This textbook offers the first unified treatment of wave propagation in electronic and electromagnetic systems and introduces readers to the essentials of the transfer matrix method, a powerful analytical tool that can be used to model and study an array of problems pertaining to wave propagation in electrons and photons. It is aimed at graduate and advanced undergraduate students in physics, materials science, electrical and computer engineering, and mathematics, and is ideal for researchers in photonic crystals, negative index (...) materials, left-handed materials, plasmonics, nonlinear effects, and optics. Peter Markos and Costas Soukoulis begin by establishing the analogy between wave propagation in electronic systems and electromagnetic media and then show how the transfer matrix can be easily applied to any type of wave propagation, such as electromagnetic, acoustic, and elastic waves. The transfer matrix approach of the tight-binding model allows readers to understand its implementation quickly and all the concepts of solid-state physics are clearly introduced. Markos and Soukoulis then build the discussion of such topics as random systems and localized and delocalized modes around the transfer matrix, bringing remarkable clarity to the subject. Total internal reflection, Brewster angles, evanescent waves, surface waves, and resonant tunneling in left-handed materials are introduced and treated in detail, as are important new developments like photonic crystals, negative index materials, and surface plasmons. Problem sets aid students working through the subject for the first time. (shrink)

This book is about the work of 10 great scientists; who they were and are, their personal background and how they achieved their outstanding results and took their prominent place in science history. We follow one of physics and science history's most enigmatic phenomena, superconductivity, through 100 years, from its discovery in 1911 to the present, not as a history book in the usual sense, but through close ups of the leading characters and their role in that story, the Nobel (...) laureates, who were still among us in the years 2001-2004 when the main round of interviews was carried out. Since then two of them already passed away. For each one of the 10 laureates, the author tells their story by direct quotation from interviews in their own words. Each chapter treats one laureate. The author first gives a brief account of the laureates' scientific background and main contribution. Then each laureate tells his own story in his own words. This book is unique in its approach to science history. (shrink)

Proceedings of SPIE present the original research papers presented at SPIE conferences and other high-quality conferences in the broad-ranging fields of optics and photonics. These books provide prompt access to the latest innovations in research and technology in their respective fields. Proceedings of SPIE are among the most cited references in patent literature.

This series of images forms part of the ongoing project Soft Ground, Hard Light, which speculates on a multiscalar spatial ontology of photography emanating from the Arditurri silver mine complex in the Basque Country. Evoking the mountainous massif around Arditurri where silver ore and galena have been extracted since Roman presence in the area, the depicted topographies are, in fact, data transcriptions from atomic force microscopy (AFM) probing the analogue film stock of an early 1930s experiment in 3D cinema, Cine (...) en Relieve, by the Basque cinematographer Teófilo Mingueza. In contrast to optical or electron microscopy, AFM uses a scanning probe to physically touch the specimen, recording its surface undulations at the atomic scale of a nanometre, or a billionth of a metre. As a haptic operation based on direct contact between instrument and sample, between apparatus and referent, AFM is literally a contact print, a ‘blind’ scan that senses not the visual content of the recorded image but ‘feels’ its underlying material substrate of silver nanoparticles within the 35 mm film emulsion. The resulting image assemblies visualize a topography resulting from the intra-action between the silver nanoparticles and the scanning probe as much as its transcription through the particular parameters afforded by the AFM analysis software. Hard Light, Soft Ground was initiated during an artist’s residency at Tabakalera Centre for Contemporary Culture, Donostia-San Sebastián, and is currently in production as part of the wider research project Esper Syndrome: Archaeotopologies of the Image at the Royal College of Art, funded by the AHRC through the London Arts & Humanities Partnership. With additional thanks to the Basque Film Archive and Gustavo Ariel Schwartz at the Materials Physics Centre, Donostia-San Sebastián. (shrink)

