DAMP Physics, IITB

Course Instructor: Microeconomics : Prof Puja Padhi Macroeconomics : Prof Haripriya Gun dimeda Course Name: HS 101 ( Core ) Credits : 6 Prerequisites : none Course Content:  Principles of economics by Mankiw - Ch 25 -34 Principles of microeconomics by Mankiw -ch 1-5, ch 13-15, ch 21 Resources: Principles of Economics ( Mankiw ), Principles of microeconomics ( Mankiw ) Lecture Slides Lectures: Prof Puja  believes in teaching by  raising questions, letting students think and discuss with her. Prof Haripriya's lectures were quiet engaging, with a lot of interesting facts and figures and case studies on the macro scale the course is based on logical thinking and can be very interesting especially the macro part, if you follow the books and lectures The books by Mankiw are really thorough, engaging, provide comprehensive case studies and very easy to follow. Overall the course helps us develop perspective and how to logically think about the world arou...

Instructor:  Prof. Ronnie M. Sebastain Course Name:  Basic Number Theory ( MA 523 ) Course Type:  Theory (Elective) Credits:  6 Pre-requisites:   MA 419 Basic Algebra Course Content:   Infinitude of primes, discussion of Dirichlet's theorem (without proof). Congruences, Fermat's little theorem, Wilson's theorem, linear congruences. Structure of units modulo n, Euler's phi function. Quadratic residues, law of quadratic reciprocity. Binary quadratics forms, equivalence, reduction, Fermat's two square theorem, Lagrange's four square theorem. Continued fractions, rational approximations, Liouville's theorem Transcendence of e, Transcendence of π,  Meromorphic continuation of the Riemann Zeta function,  Proof of Dirichlet's Theorem on infinitely many primes in an arithmetic progression Books: A Concise Introduction to The Theory of Number by Alan Baker Lectures: Strict attendance for every lecture. Only Blackboard. ...

Instructor:  Prof. Virendra Singh Course Name:  Microprocessors ( EE309 ) Course Type:  Theory (Elective) Credits:  6 Pre-requisites:   EE224, The prof is really nice. Ask and he will let you in the course. This is an elec core course. Course Content:   Instruction sets. Using 8086 instruction set. Implementing a processor capable of executing instructions : Instruction decoding, fetching from registers and memory ,instruction execution, instruction writeback to registers and memory ; Also branching instructions . Analysis of number of cycles an instruction takes to execute and many analyses from here. Pipelined Implementation of a processor: Pipeline stages, Hazards, Pipeline stalling, Dataforwarding, Handling branches etc.  Branch prediction. Caches Books: I used notebook for this course, but I found modern processor design lipasti useful in a later course Lectures: No attendance policy. Didn't use slides in classrom...

Course Instructor:   Prof. Alok Shukla Course Name: EP 222: Classical Mechanics Credits: 6 Course Type: Core Prerequisites:   Formal: None Informal: Vector algebra and Matrix Algebra, Conic Sections, Integration and Differentiation (involves quite some decent calculations in places that needs good grasp of Conics and Integration Methods) Course Content:   D'Alembert's Principle Lagrange's equations Variational/Hamilton's Principle Kinematics of Rigid body dynamics (Rotations) Euler Equations of motion Oscillations Hamilton's Equations of Motion Principle of Least Action Other Topics covered: Central Force problem (including Kepler problem), Canonical Transformation Books:  Classical Mechanics - Goldstein et al. Analytical Mechanics - L. Hand and J. Finch Mechanics - Landau and Lifshitz Lectures: Lectures were well organised and delivered. Most derivations were done completely, which made the class slow and boring at times, but paying attention thro...

Instructor:  Prof.  Vikram Rentala Course Name:  Data Analysis and Interpretation ( EP 219 ) Course Type:  Theory (Core) Credits:  6 Pre-requisites:   Basic Calculus Course Content:   Probability axioms and Bayes' theorems Probability distributions - Mean, variance, skewness, kurtosis, moments, characteristic function, contour plots Correlation, Covariance and Independence Transformation of variables Multivariate probability distribution A detailed discussion of  Bernoulli, Uniform, Poisson, Binomial and Multinomial, Chi-squared distributions Central Limit Theorem Multidimensional Gaussian random variables Statistical and Systematic errors Error propagation Error ellipses  Parameter Inference Confidence Intervals Hypothesis Testing Likelihoods Goodness of Fit Test p-value. Books: Introduction to Statistics and Data Analysis for Physicists - G. Bohm and G. Zech Lectures: No attendance. Blac...

Instructor:  Prof. Raghunath Chelakkot Course Name:  Introduction to Special Theory of Relativity ( EP 207 ) Course Type:  Theory (Core) Credits:  3 Pre-requisites:   Informal - MA106 and PH108 (Maxwell's equations) Course Content:   Kinematics: Basic Postulates of STR (Principle of Relativity) Time-intervals, length-intervals, Simultaneity of events (Invariant Intervals) Lorentz transformation and invariance (Minkowski spacetime) Mechanics: (Relativistic Dynamics) Addition of relativistic velocities Energy-momentum 4-vector  Conservation of energy and momentum Mass-energy equivalence Electromagnetism: Basics of tensor analysis Field Tensor Covariant description of Electromagnetism Books: introduction to special relativity by Robert Resnick Lectures: No attendance is taken during this course except for the first lecture. Sir uses blackboard to teach. There were discussions about paradoxes in classes but wer...

