SYLLABUS

Freshman Seminar 87:

Geometry, Philosophy and the Fourth Dimension

Teacher responsible: Professor Craig Callender

Contact information: Rm HSS 8072; phone 822-4911; email: ccallender@ucsd.edu

office hrs: Tues 1.30-2.30

Using only very accessible and readable sources, the course will introduce the ideas of non-Euclidean geometry, curved space, time as a higher dimension, time travel and the shape of space. Along the way, we will meet various fascinating philosophical questions about the nature of geometry, space and time.

Seminar Meetings Dates: January 10,24; February 7,21. Friday, 2-3.50, HSS 8025

First Meeting. The Fourth Dimension

1. Wells, H.G., first couple of pages from The Time Machine; http://www.literature.org/authors/wells-herbert-george/the-time-machine/chapter-01.html

2. Gamow “The Fourth Dimension”

3. Callender, Introducing Time, 32-45

Second Meeting. Relativity and Time

1. Gamow, “Relativity of Time and Space”

2. Ray, “Clocks, Geometry and Relativity”

3. Callender, 52-67

Third Meeting. Geometry and Convention

1. “Curved Space” ch. 13, Time and Space, by Dainton

2. “A Conventional World?”, ch. 4, Time, Space & Philosophy by Ray

Fourth Meeting. Time Travel

1. Lewis, “Paradoxes of Time Travel”

2. Callender, 68-117