This course surveys a selection of cultural and philosophical issues
in the history of physics, from the time of Galileo to the 20th
century, without requiring much technical knowledge of physics.
Unfortunately, time will not allow for an examination of the
relation between modern physics and tao mysticism, or of the
question of why the best or most famous physicists have turned out
to be quite ugly- looking. Instead, the course will begin with the
questions, why did Copernicus and others believe that the Sun is at
the center of the universe? and, should we? (the first revolution in
the picture of the cosmos got Galileo in trouble with the Church;
evidence?) and, why should we trust numbers to describe the world?
(how bookkeeping and philosophy promoted the language of numbers as
the reliable description of facts).  Other issues are, how
propagation of motion by contact action (think bowling or pool) was
considered more intelligible than action at a distance (but does it
make sense?),  whether space is a real thing containing the bodies
in the universe, whether matter can really be hard, how precise
measurements of the properties of beer (recommended, along with tea,
by the British government as an alternative to drinking polluted
water)led to the principle of energy conservation, how energy
conservation required elastic atoms, how Einstein's most famous
theory of relativity did not claim that everything is relative but
it changed how energy, matter, space and time were understood.

2nd 8 Weeks