The preparation of layers of amorphous Se by plasma-enhanced CVD using the hydride H2Se as precursor gas is described. Information concerning the structure of the films was obtained from Raman spectroscopy. The spectra of amorphous Se indicated that the dominant molecular structure is the eight-membered ring and/or a chain with Se8 molecular fragments. This material exhibited reversible photodarkening when illuminated at 77 K. In order to explain this phenomenon, we propose a mechanism which takes into account the role of the (...) lone-pair electron orbitals of Se in their contribution to structural ordering. Illumination can cause a distortion in the normal bonding direction between nearest-neighbour Se atoms and induce in this way intrinsic defect states located at the band edges. In the photo-darkened state, optical transition will occur between these defect states. (shrink)

This paper seeks to demonstrate that propositions 23–27 of the Euclidian Optics originated in the context of geometrical astronomy. These entries, which deal with the geometry of spheres and rays, present material that overlaps considerably with propositions 1–3 of Aristarchus of Samos’ On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and the Moon. While all these theorems deal with material that could conceivably be native to celestial illumination, the proofs do not work for binocular vision. It therefore seems probable that (...) the proofs were borrowed from Aristarchus or, more likely, some common astronomical predecessor. As an extension of this observation, this paper argues that the Optics displays a far less unified purpose than has typically been assumed. Instead, it reflects a conglomerate of concerns, goals and dependencies, insofar as it presents multiple proofs that emerge from a set of geometrical concerns not directly related to vision as a physical phenomenon. These entries complicate the idea that the Optics is about explaining light, sight or false appearances in any straightforward sense. Instead, the text is oriented toward a somewhat more diffuse goal: simply to articulate the geometry of vision and rays. Optics as a discipline should should therefore be understood not as a purely mathematical explanation of vision, but as a target-field of explanation constituted by features and boundaries derived from extra-visual geometric concerns. (shrink)

The composition of nitrogen-doped hydrogenated amorphous carbon films grown in a magnetically confined rf plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition system has been determined by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and compared with that determined using a combination of elastic recoil detection analysis, Rutherford back-scattering and nuclear reaction analysis. The importance of nitrogen doping or 'incorporation' in hydrogenated amorphous carbon films is discussed in relation to the significant variation in the sp 2 -to-sp 3 ratio that takes place. At 7 at.% N in the (...) a-C : H matrix, a critical change in the microstructure is observed, which governs the resulting mechanical, optical and electronic properties. Finally, the correlation between the sp 2 and sp 3 fractions determined by a non-destructive method of obtaining the bond fractions and by electron-energy-loss spectroscopy is discussed, with a view to evaluating accurately the sp 2 fraction in a-C : H : N films. (shrink)

In the present work we explore the effects that an H impurity produces upon the geometry and electronic structure of the CaTiO 3 crystal considering the cubic and orthorhombic crystallographic lattices of the material. A quantum-chemical method based on the Hartree-Fock formalism and the periodic large-unit-cell model is used throughout the work. The analysis of the results shows that the interstitial H impurity binds to one of the O atoms forming the so-called O-H group. At equilibrium, the O-H distances (...) are found to be equal to 0.89 and 1.04 Å for cubic and orthorhombic lattices respectively. Atomic displacements and relaxation energies are analysed comparing the obtained results in the cubic lattice with those in the orthorhombic lattice. In the cubic phase the computed relaxation energy of vicinity of the O-H group is found to be equal to 1.1 eV and the atomic displacements generally obey the Coulomb law. So, the negatively charged O atoms move outwards from the defective region by about 0.09 Å while the positively charged Ti and Ca atoms move towards the defective region by about 0.05 and 0.01 Å respectively. A similar effect is observed in the orthorhombic lattice of CaTiO 3 doped with an H atom. It is necessary to mention that different O positions in the orthorhombic structure are considered for the O-H bond creation. The computed relaxation energies of the atomic displacements in this structure are found to be equal to 2.3 and 2.1 eV depending on the crystallographic type of the bonding O atom. (shrink)

