HIST 294 - Scientific Revolutions: 1543-1927

Institution:

Williams College

Subject:

History

Description:

How much does science create the sensibilities and values of the modern world? How much, if any, technical detail is it necessary to know in order to understand the difference between propaganda and fact? This course investigates four major changes of world view, associated with Copernicus (1543); Newton (1687); Darwin (1859); and Planck (1900) and Einstein (1905). It also treats briefly the emergence of modern cosmogony, geology, and chemistry as additional reorganizations of belief about our origins, our past, and our material structure. We first acquire a basic familiarity with the scientific use and meaning of the new paradigms, as they emerged in historical context. We then ask how those ideas fit together to form a new framework, and ask what their trans-scientific legacy has been, that is, how they have affected ideas and values in other sciences, other fields of thought, and in society. Knowledge of high-school algebra is presupposed.

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Open to first-year students

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.williams.edu

Phone Number:

(413) 597-3131

Regional Accreditation:

New England Association of Schools and Colleges

Calendar System:

Four-one-four plan

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