PHYS 1203 - Physics of the Heavens and the Earth

(PBS-AS, PHS-AS)

Spring. 3 credits. Student option grading.

For non-science majors. Students with credit for PHYS 1101, PHYS 1112, PHYS 1116, or PHYS 2207, or an advanced placement equivalent who wish to enroll in PHYS 1203 must obtain written permission from the instructor and the Physics director of undergraduate studies.

N. Holmes.

This course offers opportunities to face fundamental issues in scientific thought, and to provide a sense of the profound ideas that form the modern views of our world. Physics is not a collection of laws, or dry mathematical formulas that must be painfully memorized and exercised. Astronomy is not just a collection of fascinating, disconnected facts about our universe. This course introduces physics and astronomy as the development of a basic curiosity about our world, and a grand desire to understand how it works. A significant theme of this course will be: “What and how do we know?” This will include discussions of how scientific thought and ideas have evolved over time, as well as who has been involved in that evolution.