From Chaos Theory to Quantum Mechanics: What's New in What Scientists Can and Can't (!) Predict?
Schedule: Fridays, July 11, 18, 25, 2008, 9:30-11:30 a.m.
Location: Trilogy at Redmond Ridge, Redmond (see maps)
Reg. # 96933

Course Description

Physical scientists are always trying to understand nature and use this understanding to "predict the future." Predicting the future is not always as easy as it seems, so we begin with a discussion of Chaos Theory in Session 1, including the problems of why all snowflakes and fingerprints are "different" and why it's so hard to predict the weather. Next, in Session 2, using models of extreme simplicity (black and white tiles!) we show how behavior of arbitrary complexity, as well as complex but regular pattern formation follows from very simple "rules." Finally, in Session 3, we enter "quantum mechanics" leading to new levels of puzzlement and uncertainty.

Prerequisites: No math! No physics! A course for non-scientists only, but those with a lively curiosity about the natural phenomena all around us, and how nature might or might not "work."

Instructor

William P. Reinhardt
Professor of Chemistry, Adjunct Professor of Physics, UW
Before starting his now 18th year of teaching and research at UW, Reinhardt taught at Harvard, the University of Colorado (Boulder), and the University of Pennsylvania. He won the UW Chemistry Department Award for Excellence in Teaching, has been a Phi Beta Kappa National Lecturer, and has given Sigma Xi and Couper public lectures. He enjoys teaching pre-freshman "Discovery Seminars," and giving public lectures in the sciences and mathematics, as well as working with graduate students at the forefront of research. His ongoing research includes work in theoretical chemistry, the theory of quantum fluids, chaos theory, and the mathematics of "special functions."