JPH 441S
Physical Science in Contemporary Society
Home Page for Spring Term 2013

Information Lecture Notes Homework Tests Readings Physics Resources

• JPH441 General Information

• University of Toronto Academic Success Centre
• University of Toronto Guidelines on "How Not to Plagiarize"

• Schedule for Presentations on March 19, March 26, and April 2

• Lecture 1 - Tuesday, January 8
• Lecture 2 - Tuesday, January 15
• Lecture 3 - Tuesday, January 22
• Lecture 4 - Tuesday, January 29
  • Including CANDAC Outreach guest lecture by Ashley Kilgour and Niall Ryan
• Lecture 5 - Tuesday, February 5 (February 23: note correction to definition of h-index on slide 25)
• Lecture 6 - Tuesday, February 12
• Tuesday, February 26 - Mid-term test
• Lecture 7 - Tuesday, March 5 [password required]
• Lecture 8 - Tuesday, March 12 [password required]
• Lecture 9 - Tuesday, March 19
  • Including student presentations on report #2
  • (i) Medical technologies [password required]
  • (ii) Exploitation of near-Earth space [password required]
  • (iii) Fossil fuels [password required]
• Lecture 10 - Tuesday, March 26 - Student presentations on report #2
  • (i) Geo-engineering [password required]
  • (ii) Wind energy [password required]
  • (iii) Digital security [password required]
  • (iv) Superconductivity [password required]
• Lecture 11 - Tuesday, April 2 - Student presentations on report #2
  • (i) Nuclear energy [password required]
  • (ii) Medical imaging in cancer detection [password required]
  • (iii) Water resources [password required]
  • (iv) Nuclear fusion [password required]

• Written Report #1 due in class on Tuesday, February 12
• Written Report #2 due in class on Tuesday, April 2, with presentations in class on March 19, March 26, and April 2

• Mid-term Test

There will be a three-hour final exam during the Spring Examinations Period (7-10 PM, Thursday, April 25 in GB412).

• Information about the final exam

Final exams from previous years can be found at the following website:

• University of Toronto Physics Examinations Collection - you may need to login via University of Toronto Library

• Chapters 1, 2, and 3 of The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan, Ballantine Books, 1996
• Tawfiq Salam, Science & Scientific Theories, notes from the equivalent course previously offered at the University of Toronto at Scarborough

Lecture 2

• Chapters 4, 5 and 6 of The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan, Ballantine Books, 1996
• Extracts from Paul Feyerabend's Against Reason [password required]
• Extracts from the writings of Stephen Hawking and Karl Popper [password required]
• John Somerville, Umbrellaology, or, Methodology in Social Science, Philosophy of Science, 8, 557-566, 1941
• Robert L. Park, Seven Warning Signs of Bogus Science, originally published in The Chronicle of Higher Education, 31 January 2003

Lecture 3

• Chapters 7, 8 and 9 of The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan, Ballantine Books, 1996
• Sense about Science, "I don't know what to believe..." Making Sense of Science Stories, Short Guide to Peer Review, 2005
• Jay Ingram, Raising Scientific Literacy (or Bamboo Under My Fingernails), Physics in Canada, 63(3), 109-112, 2007

Lecture 4

• Chapters 10, 11 and 12 of The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan, Ballantine Books, 1996
• ICSU Committee on Freedom and Responsibility in the conduct of Science (CFRS) Advisory note on science communication, December 2010
• Joachim Allgaier, When boffins go POP: Eduard Kaeser expects that the bubble of spectacular science may burst, Journal of Science Communication, 09(04) (2010) R01.

Lecture 5

• Chapters 13, 14, and 15 of The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan, Ballantine Books, 1996
• P. Balaram, The Mores of Publishing in Science, Current Science, 83(12), 1429-1430, 2002
• EASE statement on inappropriate use of impact factors, 2008
• J. E. Hirsch, An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output, PNAS, 102(46), 16569-16572, 2005
• Roger Pielke Jr., In Retrospect: Science - The Endless Frontier, Nature, 466, 922-923, 2010
• Douglas Green, Opinion: Success! The astonishing secret to getting jobs, grants, papers, and happiness in biomedical research, The Scientist, December 21, 2010

Lecture 6

• Chapters 16, 17, and 18 of The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan, Ballantine Books, 1996
• F. Sherwood Rowland, Stratospheric ozone depletion, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 361, 769-790, 2006 [password required]

Lecture 7

• Chapters 19, 20, and 21 of The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan, Ballantine Books, 1996
• IPCC Summary for Policymakers from Working Group I of the 4th Assessment Report
• Somerville and Hassol, Communicating the Science of Climate Change, Physics Today, October 2011 [password required]

