PHYS 4121 -- Changes

Mon Apr 23 09:43:35 2012

Effective Term:	New: 1123 - Spring 2012 Old: 1089 - Fall 2008
College:	New: TIOT - College of Science and Engineering Old: TIOT - Institute of Technology
Proposal Changes:	New: Proposed as writing intensive. Old: <no text provided>
Faculty Sponsor Name:	New: Michel Janssen Old:
Faculty Sponsor E-mail Address:	New: janss011@umn.edu Old:
Student Learning Outcomes:	* Student in the course: - Have mastered a body of knowledge and a mode of inquiry New: Please explain briefly how this outcome will be addressed in the course. Give brief examples of class work related to the outcome. The students will read a fair number of books and articles on various aspect of the history of 20th-century physics (conceptual development of relativity and quantum theories, the role of physics in society, especially in light of nuclear weapons). The readings illustrate a variety of approaches to the history of science (e.g., conceptual, institutional) How will you assess the students' learning related to this outcome? Give brief examples of how class work related to the outcome will be evaluated. There will be three take-home exams testing the student⿿s understanding of the readings and the discussion of these readings in class. The students have the option of substituting a paper exploring any topic in the history of 20th-century physics in greater depth for one of the three take-home exams. Old: unselected - Can communicate effectively New: Please explain briefly how this outcome will be addressed in the course. Give brief examples of class work related to the outcome. Instead of lecturing, the instructor meets for 2-3 hours with two student-presenters every week to prepare them for presenting the material on the agenda that week to the rest of the class and leading the discussion of it. This greatly improves participation in class discussions as the students will cooperate better with student presenters than with the instructor since they will all have to take at least one turn at being a student presenter. Having to articulate their understanding of the material, the students get a head-start on the take-home exams where they have to put in writing their position on some of the topics and issues discussed in class. As the class is writing intensive, the main emphasis is actually on getting student to articulate their understanding of challenging (often abstract and mathematical) material. The class is structured in such a way that this will happen in several iterations (verbally and in writing). The idea is that the student eventually writes a series of non-technical essays that would be accessible to other students in his or her major (mostly physics and philosophy) without any special background in the subject matter How will you assess the students' learning related to this outcome? Give brief examples of how class work related to the outcome will be evaluated. The grade depends both on the quality of the essays (75%) and on the quality of the class presentations (which largely determine the 25% of the grade for class participation). Old: unselected - Have acquired skills for effective citizenship and life-long learning New: Please explain briefly how this outcome will be addressed in the course. Give brief examples of class work related to the outcome. a. The presentation of the kind of technical material, both in class presentation and in short essays, provides the student with practice in skills that will be useful in many other settings. b. The exposure to various books on the history of 20th-century physics will open the student⿿s eyes to the vast literature (both scholarly and popular) on the history of science. The discussion of these books in class will train the student to read that literature more critically. To help realize this class objective, the instructor posts many background readings on the website for the class and brings to class every week additional books on the topic on the agenda that week. How will you assess the students' learning related to this outcome? Give brief examples of how class work related to the outcome will be evaluated. Point (a) is addressed under (5) above. Point (b) is addressed under (3) above. Old: unselected

