107`, with `MAC2311`/`2312`/`2313` calculus running alongside.
⚠⚠ Name what is actually needed, since the one-line prerequisite does not:
- Multivariable calculus (`MAC2313`) and ordinary differential equations — ⚠ solving the Schrödinger equation is solving a differential equation, and separation of variables is used constantly.
- Spherical coordinates and comfort with spherical harmonics as objects, even without deriving them.
- Linear algebra — eigenvalues, eigenvectors, and operators as matrices. ⚠ Frequently not a stated prerequisite and constantly assumed.
- Special relativity — ⚠ the particle and nuclear half is relativistic throughout, and invariant mass appears in week one of that material.
- Complex numbers used fluently, including Euler's formula.
⚠ If linear algebra or differential equations is missing, say so to the instructor early rather than in week eight. Both are commonly taken concurrently, and the instructor can point to the specific technique you need.
Position in the curriculum, workload and the failure mode
A 3000-level course, normally sophomore or junior year, and ⚠ the hinge of a physics degree: it closes the introductory sequence and opens the specialised one. The four upper-division core courses — classical mechanics, electromagnetism, quantum mechanics and thermal physics — all assume it.
Budget nine to twelve hours a week. ⚠ The load is problem sets, and this course's problem sets are unusually varied: an atomic-structure problem, a band-structure estimate and a particle-conservation check require three different habits of mind in one week.
⚠⚠⚠ The characteristic failure is specific to this course and worth naming: the breadth is the difficulty. Students arrive expecting a continuation of quantum mechanics and meet five distinct subfields in fourteen weeks — atoms, molecules, solids, nuclei, particles. Each has its own vocabulary, its own characteristic energy scale and its own approximations, and students who try to master each one completely fall behind.
⚠ The corrective is a shift in goal, and instructors rarely state it: the point is not mastery of each subfield but recognising the SAME framework applied at five scales. Quantum mechanics plus a potential plus the exclusion principle explains the periodic table, the covalent bond, the band gap, the nuclear shell model and the quark model. Students who hold that thread find the course coherent; students who treat it as five short courses find it exhausting.
⚠ The second failure is neglecting orders of magnitude. This subject spans electron volts to giga-electron volts, and knowing that an atomic transition is a few eV, a nuclear one a few MeV, and a particle process a GeV or more is not trivia — it is how you check an answer. Learn the scales early.
AI Integration
Genuinely useful: explaining a concept a second and third way — spin–orbit coupling, band structure and the shell model are the classic sticking points; explaining the setup of a problem; generating practice problems; explaining why an answer is wrong; walking through a derivation you have already attempted; writing and debugging Python for plotting wavefunctions, decay chains or spectra; explaining the historical experiments; and helping organise the breadth into a coherent map.
⚠ One strong use specific to this course: ask it for an order-of-magnitude estimate and then check it. "Roughly what energy scale is this process?" is a question it usually handles, it targets exactly the habit this course needs, and verifying it against a data table teaches both things at once.
⚠⚠ Where it fails, and the first two show up on graded work:
- ⚠⚠ It makes real errors in multi-step derivations and in quantum bookkeeping — quantum numbers, degeneracies, selection rules, and allowed versus forbidden transitions. ⚠ The tells are dimensional and scalar: check the units, and check the energy scale against what you know. An "atomic" transition coming out at MeV is wrong.
- ⚠⚠⚠ It invents physical data with complete fluency — particle masses and lifetimes, branching ratios, nuclear binding energies, half-lives, band gaps, spectroscopic constants. ⚠ And this is entirely avoidable, because the authoritative sources are free and definitive: the Particle Data Group's Review of Particle Physics, the NNDC nuclear data tables, and NIST atomic spectra. Every number in submitted work must come from one of those or from your textbook.
- ⚠ It presents settled-sounding answers on genuinely open physics — dark matter, neutrino masses, beyond-Standard-Model questions — where the honest answer is that it is not known. A course that reaches the frontier should convey that the frontier exists.
- Anything spatial or drawn is unreliable — orbital shapes, band diagrams, Feynman diagrams, decay schemes.
- ⚠ It is weaker on conceptual questions than its fluency suggests. Asked why the exclusion principle produces chemistry, it produces confident, partly circular prose. ⚠⚠ And note the coincidence with this course's own failure mode: the risk here is accumulating five subfields' vocabulary without the single framework underneath — and fluent generated prose is exactly vocabulary without framework.
- Invented citations — papers, authors, textbook sections.
Academic integrity: read your syllabus. ⚠ The practical argument is the stronger one: examinations in this course are closed and cumulative, the Physics GRE is proctored and draws heavily on this material, and every upper-division core course assumes you can use it unaided. Use it to understand a setup or to check a scale; derive the results yourself.