Posted on 05/17/2007 10:53:43 AM PDT by neverdem
A recent study shows that Shakespeare is no longer a required course for English majors at the overwhelming majority of American elite universities. This is not a surprise: most people are well aware that students are no longer taught the basics in the humanities departments.
Unfortunately, the situation is just as bad in physics departments. At the overwhelming majority of physics departments at American universities, even the most elite, key elements of basic physics are no longer taught. For example, I am aware of no American university that requires, for an undergraduate degree in physics, a course in general relativity, which is Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity. At the overwhelming majority of American universities, including Harvard, M.I.T. and Cal Tech, one is not even required to take a course in general relativity to get a Ph.D. in physics! As a consequence, most American Ph.D.’s in physics do not understand general relativity. If a problem arises that requires knowledge of Einstein’s theory of gravity, almost all American physicists can only look blank. This is in spite of the fact that general relativity has been known to be the correct theory of gravity for almost a century.
And it gets worse. The greatest achievement of physics since World War II has been the discovery of the Standard Model of particle physics, a unified theory of all forces and matter not including gravity. The electromagnetic force — light and radio waves — and the weak force responsible for radioactive decay, are shown to be two aspects of one force, the electroweak force, by the Standard Model. The Standard Model also explains how all fundamental particles obtain their mass and it predicts that matter can be directly converted into energy – which hints at a new energy source far more powerful than nuclear energy.
The Standard Model has been experimentally confirmed, and some dozen and more Nobel Prizes in physics have been awarded for the discovery and experimental confirmation of the Standard Model. Yet I am aware of no physics department in the United States that requires a course in the Standard Model for an undergraduate degree in physics. Very few, if any, require a course in the Standard Model even for a Ph.D. in physics. It’s as if law schools stopped requiring students to take courses in crucial subjects like contracts and property law.
So one can get an undergraduate degree in physics and even a Ph.D., without knowing anything at all about the fundamental forces that control the universe at the most basic level. Since our entire civilization requires at least somebody knows basic physics, requires that at least people who have Ph.D.’s in physics know basic physics, this is a disaster. If very few physicists know the Standard Model, it is unlikely that anyone will attempt to develop the new source of energy which the Standard Model shows is possible in principle.
The basic reasons why modern physics is not covered in required courses are identical to the basic reasons why Shakespeare is not covered: (1) the faculty in both cases want to teach their narrow specialty rather than the basic courses in their field, (2) the faculty members in both cases no longer understand the basic material in their own field, (3) the faculty no longer believe there are fundamental truths in their own disciplines. I'm sure that many members of typical university’s English faculty no longer have a basic understanding of Shakespeare. How could they, if they themselves have never taken a course on Shakespeare? A degree in English is no longer a guarantee that the degree holder has a basic knowledge of Shakespeare or other great writers.
Similarly, a degree in physics from an American university is no guarantee that the student with this degree understands basic physics. The physics faculty’s increasing ignorance of basic physics is starting to show up in their research, as I describe at length in my recent book, The Physics of Christianity (Doubleday, 2007). I show that, across all disciplines, a collapse of belief in Christianity over the past several decades among university faculty has been accompanied by a collapse in the belief that there is fundamental truth which should be imparted to students.
Every undergraduate majoring in physics, or at the very least, every graduate student in physics, should be required to take a two-semester sequence: one semester on general relativity, and one semester on the Standard Model. Both courses have been taught for decades to physics students as an elective, but no physics department will require them.
Once, on my own initiative, I forced a required course on the Standard Model at the graduate level, since I firmly believe that knowledge of the Standard Model should be required for all Ph.D.’s in physics. I achieved this by changing a required two-semester graduate course in electromagnetism into a one-semester course in electromagnetism, and a one-semester course on the Standard Model. I used an undergraduate textbook for the Standard Model course.
The students violently objected. They didn’t see any reason to learn the Standard Model. They saw no reason why they should know any basic physics beyond what was standard 50 years ago. The other faculty backed them up. This occurred more than 10 years ago, and since then not one Ph.D. student at Tulane has been taught the Standard Model.
The reason the physics faculty backed the graduate students up — supported them in their desire to remain ignorant of the central fundamental theory of physics — is that they themselves were never taught the Standard Model when they were graduate students, and thus they saw no reason to require their own students to learn it. I wasn’t taught the Standard Model either when I was a graduate student — it was in the process of being discovered when I was a graduate student — but it was obviously something every physicist should know, so I taught myself the theory. These same physics faculty were never taught general relativity either (I was; and in fact my Ph.D. thesis was on a problem in general relativity), so they see no reason why physics Ph.D.’s should be taught general relativity.
I fear that in the very near future, education in physics will have to be obtained from some source other than a university. It is becoming increasingly clear that this corruption of education is probably universal across all disciplines. If so, then all advanced education will have to be obtained outside of the university. And if that is the case, then why should universities exist at all?
lol.....what?
You’re right, I should know how to spell precedents.
Anyway, the day that Harvard announced the new president and the curriculum changes (more post modernism), they also stated that the most dramatic changes would be to the law school and in the field of science. I was suspicious of what the changes would be and went to the Harvard Law School web site, where the change away from the freshman study of precedents was stated as the first real change in the freshman curriculum since... (I don’t remember the date, but I think it was some time in the 1800s.)