Course Instructor: Swapneel Mahajan Course Name: MA 207: Differential Equations 2 Credits: 6 Course Type: Core Prerequisites: MA106 and MA108 are informal prerequisites. Course Content:   Existence and uniqueness theorems for linear second order ODEs ,power series and frobenius methods of solving linear ODEs, Legendre equation and properties of its solutions,  Bessel equation  and properties of its solutions, fourier series, Heat equation and wave equations in 1 and  2 dimensions ( polar and cartesian coordinates for the latter), laplace equation, eigenvalues and eigen functions of the laplacian operator on the unit sphere. Books: The recommended list included Elementary differential equations by Boyce and DiPrima and Fourier series and boundary value problems by Churchill and Brown Lectures: Half semester course with the standard attendance policy. Lectures were very interesting . The prof also uploaded lecture notes (apart from the slides) which w...

Course Instructor: B.K. Das Course Name: MA 205: Complex Analysis Credits: 6 Course Type: Core Prerequisites:   Formal:none Informal:MA105 Course Content:   Limits and continuity in the complex field, conditions for differentiability, harmonic functions, holomorphicity, power series and convergence tests,  elementary analytic functions,  contour integrals, Cauchy's theorems ,integral formula and estimate, Liovelle's theorem, zeroes and singularities, Laurent series, residue theorem, evaluating real integrals using contour integration, maximum modulus theorem, conformal maps  Picard's theorems and Rouche's theorem. Books: Functions of a complex variable by John Conway Lectures: Half semester course with no attendance policy. Lecture slides were comprehensive and enough for the exams. Assignments:  Weekly tutorials (with duration varying from an hour to an hour and a half ). The tutorial problems were moderately difficult and covered all t...

Course Instructor: Prof. Pradeep Sarin Course Name: EP 223: Electronics Lab II Credits: 3 Course Type: Lab Prerequisites:   Informal Prerequisite - EE112 Course Content:   Op-amp characteristics, their working in positive and negative feedback, Schmitt trigger, Instrumentation amplifier, Lock-in amplifier, Other Topics Covered: Op amp oscillations and phase shift in feedback loops, gain and its frequency dependence Assignments: Pre lab quizzes before each lab sessions. No tutorials or projects. Exams: End semester accounted for 40% and the rest was contributed by lab sessions and pre-lab quizzes.   Online Reading Material: Study material was uploaded before each lab session. Respondent: Nitish Ujjwal

Course Instructor: Prof. Pradeep Sarin Course Name: EP 215: Electronics Lab I Credits: 3 Course Type: Lab Prerequisites:   Informal Prerequisite - EE112 Course Content:   Applications of diodes and BJTs, and its I-V characteristics Assignments: Pre-lab Quizzes on moodle before each lab session. No tutorials or projects. Most of the quizzes ranged from easy to moderate difficulty with the exception of a few tricky ones. Exams: Endsem carried a weightage of 40%. The lab sessions and pre-lab quizzes accounted for the rest. The lab sessions, including the endsems, were fairly difficult, combining concepts and analytical skills.    Online Reading Material: Prof. Sarin provides study material for each lab session. These are self-sufficient and a thorough read is suggested. Respondent: Nitish Ujjwal

Course Instructor: Sibi Raj B Pillai Course Name: EE 708 Information Theory and Coding Credits: 6 Course Type: Institute Elective Prerequisites:   No formal prerequisite. Probability theory and linear algebra are heavily used. The course is quite abstract so be ready for that plus a lot of mathematical manipulations. Course Content:   Information Measures (Entropy etc.) Source Coding: (The focus was on loss-less encoding; lossy coding was only mentioned) Channel Coding: Capacity, Channels with state, Compound Channels Information Theory and Wireless communication Network Information Theory: Multiple Access and Broadcast New Applications like Bioinformatics, Energy Harvesting, Statistical Physics were mentioned in the course content but were unfortunately NOT covered Books: Cover and Thomas is a widely used book for information theory and was more than enough for the course.   Lectures: No attendance requirements. For the first few lectures the Prof. wou...

Course Instructor: Suddha Shastri Course Name:  HS 431 Reading Fiction Credits: 6 Course Type: Honours Elective Prerequisites:   No formal Prerequisites . Informal Prerequisites involve an above average grasp of English in both oral and written forms and a base interest in reading diversified fiction. Course Content:   Bare essentials of literary theory, Postcolonial and Postmodern literature. Course Structure: Essentially a flipped classroom model is followed. Assigned reading (usually 2 chapters or around 30 pages) is to be done before the class, discussions on literary techniques and language usage and plot devices, etc follow. Attendance is monitored visually since the class is usually around 15 people. Occasional use of slides and movies. Primarily blackboard and vis-a-vis discussions make up the lectures. It's a flipped classroom model, where around three to four chapters of a book are to be read over the weekend and 1 chapter in weekdays. Grading...

