I'm looking at a number of texts aimed at
teaching the basic ideas of modern physics and the
implications of modern physics on our conceptions of
space, time and matter to a crew of non-science majors
in a seminar format. Have any of you on this list done
the same, and if so, what texts/papers did you use?
The course is intended to be a blend of conceptual and
quantitative work - not rigorously mathematical, but there
are obvious places in which we'll have to deal with
mathematics. I don't want the course to be so overly
concerned with things like lorentz transformations that
the students get bogged down in the math and miss the
radical paradigm shifts required by the principles that
Einstein laid down - so I'm not looking for texts like
Mermin's Space and Time in Relativity, as good as that
book is. I'm also wanting something a bit more (I think)
than Wolfson's Relativity Demystified. I also don't
want to spend overmuch time discussing things like
wormholes and time travel, so there are a number of popular
books to avoid on that score as well. For quantum physics
I'm at a total loss - there just aren't that many (as I can
see it) good books out there that treat the subject at the
right level. Have you any good ideas/syllabi/pointers?
Thanks,
Todd Pedlar
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Todd K. Pedlar
Assistant Professor of Physics, Luther College
pedlto01@luther.edu
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"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and
won't change the subject." -- Winston Churchill