Introduction -- Quantum information: basic relevant concepts and applications -- Theory -- Part I. Atomic processes -- Coulombic entanglement: one-step single photoionization of atoms -- Coulombic entanglement: one-step double photoinonization of atoms -- Coulombic entanglement: two-step double photoinonization of atoms -- Fine-structure entanglement: bipartite states of flying particlees with rest mass different from zero -- Bipartite states and flying electronic qubits -- Part II. Molecular processes -- One-step double photoionization of molecules -- Two-step double photoionization of molecules -- Part (...) III. Miscellaneous -- Conclusions and prospectives. (shrink)

ArgumentTextual and material evidence suggests that early Byzantine architects, known asmechanikoi, were comprehensively educated in the mathematical sciences according to contemporary standards. This paper explores the significance of the astronomical and optical sciences for the working methods of the twomechanikoiof Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, Anthemios of Tralles and Isidoros of Miletus. It argues that one major concern in the sixth-century architectural design of the Great Church was the visual effect of its sacred interior, particularly the luminosity within. Anthemios and (...) Isidoros seem to have been thoroughly conversant with the ancient corpus of astronomical and optical writings and, as will be shown, implemented their theoretical knowledge in the design of Hagia Sophia. Specifically, the paper demonstrates that the orientation of the building's longitudinal axis coincides with the sunrise on the winter solstice according to ancient computations, implying that the orientation was intentionally calculated in order to secure an advantageous natural illumination of the interior. Light and visual effects served to reinforce the symbolic significance of the sacred space that furthermore provides evidence for optical considerations with respect to late antique concepts of light and vision. (shrink)

Principles of Laser Spectroscopy and Quantum Optics is an essential textbook for graduate students studying the interaction of optical fields with atoms. It also serves as an ideal reference text for researchers working in the fields of laser spectroscopy and quantum optics. The book provides a rigorous introduction to the prototypical problems of radiation fields interacting with two- and three-level atomic systems. It examines the interaction of radiation with both atomic vapors and condensed matter systems, the density matrix and (...) the Bloch vector, and applications involving linear absorption and saturation spectroscopy. Other topics include hole burning, dark states, slow light, and coherent transient spectroscopy, as well as atom optics and atom interferometry. In the second half of the text, the authors consider applications in which the radiation field is quantized. Topics include spontaneous decay, optical pumping, sub-Doppler laser cooling, the Heisenberg equations of motion for atomic and field operators, and light scattering by atoms in both weak and strong external fields. The concluding chapter offers methods for creating entangled and spin-squeezed states of matter. Instructors can create a one-semester course based on this book by combining the introductory chapters with a selection of the more advanced material. A solutions manual is available to teachers. Rigorous introduction to the interaction of optical fields with atoms Applications include linear and nonlinear spectroscopy, dark states, and slow light Extensive chapter on atom optics and atom interferometry Conclusion explores entangled and spin-squeezed states of matter Solutions manual. (shrink)

There has been much recent debate about the nature of the omnivoyant image that introduces Nicholas of Cusa’s De visione Dei. In this paper, I argue that Cusa’s concept of contraction and his ‘radical perspectivism’ lead us toward stretching the concept of omnivoyance beyond a simple dichotomy between a phenomenology of the image and a phenomenology of the icon. Instead of putting such emphasis on what is seen by the omnivoyant, we should think an omnivoyant optics starting from the material (...) milieu from which it sees. To this end, I define the concept of omnivoyance through the concept of the elemental. Using both the concept of an element derived from Presocratic Ionian philosophy and recent French and American continental philosophy, I put these discourses into conversation with Cusa in several ways: the way omnivoyance functions as a substratum of contracted seeing rather than as a transcendence, its operation as a pure frontality without objectifiable aspects, and the way in which omnivoyance implies not only a gaze that sees ‘all and each’ but also a plurality of modes of vision. To help us understand this enlarged concept of omnivoyance, I use the example of animal vision, particularly the gaze of the whale. With respect to cetacean vision, I deploy Melville’s metaphysical speculations in Moby Dick as our primary guide. (shrink)

For all animals, color is an indicator of the substance and state of objects, for which purpose reflectance is just one among many relevant optical properties. This broader meaning of color is confirmed by linguistic evidence. Rather than reducing color to a simple physical property, it is more realistic to embrace its full phenomenology.

