Attraction and repulsion: the magic of magnets
Bachelor's degree
In Maynard (USA)
Description
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Type
Bachelor's degree
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Location
Maynard (USA)
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Start date
Different dates available
This Freshman Advising Seminar surveys the many applications of magnets and magnetism. To the Chinese and Greeks of ancient times, the attractive and repulsive forces between magnets must have seemed magical indeed. Through the ages, miraculous curative powers have been attributed to magnets, and magnets have been used by illusionists to produce "magical" effects. Magnets guided ships in the Age of Exploration and generated the electrical industry in the 19th century. Today they store information and entertainment on disks and tapes, and produce sound in speakers, images on TV screens, rotation in motors, and levitation in high-speed trains. Students visit various MIT projects related to magnets (including superconducting electromagnets) and read about and discuss the history, legends, pseudoscience, science, and technology of types of magnets, including applications in medicine. Several short written reports and at least one oral presentation will be required of each participant.
Facilities
Location
Start date
Start date
Reviews
Subjects
- Magic
- Presentation
Course programme
Lectures: 1 session / week, 1.5 hours / session
My goals for this seminar include:
You get 6 academic credits for the seminar, but I suspect your 12-credit courses consume more than twice as much time each week as the seminar. (That's OK, but I do want you to learn something from the seminar!) In your other courses, the exams provide ample pressure to motivate you to study and learn the material, but the seminar has no exams. The only assigned "homework" to motivate study is seven short writing assignments and one oral presentation. (I gather some freshman seminars assign more homework, some assign less.) To try to maintain interest, I cover many different topics rather than a few in great depth.
Livingston, J. D. Driving Force: The Natural Magic of Magnets. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996. ISBN: 9780674216457.
Readings in Driving Force will be supplemented by other articles and handouts distributed in class.
The following table summarizes the topics covered in each class session.
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Attraction and repulsion: the magic of magnets