I learned a lot of physics in 2018, and here is a summary!

First Half the Year

In January, I finished 8.04x, Quantum Mechanics an online course provided by MITx and got perfect grades, 92, 94, and 88 for three exams. 8.04x was lectured by Professor Barton Zwiebach, whose doctoral advisor is Murray Gell-mann. This course introduced basic concepts of Quantum Mechanics and did standard 1-D potential examples, such as square wells, Dirac-delta potential and harmonic oscillators, along with several important theorems for 1-D potential. Besides, it gave a detailed treatment on scattering states in 1-D, covering topics like time delay, Levinson’s theorem and resonance. The course ended with central potential and Hydrogen Atom. It was a challenging but rewarding course, and of course, interesting! What makes this course stand out among all other online courses is its active discussion forum. I met lots of interesting physics and math geeks there, Mark, Jolyon, Jim, BlueFlow and Jonathan, and the discussion about physics with them made my learn experience vivid and lovely (Actually, I read their discussions in forum most of the time). Later in September 2018, Jim offered me an unexpected research experience, which was the first time I worked with a real physicist!