Crazy Ideas In Physics

Fall 2005
Preliminary Syllabus

Schedule: Mondays and Thursdays 2:00-3:25. Science 301.

Instructor: Scott Calvin, email: SCalvin@slc.edu. Office phone: 395-2260.

Goals: I would like you to gain the ability to:

• Distinguish revolutionary science, sloppy science, and pseudoscience.
• Locate and use primary sources in the scientific literature.
• Create, use, and evaluate theories using prominent modes of scientific communication, including the scientific poster, journal article, and talk.
• Understand scientific ethics.

About You: This class is not for the timid. It will include very public debate and bouts of intense work. There is no particular mathematical background required, but if you are intimidated by numbers, equations, or graphs, that will have to change.

Attendance Policy: You must obtain my permission prior to absences for purposes such as field trips. For absences due to illness or family emergency, please contact me as soon as possible to explain the reason for the absence. Even one unexplained absence will be noted on your evaluation. More than three absences or more than one missed conference, whether excused or not, will generally lead to loss of credit. Frequent lateness will also be noted on your evaluation, and may in extreme cases lead to loss of credit.

E-mail and Web Board: You are expected to check your email frequently, preferably every weekday. We will also make considerable use of a web board (url to be announced).

Books: The following are required for this course:

• Nine Crazy Ideas in Science by Robert Erlich.
• The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn.

In addition, you will find these on reserve at the library:

• Eight Preposterous Propositions: From the Genetics of Homosexuality to the Benefits of Global Warming by Robert Erlich.
• The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan.
• The Scientist, the Madman, the Thief and their Lightbulb: the Search for Free Energy by Keith Tutt.

Course Pacing: Those of you who have taken courses from me before will find this class has a significantly different rhythm. It is more “spiky” than I usually make my classes, with periods of intense work alternating with lighter periods. Because of this, I will allow you to have some control over when those periods are.

Course Structure: Although we’ll spend some time discussing other readings, particularly in the first few weeks, the bulk of the course will be taken up by “crazy” theories presented and evaluated by you and your classmates. This will be the sequence:

Choose a partner, a week, and a theory. Twice during the term you will have to present a “crazy” theory to the class. A list of candidate theories will be posted on the website, which you may pick on a first-come, first-served basis. You can also request the week you would like your presentations to start. These presentations will be done in pairs of your choosing, but you may not work with the same partner on both theories!

Present a scientific poster on the theory to the class.

One week later, submit a short paper on the theory. This paper will then be sent out for anonymous review, both by your classmates and by people in other classes. The reviews will be due a week later. Once you receive the reviews back, you will have about one week to revise the paper into its final form. The paper will then be posted on the web board for everyone in the class to read.

During the same week that you submit the first copy of the paper, give a PowerPoint presentation on the theory to the class. This presentation should be about 10 minutes in length.

Yes, that does mean that in a seven day stretch you and your partner will be responsible for a poster, paper, and PowerPoint presentation. Obviously, you will want to plan ahead and be working on this for some time prior to your moment in the sun!

During this process, the rest of the class will be assigned individual tasks regarding the theory, such as checking references or confirming that aspects accord with other physical theories.

After all of this is done, the class will vote on how nutty the theory is, and compare to the presenters’ previously secretly opinion as to the nuttiness of the theory. There is no penalty for presenting a nutty theory—as the instructor for this class, my evaluation of your attempt will not rely on whether you chose a “respectable” or a “nutty” theory.

Ethics: In order to present the theories, I will allow certain specific breaches of usual scientific ethics. Specifically, data may be fabricated and references may be misquoted, fabricated, or otherwise misused. This does not, however, mean that other unethical behavior is allowed, such as plagiarism or influence pedalling. To reinforce the unusual rules associated with these theory presentations, you must choose a pseudonym, which is to be registered with me and used on the poster, presentation, and paper.

Conference Work: For conference work, most students will be expected to either create a fictitious theory of their own or to take an established theory and present it in such a way as to make it sound like the ravings of a madman. The results will be presented at the Science Division poster session on December 8. In order to alert attendees as to the nature of the work, I will provide you with a standard logo and explanation to affix to the poster, and we’ll work out something so that both your pseudonym and actual name are used in the program. A conference paper is not expected unless you are presenting a poster for another class and wish to do a paper instead.

Conference Project Timeline: