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Course Criteria
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4.00 Credits
Natural disasters, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and floods, claim thousands of lives and cause tens of billions of dollars in damage each year. Moreover, changes in Earth's climate are raising sea level, changing precipitation patterns, and likely causing an increase in the occurrence of damaging storms, putting more of our global population at risk. In this course we develop an understanding of these natural hazards from an earth science perspective, and examine several case studies to assess their catastrophic impacts. Given our scientific understanding of these phenomena, we examine ways to assess and forecast future natural disasters, and to mitigate the adverse impacts to our societies. Sections will emphasize the use of GIS technology to measure the impacts of natural hazards.
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4.00 Credits
Sound and music are integral parts of all human cultures, and play critical roles in communications and social interactions. In this course, we explore the science of the production, transmission, and perception of sound, with the aim of expanding both scientific and artistic horizons. Topics will include the nature of waves, vibrations, sound production, resonance, interference, harmony, dissonance, voice, musical instruments, sound spaces, and human auditory response. Physical principles are worked into the course as topics arise; emphasis is placed on an intuitive grounding in these subjects. The mathematical background of students is assumed to be at the level of high school algebra and trigonometry.
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4.00 Credits
Albert Einstein has become the icon of modern science. Following his scientific, cultural, philosophical, and political trajectory, this course aims to track the changing role of physics in the 20th- and 21st- centuries. Addresses Einstein's engagement with relativity, quantum mechanics, Nazism, nuclear weapons, philosophy, and technology, and raises basic questions about what it means to understand physics and its history.
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4.00 Credits
The nature and history of matter revealed by astronomical observation and experimental physics. Explores the Big Bang and models of the universe, stellar evolution and supernova explosions, evidence for invisible matter, and the development of structure in the universe. Demonstrates the physical principles used to interpret astronomical data and to construct a model for the evolution of the universe on the microscopic and cosmic scales. Examines the way microscopic properties of matter determine properties of people, stars, galaxies, and the universe as a whole.
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4.00 Credits
This course views life through multiple lenses. Quantum physics involves uncertainty and randomness, and yet paradoxically it explains the stability of molecules, such as DNA, that encode information and are critical to life. Thermodynamics is about the universe's ever increasing disorder, and yet living systems remain ordered and intact. This course will examine how these physical laws underpin life and how life itself has diversified since originating 3.5 billion years ago.
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4.00 Credits
Direct measurements of the stars and Sun with telescopes on the Science Center to learn how we can understand our solar system, galaxy and the distant universe from stars, the basic building blocks and markers of cosmic evolution. In small sections, students conduct both visual and computer-assisted observations to measure physical properties of stars and formulate their own cosmic understanding from physical laws.
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4.00 Credits
Science is like well-woven, ever-expanding fabric, designed to (un)cover Nature's secrets. This course emphasizes the strong connections between subfields of science, showing it as the never-ending and greatest detective story ever told, with evidence always the arbiter. These characteristics are exhibited in the semi-historical treatment of three themes: unveiling the universe, the earth and its fossils, and the story of life. Opportunities include working with Harvard's scientific facilities and making short films.
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4.00 Credits
From the digital revolution to bio informatics, from global warming to sustainability, and from national security to renewable energy, technology plays a critical role in shaping our lives. In this course, the students will be exposed to applied science and engineering concepts that span disciplines and examine broadly how technology shapes society and vice versa. It will emphasize qualitative and semi-quantitative analysis, modeling and the conceptual basis of some of the grand challenges facing society.
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4.00 Credits
The course provides an historical account of the evolution of the modern energy system, from early dependence on human and animal power, to the subsequent use of wind and water, to more recent reliance on fossil fuels - coal, oil and natural gas - and even more recently to the development of the ability to tap the energy contained in the nucleus. It will discuss the important historical advances in the applications of energy, notably in the production and distribution of electricity and in the transportation sector - where oil-derived products provide the motive force for cars, trucks, trains, ships and planes. It will highlight the energy related problems we confront today, with particular emphasis on air pollution, on the threat of global climate change, on the hazards of nuclear proliferation, and on the risks to national security imposed by our increasing reliance on imported sources of oil. It concludes with a discussion of options for a more sustainable energy future.
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4.00 Credits
We use the theme of primitive navigation to open the eyes of students to the physical world in a direct and palpable manner. Basic principles include human cognition of physical and mental maps, dead reckoning, direction finding from nature. The course includes the basics of astronomy, including planetary orbits, meteorology, thermodynamics, bird behavior, electromagnetic radiation, optics, waves, tides, water transport and chemistry. Navigational practices in Polynesian, Arabic, Aboriginal and Norse cultures provide a focus. Some facility with algebra and trigonometry is useful. A series of hands-on projects are employed to understand navigational practices discussed in lecture.
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