Course Instructor: Mithun Mitra Course Type:  Honours Elective Prerequisites:  No formal prerequisites. Knowledge of basic statistical mechanics is assumed. Course Content: Random walks, diffusion and drift- diffusion equations, first passage time. Fluid dynamics at low Reynolds number. Shannon entropy, ligand- receptor binding, ion channels as multi-state systems, chemical potential of solutions. polymers (as random walks, freely rotating chain model, entropic springs), self-avoiding polymer, polymer force extension curves, chromatin packing. corrections due to crowding, depletion forces. Michaelis-Menten kinetics. dynamics of cytoskeletal filaments, actin treadmilling, dynamic instability of microtubules. Molecular motors, p-state model, polymerization ratchet, translocation ratchet. Pattern formation. Books to refer: Physical biology of the cell by Rob Phillips, Biological physics by Phil Nelson Course Structure: No attendance policy, a mix of slides a...

Course Instructor: Sudha Shastri Course Name:  HS 431 Reading Fiction Course Credits: 6 Course Type:  Honours Elective Prerequisite:  No formal prerequisites but having done some amount of reading in English literature will help you appreciate the course better. Also, a decent hold on English will help you score well. Course Content: We started with short stories. We did one in each class. We were given time to read it and then there were discussions. This made every class complete in itself and also led to an introduction of a new concept by the prof. The short stories were by Kafka, Somerset Maugham, Saki, Kipling, Borges, etc. After a few classes we did the following: Midnight's children by Salman Rushdie, A Midsummer Night's Dream by Neil Gaiman (a graphic novel), Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, Animal Farm by George Orwell, Run Lola Run (a movie) The topics covered through the analysis of these works were roughly: Reali...

Course Instructor: Nutan Limaye Course Name :  CS 721 Introduction to Computational Complexity Course Type: Honours / Elective Prerequisite:  No formal prerequisite but the CS undergrads would already have done the course Automata Theory and Logic ( which covers Turing machines). Also, a foundation on data structures and algorithms would be necessary to appreciate this course. A little bit of abstract algebra (finite groups and fields), graph theory, and probability was covered quickly in the first lecture (so basically assumed). Course Content: Boolean circuits and formulas: lower bounds on circuit sizes.  Turing machines and the notion of algorithms and computability. Time complexity: Time heirarchy theorem, P and NP, coNP, NP completeness and NP hardness, Cook-Levin theorem. Space complexity: Relation with time complexity classes, L, NL, PSPACE, NPSPACE, Savitch’s theorem, Immerman-Szelepcsenyi (only roughly sketched). Randomness as a resource: BPP...

Course Instructor: Anush Kapadia Course Name:  HS 307 Sociology Course Type : Core Prerequisite : None Course Content:  His approach was thinker-based rather than topic-based. He picks up certain texts of famous thinkers and presents their ideologies. He had planned to cover one thinker per week, and ultimately covered about 10-12 thinkers. Course Structure: He teaches through slides. His lectures are usually easy to follow and it is extremely useful to attend all his lectures as most of his questions are based on what he said in class.   There are two quizzes apart from midsem and endsem. All the exams were multiple choice. Online Study Material: The professor uploaded links to BBC radio programmes of certain thinkers on moodle, which some people found useful. Apart from that, searching online for explanations of concepts or summaries of texts is useful. Pro Tips: It is difficult to read the actual texts for people who are not used to readi...

Instructor:   Prof. Sharmila, Suddhaseel Sen Course Name: Reading Literature (HS 305) Credit: 6 Course Type: Honours/Elective Prerequisite: None Course Content: Literary and thematic analysis of short stories, a graphic novel(comic), a Shakespearean play and a novella. Course Structure : 80% mandatory attendance, minimal coverage of content in slides, lectures would involve discussions on the material and concepts needed to be grasped No assignments 3 quizzes(decided after discussion in class) 35%, midsem 35%, endsem 30% Online Material: Sparknotes Protips: Don't worry too much with it. Try and develop on ideas discussed in class while re-reading the texts. Put your ideas and points forward clearly in exams and you're good to go. For quick revision, can refer to SparkNotes summary and analysis. Respondent:  Aman Sharma

Instructor:  Prof.  Siddharth Tallur Course Name:  Sensors in Instrumentation ( EE 617 ) Course Type:  Theory (Elective) Credits:  6 Pre-requisites:   EE 112, basic data analysis, knowledge of transfer functions and s-domain analysis (can be acquired during the course itself).  Course Content:   Systematic approach to problem solving, central limit theorem and understanding datasheets, allan variance, noise sources and noise analysis, instrumentation amplifier architecture, diamond plots, synchronous demodulation and uses, MEMS inertial sensors, capacitive transduction, MEMS gyroscopes, data converters, aliasing effects, power v/s noise tradeoff analysis.  Books: Lecture notes and uploaded reading material were enough Lectures: Attendance is compulsory, mixture of slides and blackboard were used. Lectures complement the material that's uploaded and are very discussion oriented. Highly recommended to attend lectu...