This article describes a descriptive-qualitative method for analyzing and reviewing several textbooks for high school as samples commonly used by teachers and students in their teaching–learning to reveal possible misconceptions. This study focused on the subjects of quantum numbers and electronic configuration. From the advanced literature review to analyze the samples the occurrence of various misconceptions was noted. All textbooks described correctly the four symbols of quantum numbers, but none correlates correctly the magnetic-angular quantum number to the Cartesian labeled (...) orbitals. All textbooks consider mistakenly the meaning of aufbau as the building-up energy of orbitals by following (n + ℓ, n) rules on describing the electronic configuration for all atoms. Only one textbook states that the electronic configuration of transition metal atoms (3d series) can be described in the following order of shell (n), thus giving rise to two types of electronic configurations, [Ar] 3d 4s (Type I) beside [Ar] 4s 3d (Type II), leading further misconception. All textbooks described favorably an unpaired electron of ms = + ½ due to the specific agreement, which is a potential misconception in applying Hund’s rule. In drawing the diagram boxes of orbitals, they are arranged in increasing or decreasing the numeric mℓ, due to the specific agreement, and again leading to a potential misconception on describing the quantum number of electrons issued. Three textbooks introduced the terms of the last and the xth electron associated with the quantum numbers, leading to serious further misconceptions. No books stated that the ordering energy of the (n + ℓ, n) rule is true only for the first twenty atoms. (shrink)

Ever since Big Data became a mot du jour across social fields, optical metaphors such as the microscope began to surface in popular discourse to describe and qualify its epistemological impact. While the persistence of optics seems to be at odds with the datafication of vision, this article suggests that the optical metaphor offers an opportunity to reflect about the material consequences of the modes of seeing and knowing that currently shape datafied worlds. Drawing on feminist new materialism, (...) the article investigates the optical metaphor as a material-discursive practice that actively constitutes the world, as metaphors imply modes of thinking, knowing and doing that have material enactions. Expanding visual culture theories, the notion of ‘optical unconscious’ is taken up to discuss the tensions between displacement and persistence of optics within datafied worlds, that is, how optical vision is displaced but also mobilised and repurposed by data-driven knowledge. In dialogue with feminist science and technology studies and speculative ethics, I suggest that the datafication of vision offers a chance to reconceptualize the sense of sight towards a sensorial engagement with Big Data premised on responsibility, care, and an ethics of unknowability. Within this framework, vision may be conceived differently, perhaps not only as enhancement and control, but as generator of new possibilities. Ultimately, the article proposes that the visual theories after which Big Data is being imagined matter not only for our understanding of Big Data's epistemic potential, but also for the possibility of shaping emerging data worlds. (shrink)

