2011-12 Catalog

This seminar will discuss the physics and astrophysics of explosive astrophysical events from both a theoretical and observational point of view. Course meetings will be a mixture of discussions, overview presentations assembled by the students and presentations by expert scientists at a generally accessible level. Freshmen only; limited enrollment.

Why do we have 60 minutes in an hour? Why do we use a fork or chopsticks when we eat? Why do we have music? Why do we have sports? The goal of the class is to learn how to enjoy ignorance, be curious and try and discover the origin and the evolutionary processes that led to the ideas and artifacts that are a part of our life. The class is collaborative and interactive: You will teach as much as you will learn - you will learn as much as you will teach. Most importantly, you will realize the fun in discovery and the joy of human interaction. Freshmen only; limited enrollment.

This seminar will address a general question: How are new discoveries made in astronomy? Unlike in most sciences, we cannot study astronomical objects in a laboratory - all we can do is to observe them from a large distance. Moreover, most of them evolve on time scales vastly larger than the human lifetime. So, how do we reach a convincing and reliable physical understanding of cosmic phenomena? What assumptions do we make in interpreting the astronomical observations? What is the role of technological advances in opening new domains for discovery? What are the natural limitations of our measurements? We will illustrate the scientific discovery process in astronomy with numerous historical and recent examples. Freshmen only; limited enrollment.

This course will review the science goals of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, along with elementary particle theory and the new physics that may be discovered at the LHC, including: the Higgs boson, supersymmetry, particle dark matter, extra dimensions, mini black holes, etc. We will study the latest publications from LHC experiments and examine prospects for discoveries in the years to come. Freshmen only; limited enrollment.

This course is an introduction to the application of engineering principles from solid and fluid mechanics to the study of biological systems. The course emphasizes the organismal, rather than the molecular, level of complexity. It draws on a wide array of biological phenomena from animals and plants, and is not intended as a technical introduction to medically related biomechanics. Topics include scaling and heuristic modeling of biological systems; fundamental properties of biological solids and fluids; viscoelasticity; drag and locomotion; biological pumps; and biology-inspired engineering. Textbook: Life's Devices: The Physical World of Animals and Plants by Steven Vogel. Given in alternate years; offered 2011-12. Freshmen only; limited enrollment.

This course will focus on the physics of sound, how musical instruments make it, and how we hear it, including readings, discussions, demonstrations, and student observations using sound analysis software. In parallel we will consider what differentiates music from other sounds, and its role psychically and culturally. Students will do a final project of their choice and design, with possibilities including a book review, analysis of recordings of actual musical instruments, or instrument construction and analysis. Freshmen only; limited enrollment.

A small number of students will be offered the opportunity to enroll in this tutorial, the purpose of which is to demonstrate how research ideas arise, and are evaluated and tested, and how those ideas that survive are developed, This is accomplished by doing individual, original projects. There will be weekly group meetings and individual tutorial meetings with the instructor. Support for summer research at Caltech between freshman and sophomore years will be automatic for those students making satisfactory progress. Graded pass/fail. Freshmen only; limited enrollment.

We will study the 60-year quest for the genetic origins of behavior. During the course we will read and discuss an account by a Pulitzer-Prize-winning author and a selection of key research papers. The route will take us from bacteria to fruit flies to humans, to researchers as well as to their research. Freshmen only; limited enrollment.

A quantitative study of some examples of physics applied to macrobiota, including flight (the range of the albatross), surface tension and walking on water (the world of insects), and acoustics (how whales communicate). In addition to learning the art of physical estimation, scaling, and the value of dimensionless numbers, this course offers the opportunity to appreciate who to apply otherwise abstract physics to everyday experience. In addition to problem sets, each student will be expected to research a specific example and present findings to the rest of the class. Freshmen only; limited enrollment.