PHYS 107
Newton, Einstein, and Beyond
Last Offered Fall 2011
Division III Quantitative/Formal Reasoning
This course is not offered in the current catalog

This course follows a quest to understand the nature of space, time, matter, and energy. We will focus on two scientific theories that revolutionized our understanding of the physical world, Newtonian mechanics (developed in the late 17th century) and Einstein’s special relativity (developed in the early 20th century). As we explore these theories, we will pay special attention to the very different stories they tell about space and time. We will conclude the semester by touching upon recent developments in cosmology, where observations have led to dramatic surprises about the make-up of our universe, and particle physics, where the Large Hadron Collider experiment is poised to extend our understanding of nature to higher energies and shorter distances. This course is intended for students whose primary interests lie outside of the natural sciences and mathematics. The mathematics used will be algebra and trigonometry.