Science and Society (216)	2006 Spring
University of Washington	Washington	Physics
This is a new version of PHYS216 – a 5-credit course on the issues of Science and Society. The concept of this course and the efficacy of the approach to the issues were thoroughly tested in the courses taught in the A&S Honors program; see www.phys.washington.edu/users/vladi ). The enrollment is not limited to the students of the two sponsoring Departments – the goal is to achieve a truly transdisciplinary mix of science- and non-science students with diverse backgrounds. Students can use the course towards either NW or I&S requirement. For the SIS students, it will count as an upper division course. Modern science is an awesome, exciting adventure. Quite inexplicably, we seem able to investigate Nature, from detailed aspects of the Big Bang, through the machinery of our own genome, all the way to the Quantum Mechanics of quarks and neutrinos. At the same time, many thinkers have pointed out the ever-increasing gap between the cumulative, exponential progress in science and technology on the one hand, and on the other hand, the lack of comparable progress in our ability to use our new technological tools thoughtfully and responsibly. This gap cannot keep increasing forever. Some people think that we might be in the process of acquiring powers that we should not have, and that catastrophic consequences are not only possible, but probable or even inevitable. An informed, educated citizen ought to know enough about science to be able to appreciate the potential benefits as well as the possible dangers which science represents. In this course, we will explore the current status and developments in Physics, Nanotechnology and Biotechnology, and we will discuss the implications for society at the local, national and international (global) level. First we will learn, from scratch (i.e. without any pre-requisites) but in considerable detail, about the fundamental concepts of Nuclear Physics and Molecular Biology. Then, in the discussion part of the course, we will learn how NASA plans to listen to the gravitational symphony of the Universe, how do astrophysicists know what happened fifteen billions years ago (and exactly what happened in the first three minutes after that), we will learn about Schrodinger's cat and Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and we will contemplate the marvelous interplay of DNA, RNA and proteins. And we will spend equal time on discussing methods of risk assessment, we will try to find out if the Brookhaven National Laboratory could accidentally produce a black hole which will eat the Planet, or if a biological accident could wipe out Civilization. There will be both exuberance and humility in our treatment of the issues, and both feelings will often be illustrated using the playground of Music.
Course Syllabus Website
Program: IGERT Program

Course Instructor(s):

Vladimir Chaloupka