Unless you're going to be a researcher there isn't much need to know it. Even NASA uses the Newtonian equations.
By the way, the changes that Harvard is making in the science curriculum involved a new emphasis on current topics of interest and how they pertain to the community. (I think that stem cell research was mentioned, but not global warming)In other words, they are going to feminize science to make up for the gender gap.
I’d like a citation, if possible.
Looks like Shakespeare is out, and Foucault, Derrida, Marcuse, and Adorno are in.
I've a pretty good grasp of "basic" physics for an engineer. Taken courses in plasma physics, particle physics, nonlinear optics, acoustic physics, quantum, a bit of special relativity. I don't see general relativity as necessary for an undergrad physics degree.
RadioAstronomer was banned. He's over at Darwin Central.
Rubbish. At the speeds and densities that occur in the vicinity of a newly forming star, the difference between relativistic physics and classical Newtonian physics is negligible. Planets do form, of course. We know of planets around other stars, and we know that stars form. How could there be planets about young stars, if planets cannot form?
We know that there are young stars because we know about the rate at which stars go through their nuclear fuel. A hot, bright star cannot last nearly as long as a dim, red star. Any hot bright star we see today must have formed relatively recently.
Finally, how can there be a moon without a planet for that moon to orbit? Such a `moon’ would be a protoplanet, and over time, as it swept up the remaining mass in its vicinity, it would become a planet.
Course VIII Focused Option
The Course VIII focused option is designed to provide the best possible preparation for graduate study in physics. Many students have also found this program to be an excellent, broad based preparation for professional work in related fields such as astrophysics, biophysics, geophysics, and many engineering disciplines. The focused option is unusual among pre-professional programs at MIT in that it offers a particularly large amount of elective freedom: as many as six subjects may be chosen as unrestricted electives without exceeding the minimum requirements for an undergraduate degree. The Departmental program for the focused option consists of the following required subjects and restricted electives. The full requirements for the degree, including the General Institute Requirements, may be found in the MIT Bulletin.
Required Subjects
8.03 Physics III (vibrations and waves)
18.03 or 18.034 Differential Equations
8.033 Relativity
8.04 Quantum Mechanics I
8.044 Statistical Physics I
8.05 Quantum Mechanics II
8.06* CI-M Quantum Mechanics III
8.13* CI-M Experimental Physics I
8.14 Experimental Physics II
8.ThU Thesis (12 units)
Course VIII Flexible Option
This option is designed for students who wish to develop a strong background in the fundamentals of physics and then build on this foundation as they prepare for career paths that may not involve a graduate degree in physics. In the past many students have found an understanding of the basic concepts of physics and an appreciation of the physicist's approach to problem solving an excellent preparation for careers in business, law, medicine or engineering. This option should be even more attractive today in light of the growing spectrum of non-traditional, technology-related career opportunities.
The freedom of choice associated with the flexible option does not preclude the possibility of going on to graduate school in physics. The number of physics subjects in this program is still comparable to that required of physics majors at many of our peer universities.
The Departmental program for the flexible option consists of the following required subjects and restricted electives. The full requirements for the degree, including the General Institute Requirements, may be found in the MIT Bulletin.
Required Subjects
8.03 Physics III (vibrations and waves)
18.03 or 18.034 Differential Equations
8.04 Quantum Mechanics I
8.044 Statistical Physics I
and one of the following subjects:
8.05 Quantum Mechanics II, or
8.20 Introduction to Special Relativity, or
8.033 Relativity
and one of the following experimental experiences:
8.13 CI-M* Experimental Physics I
or a laboratory subject of similar intensity in another dept.
or an experimental research project or senior thesis
or an experimentally oriented summer externship
I'm not remotely suprised that Physics UGs, Graduates, etc don't need a course in General Relativity. Despite the article, it is a niche subject. Special Relativity is another matter - it's a simple enough course and forms part of what every physicist ought to know.
http://www.blockemf.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=758&products_id=4970
LOL. Before that (though not immediately before), Newton's principles of celestial mechanics were "known" to be the correct theory of gravity.
General relativity is our best theory, and a good one it is, but we don't know we won't stumble across a better one tomorrow.
This is what I was thinking. A standard 3 or 4 year undergraduate degree is probably just enough to get a real good handle on classical physics, including the classical model of elctromagnetism. In fact, I’m wondering, who does take an undergraduate degree in physics, and for what purpose? Short of the high energy and particle physics end of it, most of the practical aspects of physics are addressed by engineers, and for most of what they do relativistic and quantum effects just aren’t relavent.
Send $2.00 and a boxtop for a PhD. in physics to....
“Unless you’re going to be a researcher there isn’t much need to know it. Even NASA uses the Newtonian equations.”
I do wonder, though, what one would be studying in post-graduate physics other than things at either the quantum or relativistic scales? Of course, I don’t really know what the active areas of research are in the physics faculties of the world. And there’s a lot of crossover between physics and chemistry in the quantum/particle physics area.
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