Poetry for Physicists

How do we communicate technical information to a non-technical audience? 

Fiction in books, blogs, films, and social media all convey the rules of their respective realities. These stories contextualize our place in the universe—perhaps in ways that are similar to your chemistry textbook. We study examples from science fiction and popular science to examine how we share scientific information. 

Our goal is to use fiction, short-form non-fiction, videos (and video games), conversations, and presentations to learn how to be effective science communicators. This year's thematic focus is time-travel. No prior science background is necessary.

Instructor: Prof. Flip Tanedo (he/him; PHYS 3054, flip.tanedo@ucr.edu)

Syllabus [to be updated]

Meeting Times

TR 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM
Skye Hall, Room 381M

Course Materials

Course materials will be distributed online on a Google Drive that is only accessible by enrolled students. 

Additional resources may be posted soon. 

Additional course materials

• You are responsible for picking up a copy of the short story (see below) that you will use for your course projects. These selections are available in the Ted Chiang short story collections Stories of Your Life and Exhalation. Many of them are also published in magazines and other anthologies that can be accessed digitally and/or physically through our library.
  
  If you are interested in doing more popular science reading, Cellar Door Books is our nearest independent bookstore.

• From our Thursday, Week 1 discussion: please play the video game Braid (or Braid: Anniversary Edition) by Jonathan Blow. The anniversary edition is available on several (but not all) platforms. Get through the first few levels. If you are unable to play this, you can watch gameplay videos (here's a good one).  I encourage you to check out the commentary as well. 

Assessment

Guidelines for assessment are on our syllabus.  Assignments are posted on Google classroom, the classroom code was presented in class.

Short Stories

In this course we will develop "Science of Ted Chiang" explainers in many forms. Each student should select one Ted Chiang short story to base their explainers on. Sample explainer articles on the relevant scientific topics are attached; students are expected to do their own additional research. See the stories page.