Welcome to PHYSICS 301: A course about the general interplay between Science and Culture.



A Brief Video Introduction



This is a self contained web site, freed from the Tyranny of Blackboard. Navigation of this web site is as follows:

• The Syllabus Link takes you to the course syllabus that might contain some useful information.
  
  
• The Course Documents link contains the table of contents for all of the course content. If at any time you get lost, simply click on the documents link to find your self again.
  
  
• The Resources page has links to various other resources than might be useful for this class. It is not fully populated yet. often.
  
  
• Grading of assignment and tests will still make use of the grade center in Blackboard

A brief course Introduction:

Course Structure and Information

This course will focus on the historical development of science in the context of embedded culture and how that affects or creates the ability for knowledge to be transmitted from one generation to the next. Fundamental to this approach is examining the cultural conditions that must exist before scientific theory is accepted.

We will concentrate on a few important historical periods to identify and assess various scientific ideas within those periods in the context of both social and technological settings. Throughout, we will attempt to trace the origin, transmission and refinement of scientific ideas from their early inception to their modern manifestation.

This is an interdisicplinary course designed to enhance both the science and cultural literacy of the students. We intend to present science as an empirical process driven by observations and curiousity that represents an ongoing humanistic endeavor to understand the world. Along the way we will continually confront the paradox that, at any given time, every culture believes that they know the "truth" and therefore are not particularly receptive to new ideas.

This course has three main goals:

• To get students to understand that science is a process deeply embedded in culture and language
  
  
• To get students to realize that "scientific knowledge" is largely acquired via a combination of accidental discovery and an open mind.
  
  
• To get students to understand the collective set of human and cultural biases that impeded the acquisition and transmission of knowledge from one generation to another.