Exploring 20th Century Physics and Cosmology
SCI2-10-Tue3
Gary Feldman
This course will take place in person at 60 Turner Street. The room will be equipped with a HEPA air purifier.
September 10 - November 12
Starting in the early 20th century, we discovered that the most fundamental laws of nature were like nothing we had imagined before. The special and general theories of relativity completely changed our notions of time and space. Quantum mechanics shredded our notion that nature is deterministic and exposed behaviors that can only be described as magic, behaviors that Einstein declared “No reasonable definition of reality could be expected to permit this.” Experiments on subatomic particles revealed a surprising simplicity mixed with a large dose of arbitrariness. In concert with these developments, astrophysicists used these tools to achieve new insights into the history and composition of our vast physical universe. And with these insights came new surprises, such as that 95% of the universe is composed of dark matter of unknown origin and a puzzling dark energy. Or clues that our visible universe, which is unfathomably huge on a human scale, may be only a microscopically small part of the full universe.
We will explore all these developments of the last 120 years in a non-mathematical manner and make no assumption of a prior knowledge of physics. We expect that everyone will gain from this course, even if it is only to marvel about realities that are far from our everyday experience and intuition.
To give prospective class members the flavor of the course, the first set of class notes are available here. https://brandeis.box.com/s/jjycacrefa1cli61lybmvvrw5tbzb29u
More lecture than facilitated discussion.
Class notes written by the SGL, which will be distributed prior to each session. There will also be a list of optional short YouTube videos which may help to elucidate or expand on the course topics. There will be one mandatory hour-long video prior to the fifth session.
The class notes will average about 12 pages each, exclusive of a mathematical appendix for those who are interested in the mathematical framework.
Gary Feldman, an emeritus professor of physics at Harvard University, is still active in experimental research on elementary particles. At Harvard, in addition to teaching upper-level undergraduate courses in electrodynamics, quantum mechanics, and elementary particles, for two decades he offered a far-ranging General Education course for non-scientists on the subject of “Time.”