ANGELS or DEMONS?

This sequence of lectures discusses the people and the science from Dan Brown’s book, Angels and Demons. While it is not necessary, it will be useful to have read the book and/or seen the movie. Spoilers will be revealed!

The outline of topics is below. The names in burgundy are specifically mentioned in the book.

LECTURES

1. November 3:
[4.11.2009: slides uploaded individual / quicktime movie ]

• Introduction and synopsis of the book and how it differs from the movie.
• The Bad Guys of the Book.
• The Greeks
• Copernicus

2. November 10:
[11.11.2009: slides uploaded individual / quicktime movie ]

• The Baroque: Caravaggio, Bernini, & the Popes
• Galileo
• Was Bruno a Scientist?

3. November 17:
[11.21.2009: slides uploaded individual / quicktime movie ]

• Special and General Relativity
• Cosmology and Lemaitre

4. November 24:
[12.7.2009: slides uploaded individual / quicktime movie ]

• Ideas from Quantum Mechanics
• Antimatter
• The Expanding Universe: the smoking guns

5. December 1: No meeting

6. December 8:
[12.7.2009: slides uploaded individual / quicktime movie ]

• Our "Standard Model"
• CERN, the LHC & Its Status
• The ATLAS Experiment
• HEP at MSU
• Some astonishing problems