Special Course Offering in Fall 2019: Phys 598 CPP

8/9/2019 12:27:26 PM

Lance Cooper

Course Rubric: Physics 598 CPP

Lecturer: Tony Leggett (Physics)

Time: Mondays and Tuesdays, 9.0 - 10.30 am

Place: 222 Loomis Lab.

Description: This course is a new venture; it attempts to cover a number of conceptual questions in the foundations of physics, some of which are currently very controversial. In some sense it is an upgraded version of the regular Physics 419, "Space, Time and Matter" course, but differs from it in that it will be assumed that attendees have (or are willing to acquire) sufficient mathematics and physics background to read the relevant original literature.

Examples of the topics I hope to cover: "Absolute" versus "relative" space and time in Newtonian mechanics, special and general relativity; Paradoxes of special and general relativity (e.g., twins,"grandfather"...); The concept of probability in physics: the notion of entropy; The "arrow(s) of time"; The EPR, Schroedinger's Cat and Wigner's Friend paradoxes in quantum mechanics; The nature of the "big bang" in cosmology; The anthropic principle and its possible interpretations; The implications of physics for philosophy, and vice versa.

Assessment will be by an extended project (but you are of course welcome just to audit).