| Course Title: Space, Time, and Entropy |
| Start Date: 01/27/2026 End Date: 05/12/2026 |
| Term: Spring Semester 2026 |
| Description: The formulation of the laws of thermodynamics and discovery of relativity in the late 1800s and early 1990s had profound implications for our understanding of the universe. The idea that the entropy of the universe is always increasing, for example, had a deeply destabilizing effect on the Enlightenment idea of a clockwork universe that is ordered and unchanging. We will study the laws of thermodynamics and the ideas of relativity, with the goal of understanding their impact on science, art, literature, and society. Topics will include heat engines, reversible and irreversible processes, chaos, the heat death of the universe, Maxwell's Demon, information theory, and the directionality of time. |
| Distribution(s): NO - Meets No Distrib. Rqmt , FY - First-Year Seminar , WI - Writing-Intensive |
| Academic Level Of Course: Undergraduate | Credits:4.00 |
| Faculty | Phone | Email address |
| Dylan Shepardson | dshepard@mtholyoke.edu |
| Meeting Dates | Method | Meeting days | Meeting times | Building name | Room | Frequency |
| 01/27/2026 - 05/12/2026 | Seminar | Tuesday and Thursday | 10:30AM - 11:45AM | CLAP - Clapp Laboratory | 420 | Weekly |
| Requisite Courses | ||
| None |
| Comments |
| Additional Comments |
| Course Tags | ||
| FYSEM0001 | First-Year Seminar | This is a First-Year Seminar. |
| Cross-listed Sections |
| None |
| Course Availability | ||||
| Section status: Closed | Capacity: 7 | Enrollment: 8 | Available: 0 | Waitlist: 0 |
BOOK INFORMATION
| Book List | Required | Publisher Full Price |
| To be determined. |
| Additional Book Comments |
| This is NOT the complete book list for this class. |