Todd Duncan

About Me

I study and teach physics as a way of engaging with fundamental questions of existence. I'm interested in understanding the nature of ultimate reality as best I can, while helping others discover their own ways to explore deep mysteries. I try to follow questions and insights where they lead, guided by the practices of particular subject areas, but not constrained by their category boundaries. The inquiry process of physics & astronomy has been central to my exploration, but my interests overlap with subjects we label as philosophy, systems science, history, cognitive science, music, art, poetry, engineering, etc.  A common theme is looking for the simple underlying essence of systems that appear complex and disconnected on the surface. The process I enjoy most is taking technical insights we've discovered about the nature of reality, and distilling them down to their intuitive essence -- into a form that can impact people's lives by affecting how they see themselves in relation to the rest of the universe. I appreciate whatever answers we discover, but my primary aim in investigating the universe is the direct experience of engaging  with the mystery.  So I choose projects based on their ability to connect my awareness to that deep mystery, and to help others connect in their own ways to the mysteries behind everyday experiences.  

Most of my current work is focused on science education and outreach. Whenever possible I also carve out a little time to stay active in fundamental research, following the thread of insights related to my own core questions (see below for more information on my research interests). I also direct our new Astrophysics Minor, which I'm excited about as an opportunity for anyone, regardless of major, to explore their connection to the broader universe.  Here's my CV if you'd like more details about my background. 

I'm on sabbatical during the 2025-26 academic year. Here's my sabbatical proposal in case you're interested in what I'm thinking about this year. Feel free to email me if you have related thoughts or questions... though I may be slow to respond as I'm trying to stay immersed in pondering and writing :-)

Teaching

My approach to teaching is well-expressed by the words of Parker Palmer, "To educate is to guide students on an inner journey toward more truthful ways of seeing and being in the world." In my classes & outreach events I focus on providing a welcoming space for conversation and exploration, a solid foundation in the conceptual principles of the subject we're studying, and opportunities to explore applications of these principles with an emphasis on clear connections to students' individual interests and experiences. 

Recent classes I've taught include:

• Introductory Physics (Algebra-based. PHY 202/204)

• Workshop Physics (Calculus-based. PHY 242)

• Thermodynamics & Statistical Mechanics (PHY 384)

• Waves & Optics (PHY 332)

• Advanced Analysis in Physics (PHY 470)

• Quantum Mechanics (PHY 420)

• Introduction to Cosmology (SCI/ASTR 172)

• Relativity I (PHY 311)

• First Year Seminar (Theme: What is Reality? HUM 100)

• Physics Capstone Research

Research

My research interests are expressions of a theme that has driven my fascination with science for as long as I can remember, which I've come to describe as "looking for meaning in the modern universe." Science offers a self-correcting inquiry process for exploring our experience and building a worldview that guides our actions by giving us insight into who we are in relation to the rest of the universe. The framework of this perspective is described in a short book (An Ordinary World: The Role of Science in Your Search for Personal Meaning) available as a PDF here or in print here. My research projects are different components of filling in that framework. 

The rest of this section says a bit more about the essential theme that guides my investigation, followed by a few specific topics I'm currently exploring. If you're a student interested in working with me, you're welcome to get involved in any of these projects, or propose something else you'd like to explore. I suggest starting with your own questions: What are you curious about? Spend some time brainstorming the questions you'd most like to investigate, and I can help you turn one or more of those questions into a manageable project. (Here are some of my core questions as examples.)

What makes a meaningful universe?

A line of thinking often attributed to science goes something like this: We may feel subjectively that our thoughts and actions matter in some way, but this perception is an illusion. An honest look around at the universe shatters this myth and reveals that our lives are ultimately meaningless. If we are to be hard-nosed realists, limiting ourselves to scientific, evidence-based reasoning, then we must accept that human existence is an inconsequential "accident" of no ultimate significance in the grand scheme of things. 

     Is this attitude really justified by the evidence? To address this question, it's helpful to take a step back and shift our perspective. Forget about our own, real universe for a moment. What if we had complete freedom to start from scratch and set up a "meaningful" universe? What would it be like? What key properties would it have?

     A key insight is recognizing that the patterns we call physical reality can be just as well interpreted as necessary  for implementing a meaningful story as they can be interpreted as indications of a "meaningless" universe. In general terms, the perspective I've been led to through my investigations is to view the universe as something akin to a "story" that is creating a "language" in order to express ("describe"?) itself. The patterns and consistency embedded in the characters and grammatical rules of that "language" are what we call the material/physical world and the laws of nature. 

