Topics in the History of the Physical Sciences: Modern Physics: From the Atom to Big Science

4 credits · Undergraduate

This course examines the establishment of the ideas and institutions of modern physics over the last century and a half. We begin with the 19th century organization of the discipline and the debates over the classical world picture (mechanics, electromagnetism and optics, thermodynamics and statistical mechanics).We follow the dramatic changes that undid the classical picture, from the discovery of radioactivity through Einstein's theories of relativity on to the creation of quantum mechanics and the accompanying philosophical disputes.Alongside these conceptual upheavals we will look at the evolving structure of the discipline, its links with industry and government, and the massive transformations of WWII, culminating in the atomic bomb.