| week |
Topic |
Readings |
Topics |
Assignments |
| 1 |
Gravity |
One Two Three Infinity, Gamov (ch 1) "Library of Babel" Jorge Borges 'Ode to Newton', Edmund Halley (poem) Table 1 description plot |
Gamov, Part I,II |
|
| 2 |
Six Easy Pieces, Feynman (ch 4,5) Cosmicomcs, Calvino "The Distance of the Moon" Scientific-Truth-by-Einstein.pdf |
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| 3 |
Relativity & Cosmology |
One Two Three Infinity, Gamov (ch 4,5) Mr. Tompkins in Paperback, (Ch 1,2,3) cmb-for-poets.pdf |
||
| 4 |
Mr. Tompkins in Paperback, (Ch 4,6) One Two Three Infinity, Gamov (ch 10,11) Calvino : "All at One Point","The Light Years" "The Form of Space","Games Without End" |
Tuesday: proposed topic for paper 1 |
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| 5 |
Thermodynamics | One Two Three Infinity, Gamov (ch 6-9) Six Easy Pieces, Feynman (ch 1) feynman-lecture-5-distinction-past-future The Crying of Lot 49, Pynchon (novel) |
paper 1 due email by Friday |
|
| 6 |
bordando-el-manto-terrestre-1961 entropy for poets Mr. Tompkins in Paperback, (Ch 9) |
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| 7 |
Chaos |
Calvino: "At Daybreak"," Without Colors", "The Dinosaurs","The Aquatic Uncle","How Much Shall We Bet" Arcadia, Tom Stoppard (play) Fractal Foundation XaoSorg/ |
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| 8 |
Quantum Mechanics | Thirty Years that Shook Physics: The Story of Quantum Theory, Gamov quantum-for-poets.pdf |
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| 9 |
Six Easy Pieces, Feynman (ch 2,3,6) Feynman on Electron 2 Slit Experiment video |
|
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| 10 |
Copenhagen, Frayn (Play) radiation-for-poets.pdf theBomb.pdf droppingTheBomb.pdf Game, by Donald Barthelme First published July 31, 1965 New Yorker |
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| |
QED, Peter Parnell (Play) trouble-with-quantum-mechanics, Weinberg (essay) Physics, what we know and what we don't know", Weinberg (essay) |
paper 2 | ||
| 13 |
Science and Society | Galileo,
Brecht (play) |
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| 14 |
Cats Cradle, Vonnegut
(novel) |
|
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| 15 |
final paper final presentations |