What would versions of this course look like for other fields?
Great Ideas in Theoretical Physics?
Great Ideas in Experimental Physics?
Great Ideas in Economics?
etc
I did teach a course once called, Inventing the Information Age, in which we discussed all the inventions and ideas (starting from writing) all the way to modern computing infrastructure needed for a civilization to replicate our information age. This was not a single-field course, because the ideas/inventions were in language, physics, mathematics, and computer science. That made it more fun.
Sean Carrol has a series he’s working on called “The Biggest Ideas in the Universe” which is on physics. Only the first one is out now (Time, Space, and Motion), but the second is due in May I think (on Quanta and Fields). Its intended audience is anyone with a high school education. It introduces basic ideas in calculus and then does use equations to motivate understanding, but not at the level you’d need if you were actually studying physics. I have a bachelor’s in physics but still deepened my understanding of General Relativity from the first one. Highly looking forward to part 2. https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/biggestideas/
Nice, this was the push I needed to start reading his book. I really enjoy his podcast and was on the fence about taking it on (thinking I don’t have the brain cells required to soak in the book) but the way you described it makes it seem like a fairly tractable project.
The CMU class is for freshmen, so students without advanced background can still comprehend most of it. But for physics I feel that without at least some good physics and math background, you can't really understand and appreciate the "great ideas".
If the students know the core concepts and mechanics of Calculus and Linear Algebra, which is entirely possible for high school students in certain parts of the world, it's possible to teach a lot of core physics ideas with simple models.
In fact, in my undergrad, the Physics lab and theory courses were flipped - you look the lab course before the theory course. In the lab course you used simple maths and simple experimental setups to probe phenomena in mechanics, thermodynamics, electromagnetism, optics etc. Doing experiments/observations in astronomy, quantum mechanics are also possible at that level.
I taught the course during the initial part of Covid, so the material ended up not being organized - split between different systems. But here are some of the books/papers that I sourced class readings from
* Brian Winston - Media technology and society a history: from the telegraph to the Internet, Routledge (1998)
* James Gleick - The Information A History, a Theory, a Flood (2011, Pantheo)
* Michael G. Raymer - The Silicon Web: Physics for the Internet Age, CRC Press (2009)
* Simon Singh - The Code Book: How to Make It, Break It, Hack It, Crack It (2003)
Great Ideas in Theoretical Physics?
Great Ideas in Experimental Physics?
Great Ideas in Economics?
etc
I did teach a course once called, Inventing the Information Age, in which we discussed all the inventions and ideas (starting from writing) all the way to modern computing infrastructure needed for a civilization to replicate our information age. This was not a single-field course, because the ideas/inventions were in language, physics, mathematics, and computer science. That made it more fun.