Propose this course as Writing Intensive curriculum:	New: Yes Old: No
Question 1 (see CWB Requirement 1):	How do writing assignments and writing instruction further the learning objectives of this course and how is writing integrated into the course? Note that the syllabus must reflect the critical role that writing plays in the course. New: The number one goal of this class is to improve the student⿿s ability to articulate⿿in oral presentations and in a series of short essays⿿the development of various key concepts in 20th-century physics. To understand the original papers in which these concepts were introduced, students need to work through some of the mathematical details, but the goal is for them to describe these concepts, their development, and/or debates among historians over the interpretation of these concepts and developments without relying on the mathematics and in a way that should be accessible to non-specialists. In the second half of the semester, the students will also write essays about the broader context in which these developments took place (e.g., about the Manhattan project, the Oppenheimer hearings, and/or the German atomic bomb project during WWII). The course typically draws a mix of physics majors and majors from other disciplines, especially from philosophy. The physics students are much better prepared to deal with the mathematical challenges of the material but the philosophy students are much better at recognizing the structure of arguments and at articulating conceptual developments. Class discussions help both groups to meet the main objective of this class, i.e., to hone the students⿿ skills in talking and writing about physics for a broader audience with minimal use of mathematics and jargon. Old: <no text provided>
Question 2 (see CWB Requirement 2):	What types of writing (e.g., research papers, problem sets, presentations, technical documents, lab reports, essays, journaling etc.) will be assigned? Explain how these assignments meet the requirement that writing be a significant part of the course work, including details about multi-authored assignments, if any. Include the required length for each writing assignment and demonstrate how the minimum word count (or its equivalent) for finished writing will be met. New: There will be three take-home exams that test the student⿿s ability to present key points of the readings and the discussion of them in class in their own words. Each of these three exams will consist of three questions, each requiring a short essay of 500⿿600 words (1.5⿿2 typed, double-spaced pages). Instead of the final take-home exam, students have the option of writing a paper of about 10 pages (3,500⿿6,000 words). If the enrollment is such that there is no equitable way of distributing the oral presentations over the students in the class, students have the option of doing an additional oral presentation instead of one of the nine essays. Even in that case, the student would write a minimum of 8 times 500 = 4,000 words. Note: the instructor has been using this format with these word/page counts for about ten years now and has found that it works well. A full set of essay questions is attached. Old: <no text provided>
Question 3 (see CWB Requirement 3):	How will students' final course grade depend on their writing performance? What percentage of the course grade will depend on the quality and level of the student's writing compared to the percentage of the grade that depends on the course content? Note that this information must also be on the syllabus. New: The three take-home exams account for 75% of the grade in this class (class participation makes up the remaining 25%). It is hard to distinguish between writing and content in these essays as the typical assignment is to explain some complicated development of subtle concepts in clear easy-to-understand language. The way I put it on the syllabus is: ⿿your grade on each essay and, if you opt to write one, your term paper will be determined to a large extent by the clarity of your writing, both in terms of the overall organization of your essay and at the level of individual paragraphs and sentences.⿝ In practice, this means that well over 33% of the grade is determined by the quality of the student⿿s writing. Quality here is defined in terms of clarity of organization at various levels (essay, paragraph, sentence). Depressingly common stylistic problems (e.g., dangling participles, overuse of ⿿the fact that⿝) and errors in spelling (e.g., discreet for discrete, principal for principle, complimentary for complementary) and grammar (e.g., it⿿s for its) will be noted in the instructor⿿s mark-up of the essays but the students will not lose any points on account of such problems. Those making egregious errors at this level (e.g., with subject-verb agreement) will be advised (but not coerced) to seek help at the university⿿s Writing Center. Old: <no text provided>
Question 4 (see CWB Requirement 4):	Indicate which assignment(s) students will be required to revise and resubmit after feedback from the instructor. Indicate who will be providing the feedback. Include an example of the assignment instructions you are likely to use for this assignment or assignments. New: As indicated on the syllabus, the students are expected to use the feedback on the first take-home essay assignment to improve their performance on the second. Feedback will be given in the form of detailed mark-up of the students⿿ essays (cf. question 3). For the second take-home, the students are required to submit a revised version of the weakest of their three essays for this assignment. The feedback on the first two take-home essay assignments can be expected to improve the students⿿ performance on the final assignment (the third take-home essay assignment or a term paper). Note: about ten years worth of experience with this class has shown that these final essays/papers in fact indeed tend to be better than the essays written for the first two take-homes. This last batch of essays is not due till the exam week (and this cannot be changed as the essays can only be assigned after their subject matter has been discussed in class). This is why no revised version of part of this final assignment is required. Experience has shown that less than half the students even bother to pick up their marked-up final papers. It is therefore much more effective to have them submit revised versions of part of their second assignment. Old: <no text provided>
Question 5 (see CWB Requirement 5):	What types of writing instruction will be experienced by students? How much class time will be devoted to explicit writing instruction and at what points in the semester? What types of writing support and resources will be provided to students? New: The students will be reading work of some of the best writers in the history of physics (Martin Klein, Thomas Kuhn, Roger Stuewer, Peter Galison, etc.). They will also be reading a number of original physics papers, some of them exceptionally lucid (Einstein), others notoriously opaque (Planck, Bohr). The students will thus be exposed to a variety of writing. Moreover, the instructor has a longstanding interest in writing about the conceptual development of modern physics for a broad audience. He wrote several of his papers specifically with a view to using them in a class such as this one (and some of these materials are actually being used in similar classes at other institutions). In short, the students will have many examples of kinds of writing to be emulated and kinds to be avoided. The format of the class forces students to articulate and discuss the concepts and ideas presented in the readings rather than passively absorb them by listening to the instructor lecture. This will prepare the students for writing up parts of the class discussions in their own words for the take-home assignments. Beyond the mechanisms just described no class time is set aside for explicit writing instruction (with the exception of 10 minutes or so when the instructor hands back take-home essays and goes over some common errors in form and substance of the students⿿ writing). Students will be given a handout on citation conventions in the history of physics (attached) and some guides prepared by other historians of science on how to write papers and essays in this field will be made available to those interested. Old: <no text provided>
Question 6 (see CWB Requirement 6):	If teaching assistants will participate in writing assessment and writing instruction, explain how will they be trained (e.g. in how to review, grade and respond to student writing) and how will they be supervised. If the course is taught in multiple sections with multiple faculty (e.g. a capstone directed studies course), explain how every faculty mentor will ensure that their students will receive a writing intensive experience. New: This course has been offered for many years with the same amount of writing and has never had a teaching assistant (TA). The instructor has taught this class for about ten years, his predecessor, Roger Stuewer, taught it for well over ten years before that. If the enrollment were to go up from the 20⿿25 students it has averaged over the last few years to over 35 students, the graduate program in History of Science, Technology, and Medicine (HSTM) may assign a TA or a grader to this class. Given the advanced nature of the course material, the TA assigned to this class would have to be an advanced graduate student specializing in the conceptual history of modern physics with extensive experience in the kind of writing required of the students. The main instructor would still grade a portion of all three essay assignments and share the results with the TA before the TA grades the remaining essays. Note: the Department of Philosophy has just hired a senior historian and philosopher of modern physics, Jos Uffink, who for many years has taught the history of modern physics at his current institution, Utrecht University. Uffink will start in Minnesota in the fall of 2011 and will be given adjunct faculty status in the HSTM program and probably in physics as well. He has expressed strong interest in teaching Hsci/Phys 4121 on occasion. In that case, the regular instructor will make sure that he will not change the format and requirements of the course that make it qualify as a writing-intensive course according to the proposal outlined in this application and in the attached syllabus. Old: <no text provided>