continent. 2.1 (2012): 2–5 To begin with, as we understand from a remote place like Seoul, there have been two different conceptions of materiality in the Western experimental ?lm history: materiality of cinema and of ?lm. The former has been represented by the practitioners of the so-called the “Expanded Cinema” and the latter by the tradition of the “Hand-made” ?lm. Whereas for the Expanded Cinema, the materiality or the “medium-speci?city” includes not only the ?lm material but also the entire condition (...) and environment in which the cinematic experience is situated (i.e.: screen, projector, audience and theatre); for the Hand-made ?lm, it is the whole ?lmic process prior to the screening in front of the audience (i.e.: hand-processing and optical-printing). The two practices share in the materialist turn that opens up the radical possibilities of aesthetic (and even political) interventions into a process previously considered seamless and transparent. What can be called to attention through the materialist turn includes the aesthetic-institutional process in the projection-spectator relation and the (non-) representational process in ?lm-making. Moreover, these interventions bring their own temporalities back to those processes, and this returning emancipates the temporalities from their subordination to the cinema-as-commodity. Hangjun Lee is a ?lm-based artist whose practice is concerned with Hand-made Film and Experimental Cinema. Given these interests, Lee questions the linkage between materiality and temporality. This was his preoccupation around 2006, the time at which he started to collaborate with Chulki Hong, the noise improviser. The improvisational nature of their audio-visual performances opened means of detouring from the conventional editing techniques. Their collaboration also afforded critical investigations into the performativity of the practices in both the darkroom and the screening room, as well as in the private recording/practicing studio, and public performance spaces for the improvising musician. In fact, it was a kind of common interest shared by both us from the outset. In our collaboration, we avoid sacri?cing/concealing/minimizing one form of performativity (the performative nature and temporality of compositional process) for the sake of the other (i.e. those in improvisational and executional process). In the ?eld of experimental music and sound, this kind of approach has been comprehensively called “cracking” or “hacking”. The concepts are ?nely formulated in the coinage of “Cracked Everyday Electronics” (by Voice Crack) or more generally “Handmade Electronic Music” (by Nicolas Collins). 1 And this was a pure but perhaps necessary coincidence. the original title of the work of our collaboration and, retrospectively, of the set of our working principles at the same time, “The Cracked Share” was named by Lee after Georges Bataille’s masterwork, The Accursed Share , with the substitution of the adjective with “Cracked” as a synonym for ‘reticulated’ in the photographic image. We think the ascetic and subtractive aesthetic turn of the contemporary non-idiomatic improvised (and even somewhat non-improvised) music 2 pushed us further towards more radical dissociation with the empty temporality of commodi?ed audio-visual experience. It can be called the aesthetics of “without,” and exemplars include Yoshihide Otomo’s Turntable Without Records , Sachiko M’s Sampler without Samples . There are also other radical experiments even with the (non-)improvised music without noise and sounds that neatly meet the rules and idioms of the existing/established experimental music. For us, this thread among the experimental music currents weighs in its emphasis on subtractive and dissociational power unique to improvisational action. Surely, the tradition of the Cracked and Handmade improvised music teaches us the crucial lesson that “[m]edia and mediation are never transparent” and that “[m]ediation actively transforms data from one form to another and is never passive.” 3 We couldn’t agree to this statement more. However, without the removal and withdrawal power of improvisation that poses and keeps both subjects (performer and audience) and objects (projector and instrument) in “inferiority,” 4 generalized cracking and hacking practices—or simply “glitch”—in music and visuals would be either sublimated into the mystical and ritualistic forms of “Film Alchemy” and “Noise Music” (to which both of us still strongly feel a belonging but also, more or less, ambivalent sentiments), or else assimilated into the logic of the commodi?ed audio-visual communication. Today in music, this principle of improvisational performativity should be formulated as the dis-organization of sound against the associational de?nition of (electronic) music and it needs to be translated into audio-visual experiences. In other words, cracking practices of free improvisation need not be limited in artistic creativity, in a darkroom, in a studio, or on the stage; the principle of the dis-organization of sound should be the principle of dis-organization (or cracked organization) of audio-visual performance space itself. NOTES 1) Norbert Möslang, “How Does a Bicycle Light Sound?: Cracked Everyday Electronics,” Leonardo Music Journal 14 (2004): 83; Nicolas Collins, Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking (New York: Rutledge, 2006). 2) We refer this not to the historical style or genre but rather the idea and practice that ?free improvisation? stands for. On the distinction between idiomatic and non-idiomatic improvisation, see Derek Bailey, Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice in Music (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 1993). On radically politico-histrorical interpretations of free improvisation and noise music from various present viewpoints, see Noise and Capitalism , (eds.) Mattin & Anthony Iles (Arteleku Audiolab, 2009). 3) Caleb Kelly, Cracked Media: The Sound of Malfunction (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2009), p. 29. 4) I borrow the term from my long-time collaborator, Choi Joonyong. See Ryu Hankil, Hong Chulki & Choi Joonyong, Inferior Sounds (Balloon and Needle, CD, 2011). (shrink)

