Semester:
Offered:
Howard Georgi (Department of Physics)
First-Year Seminar 26E 4 credits (fall term) Enrollment: Limited to 12
We are fortunate to live in a world with beauty all around us (and we need to do a much better job of preserving it). Physics describes the underlying laws that both produce much of the beauty in the world and also enable us to experience it. My hope in this seminar is to help students heighten their appreciation of our beautiful world by deepening their understanding of the physical principles of waves.
Waves are central. We experience the beauty of the world primarily through light waves and sound waves. This seminar will explore some of the most fun topics in wave phenomena. There is no text, but I will be working to make topics from my book, “The Physics of Waves” (available free on my web site) accessible and will put materials on the Canvas site as needed.
There will be considerable overlap with Physics 15c. I expect that students who do well in the seminar will be able to test out of the Physics 15c requirement for the Physics or ChemPhys concentration (although concentrators will still have to take the 15c PSI lab).
There will be a few very short problem sets and I will expect the students to show that they are following the class discussion by answering questions. We will visit the Science Center to see some amazing demonstrations. New this year, we will visit the Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies in the Harvard Art Museum (see below for details).
Prerequisites: Students will get the most out of this seminar if they have a good feel for single-variable calculus. It may also help to have seen a little linear algebra, although we can work on that as we go along.