Syllabus Physics 33200 Spring 2021

PHYSICS OF SCIENCE FICTION SYLLABUS

Required reading: Dr. Kaku’s Physics of the Impossible, and Hyperspace. Spring 2021

1. Intelligent Alien Life in the Universe

1. Drake equation and alien civilizations                                          Feb. 2

Miller experiment, exobiology, SETI, Fermi paradox                              

2. Classification of alien civilizations                                    Feb. 4

Kardashev scale, Type I,II,III civilizations, origin of intelligence              

3. UFOs and extraterrestrials                                                           Feb. 9

Hypersonic drive drones, Von Neuman probes

2. Exploring the universe                

4. Building a moon base                                                                   Feb. 11

Newton’s laws, space elevator    

5. Colonizing Mars and the solar system                                          Feb. 16

Terraforming Mars, oceans of Europa                                         

6. Mining asteroids and exploring exoplanets                                  Feb. 18

Physics of asteroid impacts, discovering exoplanets

3. Science Fiction Hardware

7. Lasers, light sabers, ray guns, jet packs                                        Feb. 23

Electromagnetic force, coherent radiation, plasma fields

8. Invisibility, teleportation, replicators, force fields                       Feb. 25

Metamaterials, plasmas

9. Telepathy + telekinesis                                                                 Mar. 2

Brain-computer interphase, brain net

10. Transhumanism                                                                            Mar. 4

Genetic engineering, super humans, CRISPR technology                                    

4. Robots and AI

11. Digital vs neural network                                                              Mar. 9

Turing machines, thinking machines

12. Jobs and the future of robotics                                                     Mar. 11

Asimov’s laws; robots in society

13. The Singularity: will they take over?                                            Mar. 16

       Breakdown of Moore’s Law, Self-aware machines

5. Nuclear Force

14. E = mc2, fission, and fusion                                                          Mar. 18

Atomic physics, critical mass, nuclear reactors

Midterm Review                                                                          Mar. 23

Midterm                                                                                       Mar. 25

15. Star ships                                                                                       Apr. 6

Ram jet fusion and Anti-matter engines                                                 

16. Quantum mechanics and parallel universes                                Apr. 8

Everett’s Many Worlds theory; quantum computers                 

6. Relativity and Beyond

17. Special relativity and twin paradox                                              Apr. 13

Minkowski space, Lorentz transformation

18. General relativity and space warps                                             Apr. 15
19. Stellar evolution and black holes                                                  Apr. 20

Life and death of stars, Schwarzschild radius

20. Wormholes and Time travel                                                         Apr. 22

Exotic energy, Time paradoxes, closed time-like curves CTC

7. Frontiers of Science

21. Multiverse and string theory                                                        Apr. 27

Cosmology, Inflation theory, LHC, unification

Hyperspace

22. Cosmology                                                                        Apr. 29

Big Bang, microwave background, nucleosynthesis

8. Beyond Science

23. Parapsychology and psychic phenomena                         May 4

Near death experience, CIA studies, are psychics real?              

24. St. Thomas’ proofs of god and Type IV civilizations                     May 6

Teleological, Ontological, and Cosmological proofs

Anthropic principle

25. Digital and genetic immortality                                                    May 11

Connectome brain project, telomeres, sirtuin genes

Review for Final                                                                                 May 13