Einstein in Wonderland: Physics, Philosophy, and Other Nonsense

Instructor:  Professor Steven J. Gimbel
                 Department of Philosophy

Einstein showed that the faster an object moves, the shorter and heavier it gets. In quantum mechanics it is shown that a single electron will be in two places at once. Most people consider such possibilities to be nonsense...and they may just be right. But this does not mean that the theories are wrong, possibly it is our notion of sense that needs revision. In this Seminar, we will examine what is meant by “sense” by considering the scientific and philosophical writings of two of the most important historical scientific minds, René Descartes and Isaac Newton. In contrast, we will study the epitome of nonsense, Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, in order to see how the workings of this fantastical world violate the classical notions of sense displayed in Descartes and Newton. We will then read popular approaches to modern physics written by physicists (including George Gamow, the father of the Big Bang theory) in the style of Lewis Carroll to answer the question, “Has science turned sense into nonsense?”