Lecture 8

• Chapters 22, 23, 24, and 25 (last one) of The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan, Ballantine Books, 1996
• Industry Canada, Mobilizing Science and Technology to Canada's Advantage - Summary, 2007
• Yolande Grise, Unshackle government scientists and let them do their jobs, The Globe and Mail, 4 January 2013
• Dean Keith Simonton, After Einstein: Scientific genius is extinct, Nature, 493, 602, 2013
• Ashutosh Jogalekar, Is the age of scientific genius over? Scientific American blog, 3 February 2013
• Wayne Hocking, In Praise of Incremental Steps and Modest Ideas, Physics in Canada, 67(3), 177-181, 2011

Lecture 9

• New year, new science (2013), Nature, 493, 11, 3 January 2013
• Student presentations and discussion of: (i) Medical technologies,(ii) Exploitation of near-Earth space, and (iii) Fossil fuels. See links to slides above.

Lecture 10

• Student presentations and discussion of: (i) Geo-engineering, (ii) Wind energy, (iii) Digital security, and (iv) Superconductivity. See links to slides above.

• Student presentations and discussion of: (i) Nuclear energy, (ii) Medical imaging in cancer detection, (iii) Water resources, and (iv) Nuclear fusion. See links to slides above.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Lecture 1

• Understanding Science, from the University of California Museum of Paleontology
• What is the one thing everyone should learn about science? The Guardian newspaper asked 250 scientists.
• Biographies of Aristotle, Jabir ibn Hayyan, Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), Abu Rayhan al-Biruni, Avicenna, Roger Bacon, Francis Bacon, Galileo, Isaac Newton, Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyeraband and Feyeraband's views on the scientific method, Stephen Hawking, and Hawking on Galileo

Lecture 2

• Science and Pseudo-Science entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Irving Langmuir, Pathological Science, Physics Today, 42 (10), 36-48, 1989
• Physics Today Letters in response to Langmuir article (March 1990)

The following websites relevant to topics discussed in Lecture 2 may also be of interest

• The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
• The Skeptic's Dictionary
• Quackwatch
• James Randi Education Foundation
• A Skeptical Manifesto from the Skeptics Society
• "Do You Believe in Psychics? Astrology?", Michael Shermer (Skeptics Society Founder) on Stossel, FoxBusiness TV, 17 December 2010

Lecture 3

• Nature peer review debate
• David M. Schultz, Rejection Rates for Journals Publishing in the Atmospheric Sciences, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 231-243, February 2010
• Mark Ware, Peer review: benefits, perceptions and alternatives, Publishing Research Consortium, 2008
• Sense about Science, Peer Review and the Acceptance of New Scientific Ideas, 2004

Lecture 4

• ESRC Report: Towards a better map: Science, the public and the media [password required]
• David P. Phillips et al., Importance of the Lay Press in the Transmission of Medical Knowledge to the Scientific Community, New England J. Medicine, 325, 1180-1183, 1991.
• Robert M. Hazen, Why Should You Be Scientifically Literate? ActionBioscience, December 2002

Lecture 5

• Mark Ware and Michael Mabe, The stm report, An overview of scientific and scholarly journal publishing, September 2009
• Eugene Garfield, Citation Indexes for Science: A New Dimension in Documentation through Association of Ideas, Science, 122 (3159), 108-111, 1955. Republished in International Journal of Epidemiology, 35 (5), 1123-1127
• Eugene Garfield, Essays of an Information Scientist, Vol: 5, 621-626, 1981-82, published in Current Contents, 30, 5-10, 1982
• Tribute to Eugene Garfield at 80, including his role in establishing citation indices, information analysis and The Scientist
• Joint Committee on Quantitative Assessment of Research (June 12, 2008). Citation Statistics. International Mathematical Union
• Alan Fersht, The most influential journals: Impact Factor and Eigenfactor, PNAS, 106(17), 6883-6884, 2009
• Jon Cohen, Gentlemen of Science, Science, 279, 179, 1998 [login with your UTORID]
• Jon Cohen, Scientists Who Fund Themselves, Science, 279, 178-181, 1998 [login with your UTORID]
• Science The Endless Frontier, A Report to the President by Vannevar Bush, Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, July 1945
• Alison Snyder, Ten Ways to Write a Better Grant,The Scientist, 21(1), 71, 2007

