Course Offerings

LS310/LS310H: British Foundations of Modern Science

The scientific revolution ushered in by Isaac Newton in the 17th Century is perhaps best viewed in the broader context of the Copernican Revolution in cosmology. In a very real sense, the Copernican Revolution continues 500 years after the fact in the deep-space images of the Hubble telescope and the Big Bang theory of Stephen Hawking.

Similarly, Charles Darwin precipitated a second “Copernican Revolution” by his theory of natural selection. Whereas the first Copernican Revolution called into question humans’ place in the physical universe, the second revolution called into question human biological origins. Like the first, the second continues to reverberate to this day in controversies regarding cloning, genetic engineering, and embryonic stem-cell research.

This experiential-learning course will celebrate British contributions to scientific understanding through selected readings and excursions to locations of scientific interest, including the Greenwich Royal Observatory, Darwin’s residence, Kew Gardens, and the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge.