This Seminar is available to all students. No background required. 

Recommended for students interested in history of science and philosophy of science.

How and why have quantum concepts and imagery permeated culture to offer what seem to be new

perspectives on the human condition?  How did phrases like “quantum leap,” “uncertainty,” and

“parallel worlds” leap from scientific terminology in subatomic physics to popular idioms?  When is

the metaphorical use of scientific terms meaningful, and when is it pretentious, erroneous, and a

disturbing mistake that must be corrected?  This course does not involve technical mathematics. 

It does involve some history, literature, philosophy, theory of metaphor, and lots of imagination.

1.     The Newtonian Moment: Newton and Newtonianism

2.     The Birth of the Quantum – and of Quantum Metaphors

3.     The Bottom Drops out of the World: Quantum Mechanics

4.     “Everybody Understands Uncertainty.  Or Thinks He does”:  The Uncertainty Principle

5.     Schrödinger’s Cat, Alternate Worlds, and “No Way!” Reactions

6.     Copenhagen.  A reading of Michael Frayn’s play.

7.     “The Only Mystery”: The Double Slit Experiment

8.     Student Projects