Free online courseQuantum physics

Course Description

Quantum physics reshapes how we understand nature: light behaves like particles, matter behaves like waves, and probability becomes a central part of prediction. This free online course is designed to help you move from curiosity and confusion to a working, problem-solving understanding of quantum mechanics as a coherent framework. Instead of treating the subject as a collection of mysteries, you will learn to think in the language quantum theory requires: linear states, complex numbers, operators, and measurement.

You will begin by seeing why linearity is so powerful and why Schrödinger’s equation sits at the heart of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics. From there, the course builds intuition using classic experiments and thought experiments, such as interferometers and interaction-free measurements, to make superposition and interference feel concrete. Along the way you will confront the loss of classical determinism and learn how quantum predictions remain precise even when individual outcomes are not.

As the course advances, you will connect quantum ideas to real physical effects: the photoelectric effect, Compton scattering, and de Broglie’s proposal that links wavelength to momentum. You will learn how wave packets evolve, how Fourier tools explain localization and uncertainty, and how probability is conserved through currents and the Hermitian structure of the Hamiltonian. This sets you up to understand measurement more carefully: expectation values, eigenstates, completeness, uncertainty relations, and stationary states as the foundation for energy spectra.

With the formalism in place, the course develops the skill of solving standard quantum systems and interpreting the results physically. You will work through bound states and scattering, analyze potentials such as square wells, delta functions, steps, and barriers, and build intuition for reflection, transmission, resonances, and time delay. You will then step into three dimensions with angular momentum, commuting observables, and spherical harmonics, culminating in the Schrödinger solution of the hydrogen atom and the structure behind its energy levels and degeneracies.

Supported by exercises throughout, this course is a strong fit for high school enrichment, exam preparation, and early university learners who want a rigorous, math-friendly path into modern physics. By the end, you will be able to translate quantum postulates into calculations, interpret outcomes with confidence, and recognize how foundational ideas lead directly to the behavior of atoms and the structure of matter.