     The fact that there are patterns and laws (what we call the "physical universe") does not indicate that the univese is meaningless. Rather, such patterns are a necessary component of any implementation of meaning we might imagine. 

• What Makes a Meaningful Universe? (PSU Systems Science Seminar presentation, 2010)  

• Exploring the benefits of an "experience-first" ontology

(with physics student Logan Switzer & English Dept. colleague Jenna Thompson)

For understandable reasons, consideration of subjective experience has generally been excluded from the practice of physics. The exclusion of experience from our models of the natural world has preserved an important level of rigor and solved many problems. But it has also created problems and raised questions that may be impossible to answer without bringing this aspect of reality back into consideration as part of our description of the natural world. In this project we're exploring what it might look like to carefully reintegrate subjective experience into the fundamental ontology of the patterns we investigate in the practice of doing physics. What might we be able to explain as a result of this reintegration, and how might we go about using this new framework to help answer foundational questions in physics?

• Fundamental Physics & Big History: Exploring Perspectives on Ultimate Reality (IBHA conference presentation, July 2023)

• Meaningful Mystery (Chapter in Science, Religion, & Deep Time, edited by Gustafson, Rodrique, & Blanks, published by Routledge, 2022)

• Untangling the Hard Problem of Consciousness (Metanexus, 2009)

• Why is the universe so well suited for life?

(with student Logan Switzer)

I'm particularly interested in exploring this question as a way of shedding light on the nature of explanation in general. Core assumption at the heart of this issue: is it possible to have a universe without life/consciousness (& are these the same?)

• • Slides from University of Idaho Physics Colloquium

  • Links to Logan's paper & poster presentation from summer 2022.

• Exploring the dark matter problem

(with students Maria Ibrahimkhail and Logan Switzer, NASA Oregon Space Grant STARR program)

Link to Logan's poster and white paper from spring 2023.

• Variable star photometry & public outreach

(with former physics student Erika Dunning & math student Justin Hurworth)

A key aspect of my approach to science is emphasizing the experience of the scientist as an important part of the process. (Along the lines of Goethe's approach of "dwelling within the phenomena" as described by Henri Bortoft in The Wholeness of Nature: Goethe's Way Toward a Science of Conscious Participation in Nature.)

• Exoplanets for Everyone (JAAVSO paper, 2020)

• Foundations of the second law of thermodynamics & the possiblity of an information-based ontology

(with Portland State colleague Jack Semura and former physics student Casper Xallen)

In the same spirit that Fuchs, Rovelli, Zeilinger, and others are seeking a deep, conceptual principle that underlies the mathematical rules of quantum mechanics, I'm trying to identify the simple physical principles underlying the broad unversality and inherent irreversibility of the second law of thermodynamics. The ultimate aim of this project is to formulate a simple, direct answer to the question, "What fundamental property of nature would have to change in order to 'turn off' the second law?" Some  ideas in this direction are described in:

• T. Duncan & J. Semura, "The Deep Physics Behind the Second Law: Information & Entropy as Independent Forms of Bookkeeping." Entropy, pp. 21-29, March 2004. (https://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0501014)

• T. Duncan & J. Semura, "Information Loss as a Foundational Principle for the Second Law of Thermodynamics." Foundations of Physics 37: 1767-1773, 2007. (https://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0703235)

• T. Duncan, "The Second Law of Thermodynamics & the Source of Irreversibility in Classical Statistical Mechanics," Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Chicago, 1997.

Student Activities

I'll try to keep this section updated with selected examples of what current and former students are up to, to give a sense of the possibilities for new students. 

• Logan Switzer - NASA Oregon Space Grant Consortium STARR program white paper on the dark matter problem

• Erika's work at Sunriver Observatory and astronomy master's program at SDSU 

• Justin's work at OHSU

• Maria dark matter puzzle - NASA Oregon Space Grant Consortium

A few publications & presentations that introduce some of the core ideas of my work

• TEDx talk - The Value of a Cosmic Perspective.  (Start here if you want a quick overview of my philosophy and approach to science.)

  • Leadership from a Cosmic Perspective.  (An essay version of ideas similar to the TEDx video above. )

• What Makes a Meaningful Universe? (A presentation that attempts to articulate the context of my research and its starting points.)