The creation of global computer networks has given individuals the ability to communicate directly with each other, linking across national and international boundaries as easily as across the street. Global publication is surprisingly easy; this means, for example, that views that may be abhorrent to large numbers of individuals can be propagated and automatically distributed. Material such as pornography is, potentially, freely available everywhere. However, despite the wishes of politicians and others, it is technically and realistically impossible to censor or (...) otherwise limit electronically published material. The fabric of global computer networks known generically as the Internet is, quite literally, out of political control. Drawing upon research carried out for a recent book or computer ethics, this article examines the current situation. (shrink)

Any study of the 'Scientific Revolution' and particularly Descartes' role in the debates surrounding the conception of nature (atoms and the void v. plenum theory, the role of mathematics and experiment in natural knowledge, the status and derivation of the laws of nature, the eternality and necessity of eternal truths, etc.) should be placed in the philosophical, scientific, theological, and sociological context of its time. Seventeenth-century debates concerning the nature of the eternal truths such as '2 + 2 = 4' (...) or the law of inertia turn on the question of whether these truths were created along with nature, or were uncreated and subsisting in God's mind. One's answer to that question has direct consequences for conceptions of the necessity/contingency of mathematical and natural knowledge, how knowledge of such truths is accomplished by humans, and what grounds these truths. In this paper, I review the positions of four successors to Descartes' philosophy on the question of the eternal truths to illustrate how in specific ways that question with its theological, metaphysical, modal, and epistemological dimensions concerned the objectivity and certainty of the discoveries of the new science. Author Recommends: Clarke, Desmond. Descartes' Philosophy of Science . University Park, Penn State Press, 1982. This work provides an account of Descartes as a practicing scientist whose rationalism is mitigated by reliance on experiment and experience. Author re-examines Descartes' philosophical and scientific works in this new light. Dear, Peter. Revolutionizing the Sciences: European Knowledge and its Ambitions, 1500–1700 . Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2001. This work provides a useful overview of the issues and thinkers of the Scientific Revolution. Of particular relevance is chapter 8 on Cartesian and Newtonian science. Funkenstein, Amos. Theology and the Scientific Imagination from the Middle Ages to the Seventeenth Century . Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1986. This work is an advanced study of the theological and metaphysical foundations of early modern science. Discussions include questions of God's nature, God's knowledge in relation to human knowledge, providence, the laws of nature, and the truths of mathematics. In particular, chapter 3 discusses Descartes' account of the eternal truths and divine omnipotence. Garber, Daniel. Descartes' Metaphysical Physics . Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1992. This work examines how Descartes' metaphysical doctrines of God, soul, and body set the groundwork for his physics. It includes a study of God and the grounds for the laws of physics (chapter 9). Henry, John. The Scientific Revolution and the Origins of Modern Science . 3rd ed. New York, Palgrave, Macmillan Press, 2008. This work provides a brief, general, and informative overview of the Scientific Revolution, including the themes of method, magic, religion, and culture. Osler, Margaret J. Divine Will and the Mechanical Philosophy: Gassendi and Descartes on Contingency and Necessity in the Created World . Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994. This work is an examination and comparison of the mechanical philosophies of Gassendi and Descartes. It offers in-depth discussion of the issue of voluntarism and intellectualism in the period and how that related to conceptions of laws of nature and the eternal truths. Shapin, Steven. The Scientific Revolution . Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1996. This work provides a critical synthesis of as well as a guide to recent scholarship in the history of science for a general readership. Online Materials Dr. Robert A. Hatch's Scientific Revolution Website: http://web.clas.ufl.edu/users/rhatch/pages/03-Sci-Rev/SCI-REV-Home/ A compendium of resources for the study of Scientific Revolution. Early English Books Online: http://eebo.chadwyck.com/home Early English Books Online (EEBO) contains digital facsimile page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473 to 1700. Early Modern Resources: http://www.earlymodernweb.org.uk/emr/ Early Modern Resources is a gateway for all those interested in finding electronic resources relating to the early modern period in history. Gallica, the Digital Library of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ An ever-growing digital library which includes numerous primary and secondary texts of relevance to Descartes and his role in Scientific Revolution. Hatfield, Gary, 'René Descartes', The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Spring 2009 ed. Ed. Edward N. Zalta; URL: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2009/entries/descartes/ Slowik, Edward, 'Descartes' Physics', The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Winter 