NB: You are not responsible for reading every text listed; you should choose at least one principal text and 1-2 others based on your interests.
Aim to complete your chosen readings by the date listed.

week date topic reading milestones
1 Tuesday, 15 January Overview; What do we know to be obviously true about the physical world? Can we be sure? Rohrlich, chapters 1-3;
Sklar, pages 1-18
 
Classical Foundations
  Thursday, 17 January Spheres, ferris wheels, & heresy:
Sleepwalking to heliocentrism
Kuhn, Copernican Revolution, ch. 3, pp. 123-44 & 181-4;
Koestler, pp. 20-222;
Feynman, ch. 2;
Rohrlich, ch. 4
 
2 Tuesday, 22 January De Brahe, Kepler, & Galileo:
The birth of modern cosmology
Kuhn, Copernican Revolution, pp. 200-37;
Koestler, pp. 227-503
Homework 1 due
(We know this is short notice, but it's needed to get you started thinking AHEAD of lecture.)
  Thursday, 24 January From Kepler to Newton; The meaning
(& ambiguities) of Newton's laws
Rohrlich, ch. 5  
3 Tuesday, 29 January Newtonian space & time Sklar, pp. 19-25;
Rohrlich, ch. 5
 
Transition to Modern Physics
  Thursday, 31 January Causality, determinism, & all that Bohm, pp. 1-10;
Sklar, pp. 79-85 & 202-4;
Feynman, ch 4;
Gettier, 'Is justified true belief knowledge?'
Homework 2 due
4 Tuesday, 5 February Conservation laws;
The limits of the classical world
Sklar, pp. 94-117, 121-32,
& 142-55;
Bohm, pp. 10-33;
Feynman, ch. 5;
Knobe, 'Intentional action and side-effects in ordinary language';
Vihvelin, review with Frankfurt examples
 
  Thursday, 7 February Waves, Maxwell, & invariance Einstein, chs. 1-8;
Rohrlich, pp. 49-55
 
5 Tuesday, 12 February From the aether to Einstein's postulates Rohrlich, pp. 55-62 Homework 3 due
Spacetime: Special & General Relativity
  Thursday, 14 February Special relativity Einstein, chs. 9-17;
Rohrlich, pp. 62-72;
Sklar, pp. 25-40;
Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions, ch. 10
 
6 Tuesday, 19 February Unification of electricity & magnetism;
E = mc2 & Minkowski space
Rohrlich, pp. 73-86  
  Thursday, 21 February General relativity    
7 Tuesday, 26 February Curved spacetime:
The geometry of the Universe?
Rohrlich, ch. 7;
Sklar, pp. 40-69
Homework 4 due
  Thursday, 28 February Big bang cosmology:
Will the expansion stop?
Sklar, pp. 69-90;
Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions
 
8 Tuesday, 5 March Summary; Philosophical implications;
Paradigms, positivism, & falsification
Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions 419: term paper consultations (see Prof. Phillips)
Quantum Mechanics, Philosophical Responses & Consciousness
  Thursday, 7 March Key experiments leading to quantum mechanics Rohrlich, chs. 9-10;
Sklar, pp. 157-72
Homework 5 due
9 Tuesday, 12 March Two-slits done doubly well    
  Thursday, 14 March The fuzzy reality of quantum mechanics Rohrlich, ch. 11;
Sklar, ch. 4
419: term paper consultations (see Prof. Phillips)
419: term paper topic/ abstract due
  19 & 21 March Spring Break
10 Tuesday, 26 March Einstein loses the quantum reality battle Sklar, pp.202-26;
Rohrlich, pp. 169-80
Homework 6 due
  Thursday, 28 March Consciousness: Functionalism Handouts (see Compass);
Sklar, pp.153-4
 
11 Tuesday, 2 April Consciousness: Physicalism Handouts (see Compass) 419: term paper topic/ abstract due
Time & Cosmology
  Thursday, 4 April Primer on probability Rohrlich, ch 9;
Sklar, pp. 92-108
Homework 7 due
12 Tuesday, 9 April Arrow of time Sklar, pp. 121-54 419: term paper outline/ partial draft due
  Thursday, 11 April Cosmology   419: term paper outline/ partial draft due
13 Tuesday, 16 April Cosmology/ inflation;
The beginning & end of time;
What is there? How much is there?
What about entropy?
Hawking, chs. 3 & 9  
  Thursday, 18 April The anthropic principle   419: term paper rough draft due
14 Tuesday, 23 April Theories of unification   419: term paper rough draft due
  Thursday, 25 April Postmodernism Hawking, ch. 8  
16 Tuesday, 30 April Wrap-up    
         
  Thursday, 2 May Reading Day   419: final term paper draft due (11:59p on Compass)
  Wednesday, 8 May Final Exam, 8a–11a (in 276 Loomis)   419: final term paper draft due
(by 8a: submit on paper at exam and on Compass)