Provisional Syllabus:	Please provide a provisional syllabus for new courses and courses in which changes in content and/or description and/or credits are proposed that include the following information: course goals and description; format/structure of the course (proposed number of instructor contact hours per week, student workload effort per week, etc.); topics to be covered; scope and nature of assigned readings (texts, authors, frequency, amount per week); required course assignments; nature of any student projects; and how students will be evaluated. The University policy on credits is found under Section 4A of "Standards for Semester Conversion" at http://www.fpd.finop.umn.edu/groups/senate/documents/policy/semestercon.html . Provisional course syllabus information will be retained in this system until new syllabus information is entered with the next major course modification, This provisional course syllabus information may not correspond to the course as offered in a particular semester. New: HSCI/PHYS 4121⿿HISTORY OF 20TH-CENTURY PHYSICS⿿SPRING 2012 TIME AND PLACE: Tuesday, 4:40⿿7:10 pm; Tate Laboratory of Physics, Rm. 210. INSTRUCTOR: Michel Janssen, Tate Lab of Physics, Rm. 354B. Tel. 4 5880. Email: janss011@umn.edu. Office Hours: Monday, 3⿿4 pm, Tuesday, 2:30⿿3:30 pm, or by appointment. COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course is an introduction to the work of historians and philosophers of science trying to trace the development of 20th-century physics. Our main focus will be on the development of relativity theory (both special and general) and quantum theory in the first quarter of the century. Special attention will be paid to the contributions of Albert Einstein. In addition, we will look at: (1) Boltzmann, the Ehrenfests, and statistical mechanics; (2) the early contributions of John H. Van Vleck, a young assistant professor at Minnesota at the time, to the development of quantum theory; (3) The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) paper and the foundations of quantum mechanics; (4) nuclear physics in the 1930s; (5) the Manhattan project and the 1954 Oppenheimer hearings; (6) Michael Frayn⿿s critically-acclaimed play ⿿Copenhagen⿝ about the 1941 meeting between Heisenberg and Bohr in Copenhagen and the related controversy among historians of science about Heisenberg⿿s role in the German bomb project; (7) the interplay between theory and experiment in high-energy physics in the 1970s. Readings are taken from a variety of sources. In most cases, we will read chapters from Emilio Segrè⿿s From X-Rays to Quarks to get us started on a particular topic (for a list of these topics, see pp. 5⿿8 below). This will prepare us for more specialized literature in history and philosophy of science. We will also read (passages from) some of the seminal texts written by the physicists we will study, both to get some of the flavor of their work and to evaluate interpretations and reconstructions of these texts offered in the historical and philosophical literature. WRITING INTENSIVE COURSE: This is a writing intensive course. The number one goal of this class is to improve your ability to articulate⿿in oral presentations and in a series of short essays⿿the development of various concepts in relativity, quantum, and statistical physics. To read the original papers in which new concepts were introduced you will need to work through some of the mathematics used in these papers but ultimately you will be asked to describe these concepts, their development, and/or debates among historians over the interpretation of these concepts and developments without relying on the mathematics and in a way that should be accessible to non-specialists. There will be three writing assignments over the course of the semester, requiring about six pages each. You will use the feedback on the first assignment to improve your writing on the second. You will use the feedback on the second assignment to produce an improved version of part of it and to improve your writing on the third and final assignment. FORMAT: The class consists of 15 relatively self-contained units on different topics (one for every week of the term except for week 2 when there are two topics on the agenda). The 2½-hour class period each week will be split into two parts with a 15-minute break in between (with the exceptions of the first and last weeks). The second part will be used for a lecture introducing the coming week⿿s topic. This should help orient you as you do the readings for this topic during the following week. The first part will be used for more in-depth presentation and discussion of the topic introduced the previous week. Students will take turns as discussion leaders, two for each week. I will need two volunteers for the first discussion (on January 24) right away. At the beginning of the second class period (January 24), I will have all of you sign up for one or two discussion sessions during the rest of the semester. Class time will roughly be divided equally between lecture and student presentations/discussions. By having to present and discuss the material yourself rather than having it presented to you in lectures, you will be forced to think about how to formulate the concepts and ideas you⿿ll encounter in the readings in your own words, which, in turn, will prepare you for writing about the material in a series of short essays. REQUIREMENTS: The first requirement for this class is to keep up with the readings and to participate actively in class. Make sure you have done the readings when you come to class so that you can articulate points you didn⿿t understand and raise interesting questions about the material. On one or two occasions (depending on class size) you will serve as one of a pair of student presenters/discussion leaders. When it is your turn you and your partner are expected to come see me once or twice to work out a ⿿script⿝ for the presentation/discussion (typically Monday and Tuesday before class). There will be three take-home exams that will test your ability to present key points of the readings and the discussion of them in class in short essays accessible to non-specialists. Each of these three exams will consist of three questions, each requiring an essay of about 500⿿600 words (about 2 typed, double-spaced pages). Instead of the final take-home exam, you have the option of writing a paper of about ten pages (2,500⿿3,000 words). If you want to do this you need to submit a proposal and get your topic approved by me. In the past, several students have opted to write on material in the Archive for History of Quantum Physics (AHQP). Walter Library at the University of Minnesota is the only depository of the AHQP in the Midwest. ⿢ Take-Home-I, on the material covered in weeks 1⿿4: assigned February 7 and due at the beginning of class February 21. You will receive detailed instructions on how to handle footnotes and references. ⿢ Take-Home-II, on the material covered in weeks 5⿿8: assigned March 6 and due at the beginning of class March 27. A revised version of the weakest of these three essays is due at the beginning of class on April 10. Your grade for this essay will be the grade for this revised version. ⿢ Take-Home-III on the material covered in weeks 9⿿14: assigned April 24 and due Tuesday, May 8, 5 pm. ⿢ If instead of Take-Home-III you choose to do a paper: (1) proposal (= brief description of your topic) due at the beginning of class April 3; (2) project due Tuesday, May 8, 5 pm. As this is a writing intensive class, your grade on each essay and, if you opt to write one, your term paper will be determined to a large extent by the clarity of your writing, both in terms of the overall organization of your essay and at the level of individual paragraphs and sentences. GRADING: 3 take-home exams (25% each); class participation [including your performance(s) as a discussion leader] (25%). All grades are given as point grades on a scale from 0 to 100. The conversion to letter grades is as follows: 90⿿100: A; 85⿿89: A-; 80⿿84: B+; 75⿿79: B; 70⿿74: B-; 65⿿69: C+; 60⿿64: C; 55⿿59: C-; 40⿿54: D; 0⿿39: F. POLICIES: Attendance: Since the discussion of the assigned readings in class is an integral part of the course, attendance is mandatory. Attendance will be taken at the beginning of each class. Unexcused absences will be reflected in your grade for class participation. More importantly, missing class will put you at a disadvantage when writing your short essays for the take-home exams. Office Hours: If you have difficulty with the material, do not wait too long and come see me during office hours. I will do my best to answer any questions you may have, from very specific ones to ⿿I⿿m lost!⿝ NOTE ON ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: This course is governed by the Board of Regents⿿ Student Conduct Code, available on-line on the webpages of the Office for Student Conduct and Academic Integrity (www1.umn.edu/oscai/index.html) (OSCAI). All students should be familiar with this code. It defines Scholastic Dishonesty as: ⿿Submission of false records of academic achievement; cheating on assignments or examinations; plagiarizing; altering, forging, or misusing a University academic record; taking, acquiring, or using test materials without faculty permission; acting alone or in cooperation with another to falsify records or to obtain dishonestly grades, honors, awards, or professional endorsement.⿝ The one issue that I have run into in the past with this class is plagiarism. In all written material you submit (the three take-home exams, a paper substituted for the third take-home exam), you should present your own arguments in your own words. Use quotations sparingly and give detailed citations whenever you do. Note that simply changing a few words in a quotation does not change the fact that you are quoting. Paraphrasing of this sort, where you use a source almost verbatim without acknowledgment, is a common form of plagiarism. Another common problem may arise from collaborating with other students. You are free to discuss the take-home exams with other students but the work that you submit must be your own, not something jointly written or copied from another student. If you violate these rules against plagiarism in one of the assignments, you will, at a minimum, lose a substantial amount, if not all, credit for that assignment. In addition and depending on the seriousness of the offense⿿and this goes for other violations of the Student Conduct Code as well⿿you may lose credit for other parts of the class, fail the class outright, and/or be reported to OSCAI for academic misconduct. WEBVISTA COURSE SITE: There is a website for this class, on which various readings, lecture notes, short essay questions, study guides etc. will be posted. There is also a page called ⿿announcements⿝ on which important information pertaining to this class will be posted (such as, if necessary, reminders about due dates of assignments or information about changes in the schedule). Check the website, including the announcement page, at least once a week for new material and/or messages. The line ⿿I did not see that announcement⿝ will not be accepted as an excuse for failing to meet any of the requirements of the course. To access WebVista sites: 1. Go to myu.umn.edu 2. Log in with your UMN Internet ID (i.e., your username as in username@umn.edu) and password (if you do not know your Internet ID or have forgotten your password, call 1-HELP [i.e., 14357 from a campus phone, (612) 301 4357 from an outside line]). 3. Click the ⿿My Courses⿝ tab. 4. Under the respective course, look for WebVista Resources and click on section link. The first time you use WebVista, go to webvista.umn.edu, click on ⿿Browser Set Up⿝ and follow the instructions on configuring your browser. The page webvista.umn.edu also provides an alternative path to get to WebVista course sites (the site for this class is under WebVista C). Only a few of the features of WebVista will be used for this class (e.g, the gradebook). The main purpose of the site is to make readings and handouts available to you online. I recommend that you print out the printer-friendly lecture notes but not the extremely printer-unfriendly lecture slides. Unfortunately, some scans of journal articles and book chapters are not very legible on the screen, but they print out just fine. Let me remind you that copyright laws only allow you to make a copy for your own personal use. All files are in html- or pdf-format. To read and print pdf-files, you need (a reasonably recent version of) Adobe Acrobat Reader (you can find a link where you can download this program for free on the home page of the WebVista site for this class). COURSE MATERIALS: ⿢ Jeremy Bernstein, Oppenheimer. Portrait of an Enigma. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2004. ⿢ Michael Frayn, Copenhagen. New York: Anchor Books, 2000. ⿢ Emilio Segrè, From X-Rays to Quarks. Modern Physicists and Their Discoveries. New York: Dover, 2007. ⿢ John Stachel (ed.), Einstein⿿s Miraculous Year: Five Papers That Changed the Face of Physics. Centenary Edition. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005 These books are available at the U of M Bookstore in Coffman Union. All other required readings and many optional background readings will be made available electronically on the WebVista site for this course. SCHEDULE & READINGS: Below, the topic and the required readings for that topic for all 14 weeks of the semester are listed. The week number is followed by two dates in parentheses. On the first of these two dates, the second half of the class period will be used for a lecture introducing the topic. On the second of these two dates, the first half of the class will be used for a class discussion of the topic led by two students. Hence, you should do the readings on the topic in between these two dates. To download the readings that are not from the course books, go to the WebVista site for the course, click on ⿿schedule⿿ and then on the relevant week. This will take you to a webpage for that particular week with the required readings, the slides of my lecture on the topic, and additional material (background readings, handouts). Make sure you have access to all required readings during the discussion of the material in class (preferably in hard copy or, if you are comfortable reading on screen and are in the habit of bringing a laptop to class, saved onto your hard drive). WEEK 1 (JANUARY 17 / JANUARY 24): LORENTZ INVARIANCE: LORENTZ, EINSTEIN, AND MINKOWSKI (1895⿿1908). 1. Stachel, Einstein⿿s Miraculous Year ⿦ ⿿Part Three: Einstein on the Theory of Relativity.⿝ Read Stachel⿿s introduction and ⿿On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies,⿝ introduction and kinematical part. 2. Michel Janssen, ⿿Reconsidering a Scientific Revolution: the Case of Einstein versus Lorentz.⿝ Physics in Perspective 4 (2002): 421⿿446 (skip the appendix, pp. 441⿿444). 3. Hermann Minkowski, ⿿Space and Time⿝ (1908). 4. Segrè, From X-Rays to Quarks ⿦ Ch. 1 (⿿Introduction⿝) [To get you started for week 2]. WEEK 2 (JANUARY 24 / JANUARY 31): PHYSICS AROUND 1900 & FROM THE ELECTROMAGNETIC WORLD VIEW TO RELATIVISTIC CONTINUUM MECHANICS (1900⿿1911). 1. Segrè, From X-Rays to Quarks ⿦ Chs. 2 & 3 (⿿H. Becquerel, the Curies, and the Discovery of Radioactivity⿝ & ⿿Rutherford in the New World: The Transmutation of Elements⿝). 2. Helge Kragh, Quantum Generations. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. Ch. 8, ⿿A Revolution that Failed.⿝ 3. Michel Janssen, ⿿The Trouton Experiment, E=mc2, and a Slice of Minkowski Space-Time.⿝ Pp. 27⿿54 in Abhay Ashtekar et al. (ed.), Revisiting the Foundations of Relativistic Physics. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2003. See also: Janssen, ⿿Reconsidering ⿦⿝ Appendix, pp. 441⿿444. 4. Michel Janssen, ⿿Drawing the Line between Kinematics and Dynamics in Special Relativity.⿝ Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 40 (2009) 26⿿52. Secs. 3.1⿿3.4 (pp. 32⿿37) and Sec. 4 (pp. 41⿿47). 5. Albert Einstein, ⿿Does the Inertia of a Body Depend on Its Energy Content?⿝ (1905). In Stachel, Einstein⿿s Miraculous Year ⿦, pp. 161⿿164. 6. Hans C. Ohanian, ⿿Did Einstein Prove E = mc2?⿝ Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 40 (2009): 167⿿173. WEEK 3 (JANUARY 31 / FEBRUARY 7): THE EHRENFESTS ON BOLTZMANN⿿S H-THEOREM (1872⿿1911). 1. Martin J. Klein, Paul Ehrenfest. Vol. 1. The Making of a Theoretical Physicist. Amsterdam: North Holland, 1970. Ch. 6, secs. 1⿿9, pp. 94⿿128 (⿿The Critic of Statistical Mechanics⿝). 2. Wolfgang R. Reiter, ⿿In Memoriam: Ludwig Boltzmann: A Life of Passion.⿝ Physics in Perspective 9 (2007): 263⿿385. 3. Paul and Tatiana Ehrenfest, The Conceptual Foundations of the Statistical Approach in Mechanics [1911]. New York: Dover, 1990. Introduction plus secs. I and II, pp. 1⿿42. 4. Albert Einstein, ⿿Paul Ehrenfest in Memoriam⿝ (1933). 5. Michel Janssen, ⿿Dogs, Fleas, and Tree Trunks: The Ehrenfests Marking the Territory of Boltzmann⿿s H-theorem.⿝ Unpublished manuscript (2002). 6. Massimiliano Badino, ⿿Mechanistic Slumber vs. Statistical Insomnia: The Early History of Boltzmann⿿s H-theorem (1868⿿1877).⿝ The European Physics Journal H 36 (2011): 353⿿378. February 7: Take-Home I assigned (on material covered in weeks 1⿿4). WEEK 4 (FEBRUARY 7 / FEBRUARY 14): PLANCK AND BLACK-BODY RADIATION (1859⿿1900). 1. Segrè, From X-Rays to Quarks ⿦ Ch. 4 (⿿Planck, Unwilling Revolutionary: The Idea of Quantization⿝), Appendix 2 (⿿Planck's Hunt for the Blackbody Radiation Formula⿝). 2. Max Planck, ⿿On an Improvement of Wien⿿s Equation for the Spectrum⿝ and ⿿On the Theory of the Energy Distribution Law of the Normal Spectrum⿝ (1900). 3. Max Planck, ⿿On the Law of the Energy Distribution in the Normal Spectrum⿝ (1901). 4. Martin J. Klein, ⿿The Beginnings of Quantum Theory.⿝ In C. Weiner (ed.), History of Twentieth Century Physics. New York and London: Academic Press, 1977. Sec. 1, pp. 1-19 (⿿Planck and the Quantization of Energy⿝), especially pp. 16-19, the appendix. 5. Thomas S. Kuhn, Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity, 1894-1912. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. Pp. 102-110 (⿿Deriving the distribution law⿝). 6. Martin J. Klein, Abner Shimony, and Trevor Pinch, ⿿Paradigm Lost? A Review Symposium.⿝ Isis 70 (1979) 429-440. Read only pp. 429⿿434 (Klein and first page of Shimony). 7. Thomas S. Kuhn, ⿿Revisiting Planck.⿝ Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 14 (1984): 231-252. (Reprinted as ⿿Afterword: Revisiting Planck⿝ in Kuhn 1987, pp. 349-370). WEEK 5 (FEBRUARY 14 / FEBRUARY 21): EINSTEIN AND LIGHT QUANTA (1905⿿1917). 1. Segrè, From X-Rays to Quarks ⿦ Ch. 5 (⿿Einstein⿿New Ways of Thinking: Space, Time, Relativity, and Quanta) Appendices 3 (⿿Heuristic Argument for Postulating the Existence of Light Quanta⿝) 5 (⿿Blackbody Energy Fluctuations⿝) and 7 (⿿A and B Coefficients⿝). 2. Stachel, Einstein⿿s Miraculous Year ⿦ ⿿Part Four: Einstein⿿s Early Work on the Quantum Hypothesis.⿝ Read Stachel⿿s introduction and ⿿On a Heuristic Point of View Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light.⿝ 3. Albert Einstein, ⿿On the Development of Our Views Concerning the Nature and Constitution of Radiation⿝ (1909). 4. Albert Einstein, ⿿On the Quantum Theory of Radiation⿝ (1917). February 21: Take-Home I due at the beginning of class. WEEK 6 (FEBRUARY 21 / FEBRUARY 28): THE BOHR MODEL OF THE ATOM (1913). 1. Segrè, From X-Rays to Quarks ⿦ Chs. 6 & 7 (⿿Sir Ernest and Lord Rutherford of Nelson⿝ & ⿿Bohr and Atomic Models⿝), Appendix 9 (⿿Bohr⿿s Hydrogen Atom⿝). 2. Niels Bohr, ⿿On the Constitution of Atoms and Molecules⿝ (1913). 3. John Heilbron and Thomas S. Kuhn, ⿿The Genesis of the Bohr Atom.⿝ Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 1 (1969): 211⿿290. Focus on pp. 211⿿213 (introduction), 266⿿283 (Sec. V). WEEK 7 (FEBRUARY 28 / MARCH 6): LIGHT QUANTA, THE COMPTON EFFECT, AND THE BOHR-KRAMERS-SLATER (BKS) THEORY (1921⿿1924). 1. Martin J. Klein, ⿿The First Phase of the Bohr-Einstein Dialogue.⿝ Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 2 (1970): 1-39. 2. Niels Bohr, Hendrik A. Kramers, and John C. Slater (BKS), ⿿The Quantum Theory of Radiation⿝ (1924). 3. Arthur H. Compton, ⿿A Quantum Theory of the Scattering of X-Rays by Light Elements⿝ (1923). March 6: Take-Home II assigned (on material covered in weeks 5⿿8). March 12⿿16: Spring break WEEK 8 (MARCH 6 / MARCH 20): FROM THE OLD QUANTUM THEORY TO MODERN QUANTUM MECHANICS (1921⿿1927). 1. Segrè, From X-Rays to Quarks ⿦ Ch. 8 (⿿A True Quantum Mechanics at Last⿝) and appendix 10 (⿿Quantum Mechanics in a Nutshell⿝). 2. Anthony Duncan and Michel Janssen, ⿿On the Verge of Umdeutung in Minnesota: Van Vleck and the Correspondence Principle.⿝ 2 Pts. Archive for History of Exact Sciences 61 (2007): 553⿿624, 625⿿671. Secs. 1⿿4 (= Part One), secs. 5.1⿿5.2 (Part Two, pp. 627⿿637), sec. 8 (Part Two, pp. 664⿿669, ⿿Conclusion⿝). 3. Christian Joas and Christoph Lehner, ⿿The Classical Roots of Wave Mechanics: Schrödinger⿿s Transformations of the Optical-Mechanical Analogy.⿝ Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 40 (2009): 338⿿351. WEEK 9 (MARCH 20 / MARCH 27): THE EINSTEIN-PODOLSKY-ROSEN (EPR) PAPER AND THE BELL INEQUALITIES (1935⿿1960S). 1. David Z. Albert, Quantum Mechanics and Experience. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992. Ch. 1 (⿿Superposition⿝). 2. Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen, ⿿Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete?⿝ Physical Review 47 (1935): 777⿿780. 3. Christoph Lehner, ⿿Einstein⿿s Realism and his Critique of Quantum Mechanics.⿝ In: Michel Janssen and Christoph Lehner, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Einstein. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, In preparation. March 27: Take-Home II due at the beginning of class. WEEK 10 (MARCH 27 / APRIL 3): FROM NEUTRONS TO NUCLEAR FISSION (1896⿿1938). 1. Segrè, From X-Rays to Quarks ⿦ Chs. 9⿿11 (⿿The Wonder Year 1932: Neutron, Positron, Deuterium, and Other Discoveries,⿝ ⿿Enrico Fermi and Nuclear Energy,⿝ ⿿E. O. Lawrence and Particle Accelerators⿝). 2. Roger H. Stuewer, ⿿The Nuclear Electron Hypothesis.⿝ William R. Shea (ed.), Otto Hahn and the Rise of Nuclear Physics. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1983, pp. 19⿿67. 3. Roger H. Stuewer, ⿿The Origin of the Liquid Drop Model and the Interpretation of Nuclear Fission.⿝ Perspectives on Science 2 (1994): 76⿿129. April 3: Proposal for project due (if you choose to do that instead of Take-Home III). WEEK 11 (APRIL 3 / APRIL 10): FROM THE MANHATTAN PROJECT TO THE OPPENHEIMER HEARINGS (1939⿿1954). 1. Bernstein, Oppenheimer. April 10: Revised version of weakest essay of Take-Home II due. WEEK 12 (APRIL 10 / APRIL 17): HEISENBERG AND THE GERMAN BOMB PROJECT (1939⿿1945). 1. Frayn, Copenhagen (including the postscript). 2. Jeremy Bernstein, Hitler⿿s Uranium Club. The Secret Recordings at Farm Hall. 2nd Ed. New York: Springer, 2001. Introduction (David Cassidy); Prologue (Jeremy Bernstein). 3. Klaas Landsman, ⿿Getting even with Heisenberg.⿝ Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 33 (2002): 297⿿325. WEEK 13 (APRIL 17 / APRIL 24): EINSTEIN⿿S QUEST FOR GENERAL RELATIVITY (1907⿿1920). 1. Michel Janssen, ⿿⿿No Success Like Failure ⿦⿿: Einstein⿿s Quest for General Relativity, 1907⿿1920.⿝ In: Michel Janssen and Christoph Lehner, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Einstein. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, In preparation. 2. Albert Einstein, ⿿The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity⿝ (1916). Selection. 3. Albert Einstein, ⿿Cosmological Considerations on the General Theory of Relativity⿝ (1917) 4. Albert Einstein, ⿿Dialogue about Objections to the Theory of Relativity⿝ (1918). April 24: Take-Home-III assigned (on material covered in weeks 9⿿14). WEEK 14 (APRIL 24 / MAY 1): HIGH-ENERGY PHYSICS: WEAK NEUTRAL CURRENTS (1971⿿1974). 1. Segrè, From X-Rays to Quarks ⿦ Chs. 12 & 13 (⿿Beyond the Nucleus⿝ & ⿿New Branches from the Old Stump⿝). 2. Peter Galison, How Experiments End. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. 1987. Ch. 4 (⿿Ending a High-Energy Physics Experiment⿝). 3. Andrew Pickering, Constructing Quarks. A Sociological History of Particle Physics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. Ch. 1 (⿿Introduction,⿝ pp. 3⿿20), Ch. 6 (⿿Gauge Theory, Electroweak Unification and the Weak Neutral Current,⿝ introduction, pp. 159⿿160, secs. 6.4⿿6.5, pp. 180⿿195, pp. 202⿿206 [notes]), and Ch. 14 (⿿Producing a World,⿝ pp. 403⿿415). Tuesday, May 8, 5 pm: Take-Home III / Project due. The semester at a glance: January 7 Introduction. Lecture: Lorentz invariance and Minkowski space-time. January 24 Discussion: Lorentz invariance and Minkowski space-time. Lecture: Relativistic mechanics. January 31 Discussion: Physics around 1900 / Relativistic mechanics. Lecture: Boltzmann⿿s H-theorem. February 7 Discussion: Boltzmann⿿s H-theorem. Take-Home I assigned Lecture: Planck and black-body radiation. February 14 Discussion: Planck and black-body radiation. Lecture: Einstein and the light quantum. February 21 Discussion: Einstein and the light quantum. Take-Home I due Lecture: The Bohr model of the atom. February 28 Discussion: The Bohr model of the atom. Lecture: Light quanta, Compton effect, and BKS. March 6 Discussion: Light quanta, Compton effect, and BKS. Take-Home II assigned Lecture: From the old quantum theory to quantum mechanics. March 12⿿16: Spring break. March 20 Discussion: From the old quantum theory to quantum mechanics. Lecture: EPR and Bell inequalities. March 27 Discussion: EPR and Bell inequalities. Take-Home II due Lecture: From neutron to nuclear fission. April 3 Discussion: From neutron to nuclear fission. Project proposal due Video: ⿿J. Robert Oppenheimer: Father of the Atomic Bomb.⿝ April 10 Discussion: From Manhattan project to Oppenheimer hearings. Lecture: Heisenberg and the German bomb project. Revised Take-Home II due April 17 Discussion: Heisenberg and the German bomb project. Lecture: Einstein⿿s quest for general relativity. April 24 Discussion: Einstein⿿s quest for general relativity. Take-Home III assigned Lecture: Weak neutral currents. May 1 Discussion: Weak neutral currents. Wrap-up. May 8 Take-Home III / Project due. Old: <no text provided>