2008 ed. Ed. Edward N. Zalta; URL: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2008/entries/descartes-physics/ Syllabus Sample Syllabus: Cartesian Science The following is five weeks covering Cartesian Science in a course on Descartes or the Scientific Revolution, or 17th-century theories of matter, or related themes on early modern truth and method, especially on the continent. This material is best suited to a graduate level audience, but it could be modified to suit an upper-division undergraduate course, as the readings are basically primary texts whose context and background can be explained in lectures. Week 1: Cartesian Revolution in France • Scientific method • Role of mathematics and experiment • Certainty of scientific knowledge Readings: Hatfield, Gary, 'René Descartes', The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Spring 2009 ed. Ed. Edward N. Zalta; URL: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2009/entries/descartes/ Descartes, Discourse on Method , Parts 1–3 Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy , First Meditation. Week 2: Descartes' Scientific Treatises • Mechanization and mathematization of nature • Primary–secondary quality distinction Readings: Discourse on Method, Parts 4–6 Selections from Descartes' Scientific Essays: The World or Treatise on Light (ATXI 3–48); Treatise on Man (ATXI 119–202); Optics (ATVI 82–147). Slowik, Edward, 'Descartes' Physics', The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Winter 2008 ed. Ed. Edward N. Zalta; URL: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2008/entries/descartes-physics/ Henry, John, 'The Mechanical Philosophy,' chapter 5. The Scientific Revolution and the Origins of Modern Science . 3rd ed. Macmillan, 2008. Week 3: Descartes' Theory of Nature • Descartes' derivation of the law of conservation and the three laws of motion • God's role in the metaphysics and physics of nature Readings: Selections from Principles of Philosophy, Preface (all); Letter to Elizabeth; Part I: 1–8; Part II: 1–45, 55, 64; Part III: 1–4, 15–19, 45–47; Part IV: 187–207. John Henry, 'Religion and Science,' chapter 6. The Scientific Revolution and the Origins of Modern Science . 3rd ed. Macmillan, 2008. Week 4: Post-1650 Cartesian Science: Necessity and Contingency in Nature • Debates on God, Creation, and Causes Readings: Easton, Patricia, 'What is at Stake in the Cartesian Debates on the Eternal Truths?' Philosophy Compass 4.2 (2009): 348–62. Malebranche, Nicolas, 'Elucidation 10', from The Search after Truth (1674). Note: All selections available in Nicolas Malebranche (1992). Philosophical Selections , edited by S. Nadler, Hackett. Gottfried Leibniz (1714) Monadology . Week 5: Causes in Nature and Morals • Theodicy as an explanation of defect and evil in a lawful universe: Malebranche v. Leibniz Readings: Nicolas Malebranche, Elucidation XVI (on occasionalism), and Treatise on Nature and Grace, Discourse One, Part 1. Gottfried Leibniz (1706), Theodicy. Focus Questions Weekly questions can be used to focus the readings. This can be done in a web or e-mail discussion thread, as a weekly assignment, or for in class discussion. I require students to post a short paragraph in response to the question or some posting by a classmate on the question. Students are required to post by 10 a.m. the day before we meet for class on a course website. Week 1: According to Descartes, what role does skepticism play in scientific reasoning? Week 2: Comment on the following: 'But I am supposing this machine to be made by the hands of God, and so I think you may reasonably think it capable of a greater variety of movements than I could possibly imagine in it, and of exhibiting more artistry than I could possibly ascribe to it' [ Treatise on Man ; ATXI 120]. Week 3: What is Descartes' conception of the relation between the metaphysics and physics of nature? Week 4: Critically discuss the positions of Descartes, Malebranche, and Leibniz on what provides the foundation for the certitude of natural knowledge? Week 5: Explain why both Malebranche and Leibniz consider moral sin to be analogous to natural defect? Seminar/Project Idea Hold a debate on the question of the status of the eternal truths. The proposition will be Descartes' position: 'Eternal truths must be both created and necessary if certainty in science is to be possible'. Format: 1. At the beginning of the 5-week module, students will be assigned to one of three roles: Team A, Team B, and judge's panel. Students will be given the debate proposition, but will not be told which team will take the affirmative and which team the negative until the time of the debate. 2. Recommend a variation on the Classic Debate Format to encourage the development of argument: sequence begins with affirmative construction (8 minutes), negative construction (8 minutes), second affirmative construction (8 minutes), second negative construction (8 minutes), first negative rebuttal (4 minutes), first affirmative rebuttal (4 minutes), final negative rebuttal (4 minutes) and final affirmative rebuttal (4 minutes). 3. Judges Panel: will consist of 3–4 judges who will assess the performance of Teams A and B. Judgment should be based on the persuasiveness of the team position. 4. Debate will be held at the end of the fifth week, or semester, whichever makes most sense given the course length and structure. Acknowledgements The author gratefully acknowledges the immensely helpful comments and suggestions by the participants in her graduate seminar on the Scientific Revolution: Benjamin Chicka, Sarah Jacques-Ross, Richard Ross, Marcella Stockstill, and Zohra Wolters. (shrink)

