Poetry for Physicists

2021 Theme: The science and science fiction of time travel. 

How do we communicate technical information to a non-technical audience? Books, blogs, films, and social media all convey the rules of their respective realities. These give us stories of how we understand our place in the universe. We study examples from science fiction and popular science to learn how we share information and how this relates to the underlying scientific process. 

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 3053, flip.tanedo@ucr.edu)

Link to syllabus. (Syllabus may be revised as needed.)

Meeting Times

MW 05:00 PM - 06:20 PM
Skye Hall, Room 381M

Course Materials

Course materials are distributed in two ways:

• On our Canvas page (internal materials for this course only)

• On this webpage

  • Assignments: see Meetings & HW Page

No additional course materials are required at the start of the course. You will be 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.

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.