Effective Term:

New: 1123 - Spring 2012
Old: 1089 - Fall 2008

College:

New: TIOT - College of Science and Engineering
Old: TIOT - Institute of Technology

Proposal Changes:

New: Proposed as writing intensive.
Old: <no text provided>

Faculty
Sponsor Name:

New: Michel Janssen
Old:

Faculty
Sponsor E-mail Address:

New: janss011@umn.edu
Old:

Student Learning Outcomes:

* Student in the course:

- Have mastered a body of knowledge and a mode of inquiry

New:

Please explain briefly how this outcome will be addressed in the course. Give brief examples of class work related to the outcome.

The students will read a fair number of books and articles on various aspect of the history of 20th-century physics (conceptual development of relativity and quantum theories, the role of physics in society, especially in light of nuclear weapons). The readings illustrate a variety of approaches to the history of science (e.g., conceptual, institutional)

How will you assess the students' learning related to this outcome? Give brief examples of how class work related to the outcome will be evaluated.

There will be three take-home exams testing the student⿿s understanding of the readings and the discussion of these readings in class. The students have the option of substituting a paper exploring any topic in the history of 20th-century physics in greater depth for one of the three take-home exams.

Old: unselected

- Can communicate effectively

New:

Please explain briefly how this outcome will be addressed in the course. Give brief examples of class work related to the outcome.

Instead of lecturing, the instructor meets for 2-3 hours with two student-presenters every week to prepare them for presenting the material on the agenda that week to the rest of the class and leading the discussion of it. This greatly improves participation in class discussions as the students will cooperate better with student presenters than with the instructor since they will all have to take at least one turn at being a student presenter. Having to articulate their understanding of the material, the students get a head-start on the take-home exams where they have to put in writing their position on some of the topics and issues discussed in class. As the class is writing intensive, the main emphasis is actually on getting student to articulate their understanding of challenging (often abstract and mathematical) material. The class is structured in such a way that this will happen in several iterations (verbally and in writing). The idea is that the student eventually writes a series of non-technical essays that would be accessible to other students in his or her major (mostly physics and philosophy) without any special background in the subject matter

How will you assess the students' learning related to this outcome? Give brief examples of how class work related to the outcome will be evaluated.

The grade depends both on the quality of the essays (75%) and on the quality of the class presentations (which largely determine the 25% of the grade for class participation).

Old: unselected

- Have acquired skills for effective citizenship and life-long learning

New:

Please explain briefly how this outcome will be addressed in the course. Give brief examples of class work related to the outcome.

a. The presentation of the kind of technical material, both in class presentation and in short essays, provides the student with practice in skills that will be useful in many other settings. b. The exposure to various books on the history of 20th-century physics will open the student⿿s eyes to the vast literature (both scholarly and popular) on the history of science. The discussion of these books in class will train the student to read that literature more critically. To help realize this class objective, the instructor posts many background readings on the website for the class and brings to class every week additional books on the topic on the agenda that week.

How will you assess the students' learning related to this outcome? Give brief examples of how class work related to the outcome will be evaluated.

Point (a) is addressed under (5) above. Point (b) is addressed under (3) above.

Old: unselected

Propose this course
as Writing Intensive
curriculum:

New: Yes
Old: No

Question 1 (see CWB Requirement 1):

How do writing assignments and writing instruction further the learning objectives of this course and how is writing integrated into the course? Note that the syllabus must reflect the critical role that writing plays in the course.

New: The number one goal of this class is to improve the student⿿s ability to articulate⿿in oral presentations and in a series of short essays⿿the development of various key concepts in 20th-century physics. To understand the original papers in which these concepts were introduced, students need to work through some of the mathematical details, but the goal is for them to describe these concepts, their development, and/or debates among historians over the interpretation of these concepts and developments without relying on the mathematics and in a way that should be accessible to non-specialists. In the second half of the semester, the students will also write essays about the broader context in which these developments took place (e.g., about the Manhattan project, the Oppenheimer hearings, and/or the German atomic bomb project during WWII).
The course typically draws a mix of physics majors and majors from other disciplines, especially from philosophy. The physics students are much better prepared to deal with the mathematical challenges of the material but the philosophy students are much better at recognizing the structure of arguments and at articulating conceptual developments. Class discussions help both groups to meet the main objective of this class, i.e., to hone the students⿿ skills in talking and writing about physics for a broader audience with minimal use of mathematics and jargon.

Old: <no text provided>

Question 2 (see CWB Requirement 2):

What types of writing (e.g., research papers, problem sets, presentations, technical documents, lab reports, essays, journaling etc.) will be assigned? Explain how these assignments meet the requirement that writing be a significant part of the course work, including details about multi-authored assignments, if any. Include the required length for each writing assignment and demonstrate how the minimum word count (or its equivalent) for finished writing will be met.

New: There will be three take-home exams that test the student⿿s ability to present key points of the readings and the discussion of them in class in their own words. Each of these three exams will consist of three questions, each requiring a short essay of 500⿿600 words (1.5⿿2 typed, double-spaced pages). Instead of the final take-home exam, students have the option of writing a paper of about 10 pages (3,500⿿6,000 words). If the enrollment is such that there is no equitable way of distributing the oral presentations over the students in the class, students have the option of doing an additional oral presentation instead of one of the nine essays. Even in that case, the student would write a minimum of 8 times 500 = 4,000 words.
Note: the instructor has been using this format with these word/page counts for about ten years now and has found that it works well. A full set of essay questions is attached.

Old: <no text provided>

Question 3 (see CWB Requirement 3):

How will students' final course grade depend on their writing performance? What percentage of the course grade will depend on the quality and level of the student's writing compared to the percentage of the grade that depends on the course content? Note that this information must also be on the syllabus.

New: The three take-home exams account for 75% of the grade in this class (class participation makes up the remaining 25%). It is hard to distinguish between writing and content in these essays as the typical assignment is to explain some complicated development of subtle concepts in clear easy-to-understand language. The way I put it on the syllabus is: ⿿your grade on each essay and, if you opt to write one, your term paper will be determined to a large extent by the clarity of your writing, both in terms of the overall organization of your essay and at the level of individual paragraphs and sentences.⿝ In practice, this means that well over 33% of the grade is determined by the quality of the student⿿s writing. Quality here is defined in terms of clarity of organization at various levels (essay, paragraph, sentence). Depressingly common stylistic problems (e.g., dangling participles, overuse of ⿿the fact that⿝) and errors in spelling (e.g., discreet for discrete, principal for principle, complimentary for complementary) and grammar (e.g., it⿿s for its) will be noted in the instructor⿿s mark-up of the essays but the students will not lose any points on account of such problems. Those making egregious errors at this level (e.g., with subject-verb agreement) will be advised (but not coerced) to seek help at the university⿿s Writing Center.
Old: <no text provided>

Question 4 (see CWB Requirement 4):

Indicate which assignment(s) students will be required to revise and resubmit after feedback from the instructor. Indicate who will be providing the feedback. Include an example of the assignment instructions you are likely to use for this assignment or assignments.

New: As indicated on the syllabus, the students are expected to use the feedback on the first take-home essay assignment to improve their performance on the second. Feedback will be given in the form of detailed mark-up of the students⿿ essays (cf. question 3). For the second take-home, the students are required to submit a revised version of the weakest of their three essays for this assignment. The feedback on the first two take-home essay assignments can be expected to improve the students⿿ performance on the final assignment (the third take-home essay assignment or a term paper). Note: about ten years worth of experience with this class has shown that these final essays/papers in fact indeed tend to be better than the essays written for the first two take-homes.
This last batch of essays is not due till the exam week (and this cannot be changed as the essays can only be assigned after their subject matter has been discussed in class). This is why no revised version of part of this final assignment is required. Experience has shown that less than half the students even bother to pick up their marked-up final papers. It is therefore much more effective to have them submit revised versions of part of their second assignment.

Old: <no text provided>

Question 5 (see CWB Requirement 5):

What types of writing instruction will be experienced by students? How much class time will be devoted to explicit writing instruction and at what points in the semester? What types of writing support and resources will be provided to students?

New: The students will be reading work of some of the best writers in the history of physics (Martin Klein, Thomas Kuhn, Roger Stuewer, Peter Galison, etc.). They will also be reading a number of original physics papers, some of them exceptionally lucid (Einstein), others notoriously opaque (Planck, Bohr). The students will thus be exposed to a variety of writing. Moreover, the instructor has a longstanding interest in writing about the conceptual development of modern physics for a broad audience. He wrote several of his papers specifically with a view to using them in a class such as this one (and some of these materials are actually being used in similar classes at other institutions). In short, the students will have many examples of kinds of writing to be emulated and kinds to be avoided.
The format of the class forces students to articulate and discuss the concepts and ideas presented in the readings rather than passively absorb them by listening to the instructor lecture. This will prepare the students for writing up parts of the class discussions in their own words for the take-home assignments.
Beyond the mechanisms just described no class time is set aside for explicit writing instruction (with the exception of 10 minutes or so when the instructor hands back take-home essays and goes over some common errors in form and substance of the students⿿ writing).
Students will be given a handout on citation conventions in the history of physics (attached) and some guides prepared by other historians of science on how to write papers and essays in this field will be made available to those interested.

Old: <no text provided>

Question 6 (see CWB Requirement 6):

If teaching assistants will participate in writing assessment and writing instruction, explain how will they be trained (e.g. in how to review, grade and respond to student writing) and how will they be supervised. If the course is taught in multiple sections with multiple faculty (e.g. a capstone directed studies course), explain how every faculty mentor will ensure that their students will receive a writing intensive experience.

