| date | topic/guest (some of this is tentative) | reading
(for the following week) |
| Aug. 28 | Galileo; lenses; motion | Sobel Ch. 1-6 |
| Sept. 4 | Galileo and astronomy/Prof.
R. Wijers
"Astronomy from Aristarchus to Kepler" |
Sobel Ch. 7-12 |
| Sept. 11 | Black Tuesday. No class | Sobel Ch. 13-19 |
| Sept. 18 | Rosh Hashanah | no class |
| Sept. 25 | Galileo, Ptolemy, and Copernicus
Prof. T. Newton, "Philosophy at the time of Galileo" |
Sobel Ch. 20-25 |
| Oct. 2 | Galileo, Kepler, and Newton; Galileo and the Church | Sobel Ch. 26-33 |
| Oct. 9 | Light;
Galileo, Newton, Einstein;
A. S. Goldhaber "Einstein as Radical versus Einstein as Conservative" |
Yang pp. 1-18 |
| Oct. 16 | Spot
of Arago and Poisson. Water
waves. The electron, the photon.
Prof. Tom Hemmick, "Physics at the RHIC accelerator" |
Yang pp. 19-40 |
| Oct. 23 | radiation; Lab experiment on decay
Prof. Janos Kirz, "How Dangerous is Radiation?" |
Yang pp. 41-65 |
| Oct. 30 | Prof. Robert Crease, "The BrookhavenHigh-Flux
Beam
Reactor"
modern physics |
Park Ch. 1-2 |
| Nov. 6 | scenes fromBertolt
Brecht's play Galileo
thermodynamics; generators |
Park Ch. 3-4 |
| Nov. 13 | cold fusion; pathological science
N. Tomes "Advertising and Medical Information Transfer: Perspectives from American History." |
Park Ch. 5-6 |
| Nov. 20 | Thanksgiving break | no class |
| Nov. 27 | 4:00 room Harriman 137 Physics and Astronomy Department Colloquium "THE SEVEN WARNING SIGNS OF VOODOO SCIENCE," by Prof. Robert Park, U. of Maryland (author of Voodoo Science, and author of the American Physical Society's web column "What's New") Prof. Park will visit the class at 5:30 (early start time so that he can catch the last flight back to Baltimore.) | Park Ch. 7-8 |
| Dec. 4 | C.-N. Yang, has
unfortunately had to cancel his visit.
Instead, Stephen E. Schwartz will talk on "Gobal warming." Term Paper Due |
Park Ch. 9-10 |
| Dec. 11 | Dr. Mark Sakitt, Brookhaven National Lab, will talk on "Nuclear Arms
Proliferation." (see NY Times, Dec. 9,
"Nuclear Experts in Pakistan May Have Links to Al Qaeda" By David E. Sanger) Term Papers Returned. |
last class |