SCI-PHYUNV 28 - Invisible Worlds

Institution:

Harvard University

Subject:

Description:

What we perceive as "reality" is the best effort of our senses to interpret a deeper, largely invisible, reality that is unnervingly strange. This course will survey the world of very small things, objects with dimensions of nanometers and micrometers. The behaviors of these objects are often entirely counterintuitive; they can also be quite useful. Micro- and nanostructures are the basis both of fundamentally new science, and of ubiquitous technologies: quantum dots, computers, the biological nanomotors that power muscle, buckyballs, tools for examining single mammalian cells, lasers. The course will describe these objects and how they function; it will also touch on issues of commercialization, economics, public policy, and ethics that spring from the avalanche of discovery and invention in this area.

Credits:

4.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.harvard.edu

Phone Number:

(617) 495-1000

Regional Accreditation:

New England Association of Schools and Colleges

Calendar System:

Semester

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