Foundations of Physics

The course intends to carry out a historical-critical study of some central passages of the evolution that led to the development of quantum physics. It also intends to accustom the student to the direct reading of the original works of the great classics, thus complementing the traditional training, which is necessarily based on textbook . Finally, we want to illustrate recent studies based on new results in the theory of dynamic systems, which bring new light to some of the
critical passages in the development of quantum physics.

At the end of the course the student will

1) have understood the problem of the equipartition principle in classical statistics mechanics in connection with the theory of specific heats
2)have learned the basic phenomenological aspects of the black body radiation problem and read Planck's papers of 1900.
3) read Einstein's memory of 1905 on photons, and that of 1912 on the specific heats of solids.
4) have learned the basic phenomenological aspects of the emission spectra in gases.
5) have read Heisenberg's memory of July 1295 on the mechanics of matrices.
6) have understood the passage, invented by Schroedinger, from classical mechanics to wave mechanics, like the analog of the transition between geometrical and wave optics.
7) have read the memory of Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen, on the problem of the completeness of quantum mechanics
8) have read Bell's work on the inequality that bears his name.