• Untangling the hard problem of consciousness. (Relative to my core goal of "looking for meaning in the modern universe," this is the most significant paper I've written. It's the first time I could see the outline of a specific path toward a worldview that is consistent with scientific knowledge but also provides a clear home for subjective experience and human meaning.)

• Meaningful Mystery (Chapter in Science, Religion, & Deep Time, edited by Gustafson, Rodrique, & Blanks. Builds on the ideas in "Untangling the hard problem of consciousness.")

• Exoplanets for Everyone (AAVSO paper)

• Your Cosmic Context: An Introduction to Modern Cosmology  (A college textbook I wrote with Craig Tyler, offering an overview of scientific cosmology for non-specialists, with an emphasis on developing your own view of how you fit within the big picture of the universe.)

• An Ordinary World: The Role of Science in Your Search for Personal Meaning (Founding ideas of the Science Integration Institute and my first formal articulation of "looking for meaning in the modern universe.")

• Advisory Board and podcast participant in Journey of the Universe, by Mary Evelyn Tucker & Brian Swimme

• T. Duncan, "Why Do We Believe in the Second Law?"  in Proc. of "First International Conference on Quantum Limits to the Second Law," July 2002, editor D.P. Sheehan (https://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0208291v1)

• T. Duncan & J. Semura, "The Deep Physics Behind the Second Law: Information & Entropy as Independent Forms of Bookkeeping." Entropy, pp. 21-29, March 2004. (https://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0501014)

• T. Duncan & J. Semura, "Information Loss as a Foundational Principle for the Second Law of Thermodynamics." Foundations of Physics 37: 1767-1773, 2007. (https://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0703235)

• T. Duncan, "Teaching College Science with a Connection to Personal Meaning," (2000).

• T. Duncan, "Living with Disagreement" (Metanexus essay, 2012)

• Add article on the inflationary universe

• Add ABC-Clio essay on the human quest for meaning, 2011

• Add "Our Cosmic Context" chapter from The Evolutionary Epic conference proceedings, 2009

• Add Forum on Physics and Society commentary, 2001

• Add AJP paper "Guest comment: Making physical science courses valuable to nonscientists," 1997

• T. Duncan, "The Second Law of Thermodynamics & the Source of Irreversibility in Classical Statistical Mechanics," Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Chicago, 1997.

Other recommended reading

• Information & the Nature of Reality, edited by Paul Davies & Niels Henrik Gregersen, Cambridge University Press, 2014.

• Science, Religion, & Deep Time, edited by Lowell Gustafson, Barry Rodrique, & David Blanks, Routledge, 2022. 

• The Symbiotic Universe: Life & Mind in the Cosmos, by George Greenstein, 1988.

• New Perspectives in Astrophysical Cosmology, by Martin Rees.

• Energy & Entropy: A Dynamic Duo, by Harvey S. Leff, CRC Press, 2021.

• Maxwell's Demon 2: Entropy, Classical & Quantum Information, Computing, edited by Harvey Leff & Andrew Rex

• The Civilized Engineer, by Samuel C. Florman, St. Martin's Press, 1987.

• Cosmic Conversations: Dialogues on the Nature of the Universe & the Search for Reality, by Stephan Martin, 2009. 

• Catching the Light, by Arthur Zajonc

• The Wholeness of Nature, by Henry Bortoft

• Through a Window, by Jane Goodall

• "Why This Universe? Toward a Taxonomy of Possible Explanations," by Robert Lawrence Kuhn, Skeptic Magazine, vol. 13, no. 2, 2007. 

• "Undecidability and unpredictability: not limitations, but triumphs of science," by Markus Mueller, 2020. 

• "Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System," by Donella Meadows

• Sara Walker & Paul Davies, The Hard Problem of Life

• Davies Biofriendliness paper (Euresis)

• The Quantum Challenge: Modern Research on the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, Greenstein & Zajonc, 2006.

• "Relativity without Light" by David Mermin

• Introduction to Cosmology  by Barbara Ryden

• Zeilinger Foundational Principle for QM, Foundations of Physics

• The Heart of Higher Education: A Call to Renewal - Transforming the Academy through Collegial Conversations, by Palmer, Zajonc, & Scribner (2010) 

• H.H. Pattee, "The Physics & Metaphysics of Biosemiotics," Journal of Biosemiotics 1 (2005).

• The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy, by Maggie Berg & Barbara Seeber (2017).

• Zwick review of Mind & Cosmos

A few of my favorite quotes...