Interactive mid-quarter problems

This week I would like you to work on these interactive mid-quarter problems. I believe that these are important problems, and I think will help bring together much of what we have learned and what is important in this class, prepare us for the next stage of this class(1), and apply what we have learned to a very important class of problems(3). I hope you will be able to give them a lot of attention. This is not just another HW assignment, but rather an essential part of the learning and assessment in this class.

There are two contextual factors related to this evolution of format. One is that we are about half-way through the quarter, and i believe that your skills and basic knowledge of quantum physics formalism are developed to a point where it is possible for you to work on more more complex, open-ended and difficult problems. The other is harder for me to explain. But let me try.

In this class, and at a university in general, part of what you learn includes facts, information, methods and formalism. Another crucial part of your education involves problem solving skills, including the ability to evaluate your own progress. Problem solving tends to be straightforward when a problem is clearly defined and you are confident of what you need to do to solve it. It is less straightforward when these things are not clear, when you are wondering: what is this problem is really asking?, what basic method or starting point should I use?, or even what the answer would mean or what form the answer should take.

Yet the skill of working with poorly defined problems --resolving, refining and solving them-- is much more relevant to real world situations, including working at a technology company, doing research in graduate school, and pretty much anything else.

The idea of these problems, is for you to work on them both individually and collectively, using this site to discuss the problem, what it means, how to approach it, how to solve it, what the solution means, and so on. Evaluating your progress can be difficult on your own. There is often the fear that you may be going in completely the wrong direction, and that can be paralyzing. Evaluating direction and progress via discussion with colleagues (other students) is much different from conferring with a professor/expert. For example, you have to evaluate the quality of the advice you are getting, and ultimately, you have to decide for yourself what to do. However, it is also much less challenging than working completely alone. This is an opportunity to develop and demonstrate your understanding key concepts of QM, to learn and to help others.