New: This course has been offered for many years with the same amount of writing and has never had a teaching assistant (TA). The instructor has taught this class for about ten years, his predecessor, Roger Stuewer, taught it for well over ten years before that. If the enrollment were to go up from the 20⿿25 students it has averaged over the last few years to over 35 students, the graduate program in History of Science, Technology, and Medicine (HSTM) may assign a TA or a grader to this class. Given the advanced nature of the course material, the TA assigned to this class would have to be an advanced graduate student specializing in the conceptual history of modern physics with extensive experience in the kind of writing required of the students. The main instructor would still grade a portion of all three essay assignments and share the results with the TA before the TA grades the remaining essays.
Note: the Department of Philosophy has just hired a senior historian and philosopher of modern physics, Jos Uffink, who for many years has taught the history of modern physics at his current institution, Utrecht University. Uffink will start in Minnesota in the fall of 2011 and will be given adjunct faculty status in the HSTM program and probably in physics as well. He has expressed strong interest in teaching Hsci/Phys 4121 on occasion. In that case, the regular instructor will make sure that he will not change the format and requirements of the course that make it qualify as a writing-intensive course according to the proposal outlined in this application and in the attached syllabus.

Old: <no text provided>

Provisional
Syllabus:

Please provide a provisional syllabus for new courses and courses in which changes in content and/or description and/or credits are proposed that include the following information: course goals and description; format/structure of the course (proposed number of instructor contact hours per week, student workload effort per week, etc.); topics to be covered; scope and nature of assigned readings (texts, authors, frequency, amount per week); required course assignments; nature of any student projects; and how students will be evaluated.

The University policy on credits is found under Section 4A of "Standards for Semester Conversion" at http://www.fpd.finop.umn.edu/groups/senate/documents/policy/semestercon.html . Provisional course syllabus information will be retained in this system until new syllabus information is entered with the next major course modification, This provisional course syllabus information may not correspond to the course as offered in a particular semester.

New:   HSCI/PHYS 4121⿿HISTORY OF 20TH-CENTURY PHYSICS⿿SPRING 2012

TIME AND PLACE: Tuesday, 4:40⿿7:10 pm; Tate Laboratory of Physics, Rm. 210.
INSTRUCTOR: Michel Janssen, Tate Lab of Physics, Rm. 354B. Tel. 4 5880. Email: janss011@umn.edu. Office Hours: Monday, 3⿿4 pm, Tuesday, 2:30⿿3:30 pm, or by appointment.
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course is an introduction to the work of historians and philosophers of science trying to trace the development of 20th-century physics. Our main focus will be on the development of relativity theory (both special and general) and quantum theory in the first quarter of the century. Special attention will be paid to the contributions of Albert Einstein. In addition, we will look at: (1) Boltzmann, the Ehrenfests, and statistical mechanics; (2) the early contributions of John H. Van Vleck, a young assistant professor at Minnesota at the time, to the development of quantum theory; (3) The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) paper and the foundations of quantum mechanics; (4) nuclear physics in the 1930s; (5) the Manhattan project and the 1954 Oppenheimer hearings; (6) Michael Frayn⿿s critically-acclaimed play ⿿Copenhagen⿝ about the 1941 meeting between Heisenberg and Bohr in Copenhagen and the related controversy among historians of science about Heisenberg⿿s role in the German bomb project; (7) the interplay between theory and experiment in high-energy physics in the 1970s.
Readings are taken from a variety of sources. In most cases, we will read chapters from Emilio Segrè⿿s From X-Rays to Quarks to get us started on a particular topic (for a list of these topics, see pp. 5⿿8 below). This will prepare us for more specialized literature in history and philosophy of science. We will also read (passages from) some of the seminal texts written by the physicists we will study, both to get some of the flavor of their work and to evaluate interpretations and reconstructions of these texts offered in the historical and philosophical literature.
WRITING INTENSIVE COURSE: This is a writing intensive course. The number one goal of this class is to improve your ability to articulate⿿in oral presentations and in a series of short essays⿿the development of various concepts in relativity, quantum, and statistical physics. To read the original papers in which new concepts were introduced you will need to work through some of the mathematics used in these papers but ultimately you will be asked to describe these concepts, their development, and/or debates among historians over the interpretation of these concepts and developments without relying on the mathematics and in a way that should be accessible to non-specialists. There will be three writing assignments over the course of the semester, requiring about six pages each. You will use the feedback on the first assignment to improve your writing on the second. You will use the feedback on the second assignment to produce an improved version of part of it and to improve your writing on the third and final assignment.
FORMAT: The class consists of 15 relatively self-contained units on different topics (one for every week of the term except for week 2 when there are two topics on the agenda). The 2½-hour class period each week will be split into two parts with a 15-minute break in between (with the exceptions of the first and last weeks). The second part will be used for a lecture introducing the coming week⿿s topic. This should help orient you as you do the readings for this topic during the following week. The first part will be used for more in-depth presentation and discussion of the topic introduced the previous week. Students will take turns as discussion leaders, two for each week. I will need two volunteers for the first discussion (on January 24) right away. At the beginning of the second class period (January 24), I will have all of you sign up for one or two discussion sessions during the rest of the semester. Class time will roughly be divided equally between lecture and student presentations/discussions. By having to present and discuss the material yourself rather than having it presented to you in lectures, you will be forced to think about how to formulate the concepts and ideas you⿿ll encounter in the readings in your own words, which, in turn, will prepare you for writing about the material in a series of short essays.
REQUIREMENTS: The first requirement for this class is to keep up with the readings and to participate actively in class. Make sure you have done the readings when you come to class so that you can articulate points you didn⿿t understand and raise interesting questions about the material. On one or two occasions (depending on class size) you will serve as one of a pair of student presenters/discussion leaders. When it is your turn you and your partner are expected to come see me once or twice to work out a ⿿script⿝ for the presentation/discussion (typically Monday and Tuesday before class).
There will be three take-home exams that will test your ability to present key points of the readings and the discussion of them in class in short essays accessible to non-specialists. Each of these three exams will consist of three questions, each requiring an essay of about 500⿿600 words (about 2 typed, double-spaced pages). Instead of the final take-home exam, you have the option of writing a paper of about ten pages (2,500⿿3,000 words). If you want to do this you need to submit a proposal and get your topic approved by me. In the past, several students have opted to write on material in the Archive for History of Quantum Physics (AHQP). Walter Library at the University of Minnesota is the only depository of the AHQP in the Midwest.
⿢        Take-Home-I, on the material covered in weeks 1⿿4: assigned February 7 and due at the beginning of class February 21. You will receive detailed instructions on how to handle footnotes and references.
⿢        Take-Home-II, on the material covered in weeks 5⿿8: assigned March 6 and due at the beginning of class March 27. A revised version of the weakest of these three essays is due at the beginning of class on April 10. Your grade for this essay will be the grade for this revised version.
⿢        Take-Home-III on the material covered in weeks 9⿿14: assigned April 24 and due Tuesday, May 8, 5 pm.
⿢        If instead of Take-Home-III you choose to do a paper: (1) proposal (= brief description of your topic) due at the beginning of class April 3; (2) project due Tuesday, May 8, 5 pm.
As this is a writing intensive class, your grade on each essay and, if you opt to write one, your term paper will be determined to a large extent by the clarity of your writing, both in terms of the overall organization of your essay and at the level of individual paragraphs and sentences.

GRADING: 3 take-home exams (25% each); class participation [including your performance(s) as a discussion leader] (25%). All grades are given as point grades on a scale from 0 to 100. The conversion to letter grades is as follows: 90⿿100: A; 85⿿89: A-; 80⿿84: B+; 75⿿79: B; 70⿿74: B-; 65⿿69: C+; 60⿿64: C; 55⿿59: C-; 40⿿54: D; 0⿿39: F.
POLICIES:
Attendance: Since the discussion of the assigned readings in class is an integral part of the course, attendance is mandatory. Attendance will be taken at the beginning of each class. Unexcused absences will be reflected in your grade for class participation. More importantly, missing class will put you at a disadvantage when writing your short essays for the take-home exams.
Office Hours: If you have difficulty with the material, do not wait too long and come see me during office hours. I will do my best to answer any questions you may have, from very specific ones to ⿿I⿿m lost!⿝
NOTE ON ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: This course is governed by the Board of Regents⿿ Student Conduct Code, available on-line on the webpages of the Office for Student Conduct and Academic Integrity (www1.umn.edu/oscai/index.html) (OSCAI). All students should be familiar with this code. It defines Scholastic Dishonesty as: ⿿Submission of false records of academic achievement; cheating on assignments or examinations; plagiarizing; altering, forging, or misusing a University academic record; taking, acquiring, or using test materials without faculty permission; acting alone or in cooperation with another to falsify records or to obtain dishonestly grades, honors, awards, or professional endorsement.⿝ The one issue that I have run into in the past with this class is plagiarism. In all written material you submit (the three take-home exams, a paper substituted for the third take-home exam), you should present your own arguments in your own words. Use quotations sparingly and give detailed citations whenever you do. Note that simply changing a few words in a quotation does not change the fact that you are quoting. Paraphrasing of this sort, where you use a source almost verbatim without acknowledgment, is a common form of plagiarism. Another common problem may arise from collaborating with other students. You are free to discuss the take-home exams with other students but the work that you submit must be your own, not something jointly written or copied from another student. If you violate these rules against plagiarism in one of the assignments, you will, at a minimum, lose a substantial amount, if not all, credit for that assignment. In addition and depending on the seriousness of the offense⿿and this goes for other violations of the Student Conduct Code as well⿿you may lose credit for other parts of the class, fail the class outright, and/or be reported to OSCAI for academic misconduct.
WEBVISTA COURSE SITE: There is a website for this class, on which various readings, lecture notes, short essay questions, study guides etc. will be posted. There is also a page called ⿿announcements⿝ on which important information pertaining to this class will be posted (such as, if necessary, reminders about due dates of assignments or information about changes in the schedule). Check the website, including the announcement page, at least once a week for new material and/or messages. The line ⿿I did not see that announcement⿝ will not be accepted as an excuse for failing to meet any of the requirements of the course.


