Seven Ideas that Shook the Universe
Physics 11030, better known as Seven Ideas that Shook the Universe,
is the most popular course at Kent for satisfying the Liberal
Education Requirement (LER) in the Basic Sciences. In Fall 2006 - Spring 2007,
more than 3,600 Kent State students took Seven Ideas, not counting the
various additional sections offered during the summer terms.
LATE 1990s: In a campus-wide survey reported in the Daily Kent Stater,
the top three "most interesting courses" were Human Sexuality,
Seven Ideas and another physics offering: Frontiers in Astronomy.
MAY 2003: In the "Best of Kent" survey conducted by the
Daily Kent Stater, and reported in the last issue for Academic Year 02/03,
Seven Ideas actually beat Human Sexuality for the title of "Best
Elective Class". An offering from the Geography Department about wine came
in third. Among college-age students, how is it possible that physics came
out ahead of both sex and alcohol? If you are a KSU student, then sign-up
for the class to find out!
DECEMBER 2006: In a survey of members of the Kent Alumni Association,
Seven Ideas was overwhelmingly voted the "most memorable class at Kent State", easily winning out over
all other choices put together.
SEPTEMBER 2009: In a study of intro-level physics enrollments across
all 700+ physics departments in the US, Kent State comes out as #1 on the basis of two different ways to compare
the popularity of introductory physics courses at different universities.
Our top ranking owes a great deal to the exceptional reputation of Seven
Ideas among students at Kent.
The textbook
Seven Ideas that Shook the Universe is authored by KSU
Profs. Nathan
Spielberg (now retired) and Bryon
Anderson. It has been translated into Italian, Japanese
and Spanish.
Please note that the cover of the current edition (3rd) of the textbook is
different from the one reproduced here (2nd edition).
What are these seven ideas?
Copernican
Astronomy
Newtonian
Mechanics & Causality
The
Energy Concept
Entropy
& Probability
Electromagnetism
& Einstein's Relativity
Quantum
Theory and the End of Causality
Conservation
Principles and Symmetries
The course, which
is non-mathematical, puts each of these ideas into its historical and
philosophical context, and explains how it came about. It presents historical
facts and connections to literature and philosophy, and assesses each
idea's impact on the way we think about time, space and matter.
Last Updated: September 23, 2009
