The science essay uses science to think about the human condition; it uses humanistic thinking to reflect on the possibilities and limits of science and technology. In this class we read and practice writing science essays of varied lengths and purposes. We will read a wide variety of science essays, ranging across disciplines, both to learn more about this genre and to inspire your own writing. This semester's reading centers on The Dark Side," with essays ranging from Alan Lightman's "Prisoner of the Wired World" through Robin Marantz Henig's cautionary account of nano-technology ("Our Silver-Coated Future") to David Quammen's investigation of diseases that jump from animals to humans ("Deadly Contact")."

This class examines the role of science in the US environmental policymaking process. It investigates the methods scientists use to learn about the natural world and the way scientific knowledge accumulates, the treatment of science by advocates and the media, and the role of science in legislative, administrative and judicial decision making. It considers how other political systems use science, in an effort to put the US approach in comparative perspective.

This class is an introduction to writing about science—including nature, medicine and technology—for general readers. In our reading and writing we explore the craft of making scientific concepts, and the work of scientists, accessible to the public through articles and essays.

This seminar is intended to help students in the MIT/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute Joint Program develop a broader perspective on their thesis research by considering some aspects of science in the large. The first part of the course challenges students to develop a thoughtful view towards major questions in science that can be incorporated in their own research process, and that will help them articulate research findings. The second part of the course emphasizes science as a social process and the important roles of written and oral communication.

This subject exposes students to a variety of visualization techniques so that they learn to understand the work involved in producing them and to critically assess the power and limits of each. Students concentrate on areas where visualizations are crucial for meaning making and data production. Drawing on scholarship in science and technology studies on visualization, critical art theory, and core discussions in science and engineering, students work through a series of case studies in order to become better readers and producers of visualizations.

This course focuses on reading a script theatrically with a view to mounting a coherent production. Through careful, intensive reading of a variety of plays from different periods and different aesthetics, a pattern emerges for discerning what options exist for interpretating a script. The Fall 2005 version of this course contains alternate readings and assignments sections.

Survey of the important aspects of modern sediments and ancient sedimentary rocks. Emphasis is on fundamental materials, features, and processes. Textures of siliciclastic sediments and sedimentary rocks: particle size, particle shape, and particle packing. Mechanics of sediment transport. Survey of siliciclastic sedimentary rocks: sandstones, conglomerates, and shales. Carbonate sediments and sedimentary rocks; cherts; evaporites. Siliciclastic and carbonate diagenesis. Paleontology, with special reference to fossils in sedimentary rocks. Modern and ancient depositional environments. Stratigraphy. Sedimentary basins. Fossil fuels: coal, petroleum.

General study of modern architecture as a response to important technological, cultural, environmental, aesthetic, and theoretical challenges after the European Enlightenment. Focus on the theoretical, historiographic, and design approaches to architectural problems encountered in the age of industrial and post-industrial expansion across the globe, with specific attention to the dominance of European modernism in setting the agenda for the discourse of a global modernity at large. Explores modern architectural history through thematic exposition rather than as simple chronological succession of ideas.

This course is an introduction to branes in string theory and their world volume dynamics. Instead of looking at the theory from the point of view of the world-sheet observer, we will approach the problem from the point of view of an observer which lives on a brane. Instead of writing down conformal field theory on the worldsheet and studying the properties of these theories, we will look at various branes in string theory and ask how the physics on their world-volume looks like.

Lectures and discussion introducing the range of topics relevant to plasma physics and fusion engineering. Introductory discussion of the economic and ecological motivation for the development of fusion power. Contemporary magnetic confinement schemes, theoretical questions, and engineering considerations are presented by expert guest lecturers. Tour of Plasma Science and Fusion Center experimental facilities.

In this undergraduate level seminar series topics vary from year to year. Students present and discuss the subject matter, and are provided with instruction and practice in written and oral communication. Some experience with proofs required. The topic for fall 2008: Computational algebra and algebraic geometry.

Seminar for mathematics majors. Students present and discuss the subject matter and write up exercises. Topic for Fall 2002: Classical geometry, beginning with Euclid's Elements and continuing to applications of Galois theory that solve the geometry problems of antiquity. No prior knowledge of Galois theory required. Instruction and practice in oral communication provided.

Seminar for mathematics majors. Students present and discuss the subject matter, taken from current journals or books. Topics vary from year to year. Topic for Fall 2002: Quantum calculus. Instruction and practice in oral communication provided.

Required for all Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences majors in the Environmental Science track, this course is an introduction to current research in the field. Stresses integration of central scientific concepts in environmental policy making and the chemistry, biology, and geology environmental science tracks. Revisits selected core themes for students who have already acquired a basic understanding of environmental science concepts. The topic for this term is geoengineering.

This advanced course in anthropology engages closely with discussions and debates about ethnographic research, ethics, and representation.

Seminar for mathematics majors. Students present and discuss the subject matter, taken from current journals or books and write up exercises. Topic for spring 2003: Elementary topological properties of differentiable manifolds. Topics covered include Sard's theorem, the Thom transversality theorem, vector fields and the Poincare-Hopf theorem, and cohomolgy via differential forms. Prerequisites subject to negotiation with the instructor. Instruction and practice in oral communication provided. In this course, students take turns in giving lectures. For the most part, the lectures are based on Robert Osserman's classic book A Survey of Minimal Surfaces, Dover Phoenix Editions. New York: Dover Publications, May 1, 2002. ISBN: 0486495140.

The main objective of this cross disciplinary course is to understand the historical development and the current status of ideas and models, to present and question the constraints from the different research fields, and to investigate if and how the different views on mantle flow can be reconciled with the currently available data.

Examines different types of historical writing: political, social, cultural, demographic, biographical, and comparative. Includes discussion of historical films, fiction, memoirs, and conventional history. Particular attention given to works which have broken new ground in terms of their methodology and approach. Required writing includes brief weekly response papers and a substantial research paper (including proposal, first draft, and final draft), in conjunction with a formal oral presentation. Weekly discussion of readings include periodic student-led discussion and/or presentations. Open to all students, but required of history majors and minors in junior year. This course is designed to acquaint students with a variety of approaches to the past used by historians writing in the twentieth century. The books we read have all made significant contributions to their respective sub-fields and have been selected to give as wide a coverage in both field and methodology as possible in one semester's worth of reading. We examine how historians conceive of their object of study, how they use primary sources as a basis for their accounts, how they structure the narrative and analytic discussion of their topic, and what are the advantages and drawbacks of their various approaches.

Topics vary from year to year. Typical examples from past years: manufacturing strategy, technology supply chains. This seminar will explore the purposes and development of Technology Roadmaps for systematically mapping out possible development paths for various technological domains and the industries that build on them. Data of importance for such roadmaps include rates of innovation, key bottlenecks, physical limitations, improvement trendlines, corporate intent, and value chain and industry evolutionary paths. The course will build on ongoing work on the MIT Communications Technology Roadmap project, but will explore other domains selected from Nanotechnology, Bio-informatics, Geno/Proteino/Celleomics, Neurotechnology, Imaging and Diagnostics, etc. Thesis and Special Project opportunities will be offered.

This course is a seminar in topology. The main mathematical goal is to learn about the fundamental group, homology and cohomology. The main non-mathematical goal is to obtain experience giving math talks.