To access WebVista sites:
        1. Go to myu.umn.edu
        2. Log in with your UMN Internet ID (i.e., your username as in username@umn.edu) and password (if you do not know your Internet ID or have forgotten your password, call 1-HELP [i.e., 14357 from a campus phone, (612) 301 4357 from an outside line]).
        3. Click the ⿿My Courses⿝ tab.
        4. Under the respective course, look for WebVista Resources and click on section link.
        The first time you use WebVista, go to webvista.umn.edu, click on ⿿Browser Set Up⿝ and follow the instructions on configuring your browser. The page webvista.umn.edu also provides an alternative path to get to WebVista course sites (the site for this class is under WebVista C).
        Only a few of the features of WebVista will be used for this class (e.g, the gradebook). The main purpose of the site is to make readings and handouts available to you online. I recommend that you print out the printer-friendly lecture notes but not the extremely printer-unfriendly lecture slides. Unfortunately, some scans of journal articles and book chapters are not very legible on the screen, but they print out just fine. Let me remind you that copyright laws only allow you to make a copy for your own personal use. All files are in html- or pdf-format. To read and print pdf-files, you need (a reasonably recent version of) Adobe Acrobat Reader (you can find a link where you can download this program for free on the home page of the WebVista site for this class).
COURSE MATERIALS:
⿢        Jeremy Bernstein, Oppenheimer. Portrait of an Enigma. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2004.
⿢        Michael Frayn, Copenhagen. New York: Anchor Books, 2000.
⿢        Emilio Segrè, From X-Rays to Quarks. Modern Physicists and Their Discoveries. New York: Dover, 2007.
⿢        John Stachel (ed.), Einstein⿿s Miraculous Year: Five Papers That Changed the Face of Physics. Centenary Edition. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005
These books are available at the U of M Bookstore in Coffman Union. All other required readings and many optional background readings will be made available electronically on the WebVista site for this course.
SCHEDULE & READINGS: Below, the topic and the required readings for that topic for all 14 weeks of the semester are listed. The week number is followed by two dates in parentheses. On the first of these two dates, the second half of the class period will be used for a lecture introducing the topic. On the second of these two dates, the first half of the class will be used for a class discussion of the topic led by two students. Hence, you should do the readings on the topic in between these two dates. To download the readings that are not from the course books, go to the WebVista site for the course, click on ⿿schedule⿿ and then on the relevant week. This will take you to a webpage for that particular week with the required readings, the slides of my lecture on the topic, and additional material (background readings, handouts). Make sure you have access to all required readings during the discussion of the material in class (preferably in hard copy or, if you are comfortable reading on screen and are in the habit of bringing a laptop to class, saved onto your hard drive).
WEEK 1 (JANUARY 17 / JANUARY 24): LORENTZ INVARIANCE: LORENTZ, EINSTEIN, AND MINKOWSKI (1895⿿1908).
1.        Stachel, Einstein⿿s Miraculous Year ⿦ ⿿Part Three: Einstein on the Theory of Relativity.⿝ Read Stachel⿿s introduction and ⿿On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies,⿝ introduction and kinematical part.
2.        Michel Janssen, ⿿Reconsidering a Scientific Revolution: the Case of Einstein versus Lorentz.⿝ Physics in Perspective 4 (2002): 421⿿446 (skip the appendix, pp. 441⿿444).
3.        Hermann Minkowski, ⿿Space and Time⿝ (1908).
4.        Segrè, From X-Rays to Quarks ⿦ Ch. 1 (⿿Introduction⿝) [To get you started for week 2].
WEEK 2 (JANUARY 24 / JANUARY 31): PHYSICS AROUND 1900 & FROM THE ELECTROMAGNETIC WORLD VIEW TO RELATIVISTIC CONTINUUM MECHANICS (1900⿿1911).
1.        Segrè, From X-Rays to Quarks ⿦ Chs. 2 & 3 (⿿H. Becquerel, the Curies, and the Discovery of Radioactivity⿝ & ⿿Rutherford in the New World: The Transmutation of Elements⿝).
2.        Helge Kragh, Quantum Generations. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. Ch. 8, ⿿A Revolution that Failed.⿝
3.        Michel Janssen, ⿿The Trouton Experiment, E=mc2, and a Slice of Minkowski Space-Time.⿝ Pp. 27⿿54 in Abhay Ashtekar et al. (ed.), Revisiting the Foundations of Relativistic Physics. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2003. See also: Janssen, ⿿Reconsidering ⿦⿝ Appendix, pp. 441⿿444.
4.        Michel Janssen, ⿿Drawing the Line between Kinematics and Dynamics in Special Relativity.⿝ Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 40 (2009) 26⿿52. Secs. 3.1⿿3.4 (pp. 32⿿37) and Sec. 4 (pp. 41⿿47).
5.        Albert Einstein, ⿿Does the Inertia of a Body Depend on Its Energy Content?⿝ (1905). In Stachel, Einstein⿿s Miraculous Year ⿦, pp. 161⿿164.
6.        Hans C. Ohanian, ⿿Did Einstein Prove E = mc2?⿝ Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 40 (2009): 167⿿173.
WEEK 3 (JANUARY 31 / FEBRUARY 7): THE EHRENFESTS ON BOLTZMANN⿿S H-THEOREM (1872⿿1911).
1.        Martin J. Klein, Paul Ehrenfest. Vol. 1. The Making of a Theoretical Physicist. Amsterdam: North Holland, 1970. Ch. 6, secs. 1⿿9, pp. 94⿿128 (⿿The Critic of Statistical Mechanics⿝).
2.        Wolfgang R. Reiter, ⿿In Memoriam: Ludwig Boltzmann: A Life of Passion.⿝ Physics in Perspective 9 (2007): 263⿿385.
3.        Paul and Tatiana Ehrenfest, The Conceptual Foundations of the Statistical Approach in Mechanics [1911]. New York: Dover, 1990. Introduction plus secs. I and II, pp. 1⿿42.
4.        Albert Einstein, ⿿Paul Ehrenfest in Memoriam⿝ (1933).
5.        Michel Janssen, ⿿Dogs, Fleas, and Tree Trunks: The Ehrenfests Marking the Territory of Boltzmann⿿s H-theorem.⿝ Unpublished manuscript (2002).
6.        Massimiliano Badino, ⿿Mechanistic Slumber vs. Statistical Insomnia: The Early History of Boltzmann⿿s H-theorem (1868⿿1877).⿝ The European Physics Journal H 36 (2011): 353⿿378.
February 7: Take-Home I assigned (on material covered in weeks 1⿿4).
WEEK 4 (FEBRUARY 7 / FEBRUARY 14): PLANCK AND BLACK-BODY RADIATION (1859⿿1900).
1.        Segrè, From X-Rays to Quarks ⿦ Ch. 4 (⿿Planck, Unwilling Revolutionary: The Idea of Quantization⿝), Appendix 2 (⿿Planck's Hunt for the Blackbody Radiation Formula⿝).
2.        Max Planck, ⿿On an Improvement of Wien⿿s Equation for the Spectrum⿝ and ⿿On the Theory of the Energy Distribution Law of the Normal Spectrum⿝ (1900).
3.        Max Planck, ⿿On the Law of the Energy Distribution in the Normal Spectrum⿝ (1901).
4.        Martin J. Klein, ⿿The Beginnings of Quantum Theory.⿝ In C. Weiner (ed.), History of Twentieth Century Physics. New York and London: Academic Press, 1977. Sec. 1, pp. 1-19 (⿿Planck and the Quantization of Energy⿝), especially pp. 16-19, the appendix.
5.        Thomas S. Kuhn, Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity, 1894-1912. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. Pp. 102-110 (⿿Deriving the distribution law⿝).
6.        Martin J. Klein, Abner Shimony, and Trevor Pinch, ⿿Paradigm Lost? A Review Symposium.⿝ Isis 70 (1979) 429-440. Read only pp. 429⿿434 (Klein and first page of Shimony).
7.        Thomas S. Kuhn, ⿿Revisiting Planck.⿝ Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 14 (1984): 231-252. (Reprinted as ⿿Afterword: Revisiting Planck⿝ in Kuhn 1987, pp. 349-370).
WEEK 5 (FEBRUARY 14 / FEBRUARY 21): EINSTEIN AND LIGHT QUANTA (1905⿿1917).
1.        Segrè, From X-Rays to Quarks ⿦ Ch. 5 (⿿Einstein⿿New Ways of Thinking: Space, Time, Relativity, and Quanta) Appendices 3 (⿿Heuristic Argument for Postulating the Existence of Light Quanta⿝) 5 (⿿Blackbody Energy Fluctuations⿝) and 7 (⿿A and B Coefficients⿝).
2.        Stachel, Einstein⿿s Miraculous Year ⿦ ⿿Part Four: Einstein⿿s Early Work on the Quantum Hypothesis.⿝ Read Stachel⿿s introduction and ⿿On a Heuristic Point of View Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light.⿝
3.        Albert Einstein, ⿿On the Development of Our Views Concerning the Nature and Constitution of Radiation⿝ (1909).
4.        Albert Einstein, ⿿On the Quantum Theory of Radiation⿝ (1917).
February 21: Take-Home I due at the beginning of class.
WEEK 6 (FEBRUARY 21 / FEBRUARY 28): THE BOHR MODEL OF THE ATOM (1913).
1.        Segrè, From X-Rays to Quarks ⿦ Chs. 6 & 7 (⿿Sir Ernest and Lord Rutherford of Nelson⿝ & ⿿Bohr and Atomic Models⿝), Appendix 9 (⿿Bohr⿿s Hydrogen Atom⿝).
2.        Niels Bohr, ⿿On the Constitution of Atoms and Molecules⿝ (1913).
3.        John Heilbron and Thomas S. Kuhn, ⿿The Genesis of the Bohr Atom.⿝ Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 1 (1969): 211⿿290. Focus on pp. 211⿿213 (introduction), 266⿿283 (Sec. V).
WEEK 7 (FEBRUARY 28 / MARCH 6): LIGHT QUANTA, THE COMPTON EFFECT, AND THE BOHR-KRAMERS-SLATER (BKS) THEORY (1921⿿1924).
1.        Martin J. Klein, ⿿The First Phase of the Bohr-Einstein Dialogue.⿝ Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 2 (1970): 1-39.
2.        Niels Bohr, Hendrik A. Kramers, and John C. Slater (BKS), ⿿The Quantum Theory of Radiation⿝ (1924).
3.        Arthur H. Compton, ⿿A Quantum Theory of the Scattering of X-Rays by Light Elements⿝ (1923).
March 6: Take-Home II assigned (on material covered in weeks 5⿿8).
March 12⿿16: Spring break
WEEK 8 (MARCH 6 / MARCH 20): FROM THE OLD QUANTUM THEORY TO MODERN QUANTUM MECHANICS (1921⿿1927).
1.        Segrè, From X-Rays to Quarks ⿦ Ch. 8 (⿿A True Quantum Mechanics at Last⿝) and appendix 10 (⿿Quantum Mechanics in a Nutshell⿝).
2.        Anthony Duncan and Michel Janssen, ⿿On the Verge of Umdeutung in Minnesota: Van Vleck and the Correspondence Principle.⿝ 2 Pts. Archive for History of Exact Sciences 61 (2007): 553⿿624, 625⿿671. Secs. 1⿿4 (= Part One), secs. 5.1⿿5.2 (Part Two, pp. 627⿿637), sec. 8 (Part Two, pp. 664⿿669, ⿿Conclusion⿝).
3.        Christian Joas and Christoph Lehner, ⿿The Classical Roots of Wave Mechanics: Schrödinger⿿s Transformations of the Optical-Mechanical Analogy.⿝ Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 40 (2009): 338⿿351.
WEEK 9 (MARCH 20 / MARCH 27): THE EINSTEIN-PODOLSKY-ROSEN (EPR) PAPER AND THE BELL INEQUALITIES (1935⿿1960S).
1.        David Z. Albert, Quantum Mechanics and Experience. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992. Ch. 1 (⿿Superposition⿝).
2.        Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen, ⿿Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete?⿝ Physical Review 47 (1935): 777⿿780.
3.        Christoph Lehner, ⿿Einstein⿿s Realism and his Critique of Quantum Mechanics.⿝ In: Michel Janssen and Christoph Lehner, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Einstein. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, In preparation.
March 27: Take-Home II due at the beginning of class.
WEEK 10 (MARCH 27 / APRIL 3): FROM NEUTRONS TO NUCLEAR FISSION (1896⿿1938).
1.        Segrè, From X-Rays to Quarks ⿦ Chs. 9⿿11 (⿿The Wonder Year 1932: Neutron, Positron, Deuterium, and Other Discoveries,⿝ ⿿Enrico Fermi and Nuclear Energy,⿝ ⿿E. O. Lawrence and Particle Accelerators⿝).
2.        Roger H. Stuewer, ⿿The Nuclear Electron Hypothesis.⿝ William R. Shea (ed.), Otto Hahn and the Rise of Nuclear Physics. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1983, pp. 19⿿67.
3.        Roger H. Stuewer, ⿿The Origin of the Liquid Drop Model and the Interpretation of Nuclear Fission.⿝ Perspectives on Science 2 (1994): 76⿿129.
April 3: Proposal for project due (if you choose to do that instead of Take-Home III).
WEEK 11 (APRIL 3 / APRIL 10): FROM THE MANHATTAN PROJECT TO THE OPPENHEIMER HEARINGS (1939⿿1954).
1.        Bernstein, Oppenheimer.
April 10: Revised version of weakest essay of Take-Home II due.
WEEK 12 (APRIL 10 / APRIL 17): HEISENBERG AND THE GERMAN BOMB PROJECT (1939⿿1945).
1.        Frayn, Copenhagen (including the postscript).
2.        Jeremy Bernstein, Hitler⿿s Uranium Club. The Secret Recordings at Farm Hall. 2nd Ed. New York: Springer, 2001. Introduction (David Cassidy); Prologue (Jeremy Bernstein).
3.        Klaas Landsman, ⿿Getting even with Heisenberg.⿝ Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 33 (2002): 297⿿325.
WEEK 13 (APRIL 17 / APRIL 24): EINSTEIN⿿S QUEST FOR GENERAL RELATIVITY (1907⿿1920).
1.        Michel Janssen, ⿿⿿No Success Like Failure ⿦⿿: Einstein⿿s Quest for General Relativity, 1907⿿1920.⿝ In: Michel Janssen and Christoph Lehner, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Einstein. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, In preparation.
2.        Albert Einstein, ⿿The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity⿝ (1916). Selection.
3.        Albert Einstein, ⿿Cosmological Considerations on the General Theory of Relativity⿝ (1917)
4.        Albert Einstein, ⿿Dialogue about Objections to the Theory of Relativity⿝ (1918).
April 24: Take-Home-III assigned (on material covered in weeks 9⿿14).
WEEK 14 (APRIL 24 / MAY 1): HIGH-ENERGY PHYSICS: WEAK NEUTRAL CURRENTS (1971⿿1974).
1.        Segrè, From X-Rays to Quarks ⿦ Chs. 12 & 13 (⿿Beyond the Nucleus⿝ & ⿿New Branches from the Old Stump⿝).
2.        Peter Galison, How Experiments End. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. 1987. Ch. 4 (⿿Ending a High-Energy Physics Experiment⿝).
3.        Andrew Pickering, Constructing Quarks. A Sociological History of Particle Physics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. Ch. 1 (⿿Introduction,⿝ pp. 3⿿20), Ch. 6 (⿿Gauge Theory, Electroweak Unification and the Weak Neutral Current,⿝ introduction, pp. 159⿿160, secs. 6.4⿿6.5, pp. 180⿿195, pp. 202⿿206 [notes]), and Ch. 14 (⿿Producing a World,⿝ pp. 403⿿415).
Tuesday, May 8, 5 pm: Take-Home III / Project due.

