Uploaded June 2010 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
facebook.com/ScienceReason ... This piece discusses UC Berkeley professor Richard Muller's aptly named the Physics for Future Presidents course. Designed to illuminate and educate the leaders of our future, whomever and wherever they may be, it teaches basic physics to non-science majors.
Richard A. Muller is professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and a past winner of the MacArthur Fellowship. He is the author of "Nemesis" (Weidenfeld & Nicholson) and "Physics for Future Presidents" (Norton).
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s: What every world leader needs to know. An Introduction to the Essential Physics Every World Leader Needs to Know.
The course is dramatically different from the traditional "Physics for Poets" approach. Many people who have tried it have discovered that it is much more fun for both the students and the professor. Nothing excites a student more than the discovery that he/she is learning something important.
"Physics and Technology for Future Presidents" contains the essential physics that students need in order to understand today's core science and technology issues, and to become the next generation of world leaders. From the physics of energy to climate change, and from spy technology to quantum computers, this is the only textbook to focus on the modern physics affecting the decisions of political leaders and CEOs and, consequently, the lives of every citizen.
How practical are alternative energy sources? Can satellites really read license plates from space? What is the quantum physics behind iPods and supermarket scanners? And how much should we fear a terrorist nuke? This lively book empowers students possessing any level of scientific background with the tools they need to make informed decisions and to argue their views persuasively with anyone -- expert or otherwise.
Based on Richard Muller's renowned course at Berkeley, the book explores critical physics topics: energy and power, atoms and heat, gravity and space, nuclei and radioactivity, chain reactions and atomic bombs, electricity and magnetism, waves, light, invisible light, climate change, quantum physics, and relativity.
Muller engages readers through many intriguing examples, helpful facts to remember, a fun-to-read text, and an emphasis on real-world problems rather than mathematical computation. He includes chapter summaries, essay and discussion questions, Internet research topics, and handy tips for instructors to make the classroom experience more rewarding.
Accessible and entertaining, "Physics and Technology for Future Presidents" gives students the scientific fluency they need to become well-rounded leaders in a world driven by science and technology.
• muller.lbl.gov/teaching/Physics10/PffP.html
• http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9226.html
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The California Academy of Sciences is a world-class scientific and cultural institution based in San Francisco. The Academy recently opened a new facility in Golden Gate Park, a 400,000 square foot structure that houses an aquarium, a planetarium a natural history museum and a 4-story rainforest all under one roof.
The mission of the California Academy of Sciences is to explore, explain and protect the natural world.
• calacademy.org
.
facebook.com/ScienceReason ... This piece discusses UC Berkeley professor Richard Muller's aptly named the Physics for Future Presidents course. Designed to illuminate and educate the leaders of our future, whomever and wherever they may be, it teaches basic physics to non-science majors.
Richard A. Muller is professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and a past winner of the MacArthur Fellowship. He is the author of "Nemesis" (Weidenfeld & Nicholson) and "Physics for Future Presidents" (Norton).
---
Please SUBSCRIBE to Science & Reason:
• youtube.com/Best0fScience
• youtube.com/ScienceTV
• youtube.com/FFreeThinker
• youtube.com/RationalHumanism
---
s: What every world leader needs to know. An Introduction to the Essential Physics Every World Leader Needs to Know.
The course is dramatically different from the traditional "Physics for Poets" approach. Many people who have tried it have discovered that it is much more fun for both the students and the professor. Nothing excites a student more than the discovery that he/she is learning something important.
"Physics and Technology for Future Presidents" contains the essential physics that students need in order to understand today's core science and technology issues, and to become the next generation of world leaders. From the physics of energy to climate change, and from spy technology to quantum computers, this is the only textbook to focus on the modern physics affecting the decisions of political leaders and CEOs and, consequently, the lives of every citizen.
How practical are alternative energy sources? Can satellites really read license plates from space? What is the quantum physics behind iPods and supermarket scanners? And how much should we fear a terrorist nuke? This lively book empowers students possessing any level of scientific background with the tools they need to make informed decisions and to argue their views persuasively with anyone -- expert or otherwise.
Based on Richard Muller's renowned course at Berkeley, the book explores critical physics topics: energy and power, atoms and heat, gravity and space, nuclei and radioactivity, chain reactions and atomic bombs, electricity and magnetism, waves, light, invisible light, climate change, quantum physics, and relativity.
Muller engages readers through many intriguing examples, helpful facts to remember, a fun-to-read text, and an emphasis on real-world problems rather than mathematical computation. He includes chapter summaries, essay and discussion questions, Internet research topics, and handy tips for instructors to make the classroom experience more rewarding.
