Physics 33200
PHYSICS OF SCIENCE FICTION
REVISED SYLLABUS
Required reading: Dr. Kaku’s Physics of the Impossible, and Hyperspace.
Office hours: Tu, Th 3:30-4:30 in MR312.
- Intelligent Alien Life in the Universe
- Drake equation and alien civilizations Jan. 28
Miller experiment, exobiology, SETI, Fermi paradox
- Classification of alien civilizations Jan. 30
Kardashev scale, Type I,II,III civilizations, origin of intelligence
- UFOs and extraterrestrials Feb. 4
Hypersonic drive drones, Von Neuman probes
Read Chapter 8 in Impossible
- Exploring the universe
- Building a moon base Feb. 6
Newton’s laws, space elevator
- Colonizing Mars and the solar system Feb. 11
Terraforming Mars, oceans of Europa
- Mining asteroids and exploring exoplanets Feb. 13
Physics of asteroid impacts, discovering exoplanets
- Science Fiction Hardware
- Lasers, light sabers, ray guns, jet packs Feb. 18
Electromagnetic force, coherent radiation, plasma fields
Read: Chapter 3 in Impossible
- Invisibility, teleportation, replicators, force fields Feb. 20
Metamaterials, plasmas
Read Chapter 2 in Impossible
- Telepathy + telekinesis Feb. 25
Brain-computer interphase, brain net
Read chapter 5 in Impossible
- Robots and AI
- Digital vs neural network Mar. 3
Turing machines, thinking machines
Read Chapter 7 in Impossible
- Jobs and the future of robotics Mar. 5
Asimov’s laws; robots in society
- The Singularity: will they take over? Mar. 10
Breakdown of Moore’s Law, Self-aware machines
- Nuclear Force
- E = mc2, fission, and fusion Mar. 12
Atomic physics, critical mass, nuclear reactors
- Star ships Mar. 17
Ram jet fusion and Anti-matter engines
Read Chapter 11 in Impossible
- Quantum mechanics and parallel universes Mar. 19
Everett’s Many Worlds theory; quantum computers
Read Chapter 13 in Impossible
Review Mar. 24
Midterm Mar. 26
- Relativity and Beyond
- Special relativity and twin paradox Mar. 31
Minkowski space, Lorentz transformation
- General relativity and space warps Apr. 2
Read chapter 4 in Hyperspace
- Stellar evolution and black holes Apr. 21
Life and death of stars, Schwarzschild radius
Also reach Chapter 10 in Hyperpace
- Wormholes and Time travel Apr. 23
Exotic energy, Time paradoxes, closed time-like curves CTC
Read Chapter 12 in Impossible
Also read Chapter 11 in Hyperspace
- Frontiers of Science
- Multiverse and string theory Apr. 28
Cosmology, Inflation theory, LHC, unification
Hyperspace
Read chapter 6 and Epilogue in Impossible
- Cosmology Apr. 30
Big Bang, microwave background, nucleosynthesis
Also read chapter 14 in Hyperspace
- Beyond Science
- Digital and genetic immortality May 5
Connectome brain project, telomeres, sirtuin genes
- Parapsychology and psychic phenomena
Near death experience, CIA studies, are psychics real?
Read Chapter 15 in Impossible
- St. Thomas’ Aquinas proofs of god and Type IV civilizations May 12
Teleological, Ontological, and Cosmological proofs
Anthropic principle
Review for Final May 14
Last Updated: 01/31/2020 14:24