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Course Details

Course Department: Department of Physics
Course Code: PHY 011
Course Title: Modern Physics for Poets
Number of ECTS: 5
Level of Course: 1st Cycle (Bachelor's Degree) 
Year of Study (if applicable):  
Semester/Trimester when the Course Unit is Delivered: Spring Semester 
Name of Lecturer(s):
Stavros Theodorakis
 
Lectures/Week: 2 (1.5 hours per lecture) 
Laboratories/week: -- 
Tutorials/Week: -- 
Course Purpose and Objectives:
The exploration of the common conceptual background behind contemporary science and contemporary culture.
 
Learning Outcomes:
  • List characteristics of art movements and physical theories. Identify their common concepts.
  • Associate cultural perceptions to concepts in art, physics.
  • Illustrate the perceptions of civilizations on space, time, boundaries, the vacuum. Demonstrate the universality of concepts such as relativity, the reversal of conventional viewpoints, warped space and time, fuzzy boundaries, virtual and real, superposition and metamorphic images. Illustrate the presence of modern physical concepts in contemporary art. 
  • Identify the role of observer (reader, spectator) with the role of participant in physics (literature, art). Compare the properties of vacuum in literature to those of the quantum seething void. 
  • Integrate the common ideas of contemporary art and science into a map of basic tendencies of postmodern culture.
 
Prerequisites: Not Applicable 
Co-requisites: Not Applicable 
Course Content:
Culture as a function of our beliefs about space, time, boundaries, the vacuum, chaos. Principle of Relativity–reversal of conventional viewpoints. Special and General Relativity. Warped Space and Time, Topology, Escher’s art. Concepts of space and time in the Middle Ages and in naive–primitive– eastern–modern art. Wavefunctions–fuzzy boundaries. Virtual and real. Superposition–Interpretation. Metamorphic Images in Surrealism. The observer (reader, spectator) as a participant in Physics (literature, art). Hypertexts. Aristotelian and Multivalued Logic. Self-Referentiality, Fractals. The Vacuum as a dynamic concept in Physics and Art. Dynamic entities in Postmodern Culture.
 
Teaching Methodology:
Comparison of texts, paintings, films, physical theories, to find their common ground. Use participatory surrealist games to illustrate the role of the observer in shaping reality. Produce an original creative work illustrating the common perceptions of contemporary art and physics. 
 
Bibliography:
“The seething void: the vacuum as a dynamical concept in contemporary culture”, Stavros Theodorakis, Diavlos Publications, Athens 1999. Also: Robert March, “Physics for Poets”; Stephen Kern, “The culture of space and time 1880-1918”, Harvard University Press 1983; N. Katherine Hayles, “Chaos bound - orderly disorder in contemporary literature and science”, Cornell University Press 1990; N. Katherine Hayles, “The cosmic web - scientific field models and literary strategies in the 20th century”, Cornell University Press 1984; Leonard Shlain, “Art and physics - parallel visions in space, time and light”, William Morrow, New York 1991.
 
Assessment:
Original creative work (20%), midterm exam (40%), final exam (40%). Criteria for the creative work: integration of modern physics concepts in a piece of creative art work, identification of common perceptions in art and physics. If the student prefers not to undertake the creation of an original piece of work, then the midterm and the final count for 50% each. 
 
Language of Instruction: Greek
Delivery Mode: Face-To-Face 
Work Placement(s): Not Applicable