Me and my family straddling the meridian line at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, UK.

Dr. Todd K. Timberlake Professor of Physics & Astronomy Director, Pew Observatory Chair, Department of Physics, Astronomy, and Geology Berry College Contact Information Address: Berry College, PO Box 5004, Mount Berry, GA 30149-5004 Office: SCI 338A Office Phone: (706) 368-5622 Email: ttimberlake@berry.edu FAX: (706) 238-7855

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[Professional Info] [Classes] [Research Interests] [Publications and Presentations] [Other Pages]

Professional Information

• Curriculum Vita
• Tenure Dossier Materials (I received tenure in 2007)
  • Teaching Section of Dossier
  • Research Section of Dossier
  • Service Section of Dossier
  • Advice on Preparing a Tenure Dossier
• Promotion Dossier Materials (I was promoted to Full Professor in 2013)
  • Teaching Section of Dossier
  • Research Section of Dossier
  • Service Section of Dossier

My Classes

• AST 120: The Copernican Revolution
• AST 121: The Discovery of Galaxies
• PHY 111 and 112 L: Labs for General Physics I and II
• PHY 321: Computational Methods in Physics
• PHY 402: Classical Mechanics
• PHY 430: Quantum Mechanics
• PHY 490: Physics and Astronomy Seminar
• Occasional directed studies in computational physics or the history & philosophy of science

Research Interests

• The History and Philosophy of Science:

  I am very intested in the history and philosophy of science. My primary interest is in using the history of science to teach non-science majors about the nature of science. I am currently teaching two astronomy courses that are designed to teach non-science majors about the nature of science. My study of the history and philosophy of science is intended to inform my teaching in those classes (and other classes I might teach in the future).

• Teaching with Computers:

  I have a strong interest in using computers to teach physics and astronomy. In particular, I have developed many computer simulations for teaching astronomy and physics topics. These simulations are part of the Open Source Physics project.

• Quantum Chaos in Simple Systems:

  Most of my technical work in physics has been devoted to studying the properties of simple quantum systems whose classical counterpart is chaotic. My past work has focused on periodically driven one-dimensional quantum wells, although recently I have begun exploring other simple systems. I've studied harmonic generation, changes in eigenstate structure at avoided crossings in the eigenvalue spectrum, scarring on unstable periodic orbits, localization on a continuous line of periodic orbits, the changes in eigenvalue statistics during the transition to chaos, and quantum signatures of non-Newtonian orbits.

• Quantum Revivals:

  I have recently begun studying quantum revivals in simple quantum wells. I am interested in how perturbations (and specifically perturbations that involve a discontinuous change of potential) alter the revival behavior of wave packets.

• Astrophotography:

  I am working to develop a program in astrophotography at Berry College's Pew Observatory. My main goal is to give Berry students the opportunity to take and process high-quality astronomical photographs using a digital SLR camera and our telescopes.

My Other Web Pages

• Modeling the History of Astronomy page: a shared folder on the Open Source Physics website that contains materials for projects in which students observe a fictitious solar system and model it using Ptolemaic and Copernican principles.
• Pew Observatory page: contains information about the small observatory at Berry College, including our nascent program in astrophotography and our Transit of Venus event.
• Newton vs Hooke: A synopsis of a historical debate between Newton and Hooke about how things fall on (and in) a rotating Earth, supplemented with computer simulations.
• Active Quantum Mechanics: A set of tutorials and writing assignments for teaching a junior/senior level quantum mechanics course.
• The Scale of the Universe: activities and computer simulations for my course on the history of galactic astronomy.
• The Copernican Revolution: activities and computer simulations for my course on the history of planetary astronomy to Newton.
• The Statistical Interpretation of Entropy: curricular materials for teaching non-science majors about entropy.
• Maxima resource page: some resources for learning to use the Maxima computer algebra system.
• Active Learning at Berry Blog: a blog on active learning teaching at Berry to which I have contributed.
• Computation in Classical Mechanics: curricular materials for incorporating computation (via the Mathematica computer algebra system) into an intermediate classical mechanics course.
• Random numbers and random matrices: a page to accompany a paper I wrote about quantum chaos and energy level spacings.
• Tearing Plastic: a laboratory exercise for teaching non-math majors about fractals and non-Euclidean geometry.
• Regular and chaotic quantum dynamics in the driven square well: a page to accompany a paper that I wrote about quantum chaos in a simple system. The paper was never published.
• A Computational Approach to Teaching Conservative Chaos: a page to accompany a paper I wrote about teaching Hamiltonian chaos to undergraduates.
• Writing-Intensive Quantum Mechanics: describes some writing assignments I have used in a quantum mechanics course. This page has been superseded by this one.
• Incorporating Philosophy of Science in Physics for Non-science Majors: describes my attempts to include some philosophy of science in a physics course for non-science majors, with some assessment results.
• The Bifrost Cluster: a page describing a Macintosh computing cluster that I built for some of my early research at Berry.
• Online Quantum Chaos Tutorial: a brief conceptual introduction to the topic of quantum chaos.