Accessible and entertaining, "Physics and Technology for Future Presidents" gives students the scientific fluency they need to become well-rounded leaders in a world driven by science and technology.
• muller.lbl.gov/teaching/Physics10/PffP.html
• http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9226.html
---
The California Academy of Sciences is a world-class scientific and cultural institution based in San Francisco. The Academy recently opened a new facility in Golden Gate Park, a 400,000 square foot structure that houses an aquarium, a planetarium a natural history museum and a 4-story rainforest all under one roof.
The mission of the California Academy of Sciences is to explore, explain and protect the natural world.
• calacademy.org
.
![NASA Astronomy Pictures Of The Day [Week 5/2010]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dltImo5gm38/mqdefault.jpg "NASA Astronomy Pictures Of The Day [Week 5/2010]
http://facebook.com/ScienceReason ... NASA Astronomy Pictures Of The Day [Week 5/2010]
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► Stardust in Perseus
This cosmic expanse of dust, gas, and stars covers close to three degrees on the sky in the heroic constellation Perseus. Right of center in the gorgeous skyscape is the dusty blue reflection nebula NGC 1333, about 1,000 light-years away. At that estimated distance, the field of view is about 50 light-years across. Next to NGC 1333 is the reddish glow of shocked hydrogen gas created by energetic jets and winds from stars in the process of formation.
• http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100204.html
► Shepherd Moon Prometheus from Cassini
Another moon of Saturn has been imaged in detail by the Cassini spacecraft. Visible in an unprocessed image from 36,000 kilometers away, Prometheus 100-km long surface was revealed to have an interesting system of bulges, ridges, and craters. Cassinis next major targeted flyby is of the moon Rhea.
• http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100201.html
► Hong Kong Sky
This remarkable scene combines multiple exposures recorded from a waterside perspective in Hong Kong, China. It follows a young crescent Moon, with brilliant planet Jupiter to its left, as they set together in the western sky. Their two luminous trails are faintly paralleled by trails of background stars.
• http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100206.html
► The Einstein Cross Gravitational Lens
Most galaxies have a single nucleus does this galaxy have four? The strange answer leads astronomers to conclude that the nucleus of the surrounding galaxy is not even visible in this image. The central cloverleaf is rather light emitted from a background quasar. The gravitational field of the visible foreground galaxy breaks light from this distant quasar into four distinct images. The quasar must be properly aligned behind the center of a massive galaxy for a mirage like this to be evident. The general effect is known as gravitational lensing, and this specific case is known as the Einstein Cross.
• http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
► Mars and a Colorful Lunar Fog Bow
Even from the top of a volcanic crater, this vista was unusual. For one reason, Mars (on the far upper left) was dazzlingly bright when this picture was taken, as it was nearing its brightest time of the entire year.
• http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100202.html
► P/2010 A2: Unusual Asteroid Tail Implies Powerful Collision
First discovered on ground based LINEAR images, the object appeared unusual enough to investigate further with the Hubble Space Telescope. What Hubble saw indicates that P/2010 A2 is unlike any object ever seen before. At first glance, the object appears to have the tail of a comet. Close inspection, however, shows a 140-meter nucleus offset from the tail center, very unusual structure near the nucleus, and no discernable gas in the tail. Knowing that the object orbits in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, a preliminary hypothesis that appears to explain all of the known clues is that P/2010 A2 is the debris left over from a recent collision between two small asteroids. If true, the collision likely occurred at over 15,000 kilometers per hour five times the speed of a rifle bullet and liberated energy in excess of a nuclear bomb.
• http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100203.html
► Dust Storm on Mars
Its spring for the northern hemisphere of Mars and spring on Mars usually means dust storms. So the dramatic brown swath of dust (top) marking the otherwise white north polar cap in this picture of the Red Planet is not really surprising.
• http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100205.html
► The Colors of IC 1795
This colorful cosmic portrait features glowing gas and obscuring dust clouds in IC 1795, a star forming region in the northern constellation Cassiopeia. The nebulas colors were created by adopting the Hubble false-color palette for mapping narrow emission from oxygen, hydrogen, and sulfur atoms to blue, green and red colors, and further blending the data with images of the region recorded through broadband filters.
• http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap091210.html
► The International Space Station Over the Horizon
The STS-129 crew of the Space Shuttle Atlantis undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) and returned to Earth. As the shuttle departed the space station, they took the above image. The ISS continues to be home for five astronauts of Expedition 21.
• http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap091207.html
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