In Victor Hugo’s novel, Notre-Dame de Paris, 1482, the priest says that, alas, ‘this will destroy that’, meaning that the book upon which his hand was placed would destroy the building opposite. He is looking out of a window at the immense Cathedral of Notre-Dame (Hugo, 1967, p. 197). If the cathedral is a library to be read by the religious, and if the church is the symbol of authority and the repository of medieval knowledge, then the priest means not (...) only that the book, printing and new literacy would undermine the church’s authority, but that human thought will undermine the church’s expression of its authority (Bolter, 1991). The priest continues: the principal idea of each generation would no longer write itself with the same material and in the same way, that the book of stone, so solid and durable, would give place to the book made of paper, yet made more solid and durable. (Hugo, 1967, p. 199; Bolter’s 1991 translation). (shrink)

In Victor Hugo’s novel, Notre-Dame de Paris, 1482, the priest says that, alas, ‘this will destroy that’, meaning that the book upon which his hand was placed would destroy the building opposite. He is looking out of a window at the immense Cathedral of Notre-Dame (Hugo, 1967, p. 197). If the cathedral is a library to be read by the religious, and if the church is the symbol of authority and the repository of medieval knowledge, then the priest means not (...) only that the book, printing and new literacy would undermine the church’s authority, but that human thought will undermine the church’s expression of its authority (Bolter, 1991). The priest continues: the principal idea of each generation would no longer write itself with the same material and in the same way, that the book of stone, so solid and durable, would give place to the book made of paper, yet made more solid and durable. (Hugo, 1967, p. 199; Bolter’s 1991 translation). (shrink)