The semester at a glance:
January 7        Introduction.
        Lecture:         Lorentz invariance and Minkowski space-time.
January 24        Discussion:        Lorentz invariance and Minkowski space-time.
        Lecture:         Relativistic mechanics.
January 31        Discussion:        Physics around 1900 / Relativistic mechanics.
        Lecture:        Boltzmann⿿s H-theorem.
February 7        Discussion:        Boltzmann⿿s H-theorem.        Take-Home I assigned
        Lecture:        Planck and black-body radiation.
February 14        Discussion:        Planck and black-body radiation.
        Lecture:        Einstein and the light quantum.
February 21        Discussion:        Einstein and the light quantum.        Take-Home I due
        Lecture:        The Bohr model of the atom.
February 28        Discussion:        The Bohr model of the atom.
        Lecture:        Light quanta, Compton effect, and BKS.
March 6        Discussion:        Light quanta, Compton effect, and BKS.        Take-Home II assigned
        Lecture:        From the old quantum theory to quantum mechanics.
March 12⿿16:         Spring break.
March 20        Discussion:        From the old quantum theory to quantum mechanics.
        Lecture:        EPR and Bell inequalities.
March 27        Discussion:        EPR and Bell inequalities.        Take-Home II due
        Lecture:        From neutron to nuclear fission.
April 3        Discussion:        From neutron to nuclear fission.        Project proposal due
        Video:        ⿿J. Robert Oppenheimer: Father of the Atomic Bomb.⿝
April 10        Discussion:        From Manhattan project to Oppenheimer hearings.
        Lecture:        Heisenberg and the German bomb project. Revised Take-Home II due
April 17        Discussion:        Heisenberg and the German bomb project.
        Lecture:        Einstein⿿s quest for general relativity.
April 24        Discussion:        Einstein⿿s quest for general relativity.        Take-Home III assigned
        Lecture:        Weak neutral currents.
May 1        Discussion:        Weak neutral currents.
        Wrap-up.
May 8        Take-Home III / Project due.

Old: <no text provided>