STEPPING THROUGH TIME: THE SCIENCE OF TIME TRAVEL

STEPPING THROUGH TIME: THE SCIENCE OF TIME TRAVEL
Mondays, March 18 + 25, 2013
Friperie Potetr
Cost $7
Instructor: Chris Whittaker

"The universe is not only queerer than we imagine, but it is queerer than we can imagine."
-- J. B. S. Haldane

Can we travel through time? Can we slow the ticking of a clock? Could we watch our sun age a billion years and turn to dust, all between lunch and dinner? The answer to each of these questions, surprisingly, is ‘yes’ (mostly). Of course, movies love to play with time, but are they playing fair? This three hour course punctuated by a dazzling arrray of film and TV clips will explore time in science-fiction and in science-fact. To understand time we will dive into physics by exploring the basics of theories like Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, but we won’t dive too deep. No background in science or mathematics is required, but there will be select readings.

Instructor: Chris Whittaker
Chris Whittaker is a physics teacher and Coordinator of the Science Program at Dawson College. He has a Masters Degree in Engineering Physics from Queen’s University where he specialized in aeronautics and nuclear engineering. At Dawson, he created a course for non-science students that explores a variety of topics in physics through movies and TV shows. Before his teaching career, Chris also completed a Masters Degree in Social Work and worked for several years in emergency mental health, with at-risk-youth and as an intake worker at a CLSC. Along the way he also managed to do two radio documentaries for the CBC Radio One program Ideas, including one on how size matters in engineering, biology and the movies.