Lecture 6

• S. Solomon, Stratospheric ozone depletion: A review of concepts and history, Reviews of Geophysics, 3(7), 275-316, 1999 [password required]
• WMO Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion 2010
• ... particularly "Twenty Questions and Answers About the Ozone Layer"
• P. A. Newman et al., What would have happened to the ozone layer if chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) had not been regulated? Atmos. Chem. Phys., 9, 2113-2128, 2009
• G. Manney et al., Unprecedented Arctic ozone loss in 2011, Nature, 478, 469-475, 2011.
• 2011 Nature article: "Canadian ozone network faces axe"
• 2012 Eos article: "Environment Canada Cuts Threaten the Future of Science and International Agreements" [password required]

• Canadian Arctic ACE Validation Campaign Home Page - will be updated for 2013 when the campaign begins on February 25th

Lecture 7

• Charles F. Keller, Global warming: a review of this mostly settled issue, Stoch. Environ. Res. Risk Assess., 23, 643-676, 2009 [password required]
• Some climate change websites:
  • IPCC Home Page
  • United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
  • The Kyoto Protocol
  • CBC "In Depth" Kyoto Protocol Website
  • The Government of Canada's "Action on Climate Change" website
  • The Government of Canada's "Climate Change" website
  • Environment Canada's greenhouse gas information website
  • "From Impacts to Adaptation: Canada in a Changing Climate 2007"
  • Arctic Climate Impact Assessment 2004
  • RealClimate "Climate science from climate scientists" website
  • Global Warming pages of the Union of Concerned Scientists
  • Science magazine's web resources on Global Climate Change
  • NewScientist Climate Change Website
  • Scripps Institution of Oceanography - the home of the Keeling curve
  • The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project

Lecture 8

• Industry Canada, Mobilizing Science and Technology to Canada's Advantage - Full Report, 2007
• State of The Nation 2008 - Canada's Science, Technology and Innovation System
• State of The Nation 2010 - Canada's Science, Technology and Innovation System
• Innovation Canada: A Call to Action (The "Jenkins Report")

• Frozen out: Canada's government should free its scientists to speak to the press, as its US counterpart has, Nature, 1 March 2012
• Canadian Science Writers' Association "Let Scientists Speak" website

• The Science Knowledge Quiz: Are you more science-savvy than the average American?
• Pew Centre Report: Scientific Achievements Less Prominent Than a Decade Ago, July 2009

• Homepage for John Horgan's 'The End of Science'
• David Hoffman, Book Review of 'The End of Science', Notices of the AMS, 45(2), 260-266, 1998
• Homepage for Lee Smolin's 'The Trouble with Physics', including links to book reviews

Lecture 9

• The Introduction to 'Physics of the Future!' by Michio Kaku
• NewScientist, Top scientists show us their wish lists, including a link to Robert Boyle's wish list for the future of science
• Nature, 20/20 Visions

Lecture 10

• None

Lecture 11

• None

• U of Toronto Department of Physics NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award (USRA) Program - February 10 deadline
• NSERC CREATE Training Program in Arctic Atmospheric Science internships - February 1 deadline
• U of Toronto Centre for Global Change Science (CGCS) internships - February 28 deadline
• A list of additional Physics-related summer travel, employment and research opportunities

• Weekly Department of Physics Colloquia - all are welcome to attend
• Biweekly Centre for Global Change Science Seminars - all are welcome to attend

General Resources:

• Student Life Programs and Services, University of Toronto
• Academic Success Centre, University of Toronto
• Health & Wellness Services, University of Toronto
• Accessibility Services, University of Toronto
• Advice on Academic Writing, University of Toronto
• Arts and Science Student Union (ASSU), University of Toronto

Physics Resources:

• Undergraduate Physics Students' Computing And Learning Environment (UPSCALE), University of Toronto
• Department of Physics Library, University of Toronto
• Physics and Astronomy Student Union (PASU), University of Toronto

Physics-Related Societies and Magazines:

• Canadian Association of Physicists
• Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
• Canadian Space Agency
• Environment Canada

• American Geophysical Union
• American Institute of Physics
• American Meteorological Society
• American Physical Society

• Institute of Physics
• European Geosciences Union
• European Physical Society
• Royal Meteorological Society

• Nature
• NewScientist
• Physics in Canada magazine
• Physics Today magazine
• Physics World magazine
• Science
• Scientific American

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Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Physics (EAPP) Group
Department of Physics
University of Toronto
University of Toronto Learning Portal (Note: JPH441S has been activated on the Portal/Blackboard, but this external homepage will be used to provide most of the course content.)

This web site is maintained by Kimberly Strong.
Last updated April 2, 2013.