Due dates

Topics are due, via email to your group conference instructor, no later than Tuesday, March 7.

Important note (Announced in class on Tuesday, April 11) The due date for the paper has been extended by precisely one week. You need to submit hardcopy that day to your group-conference instructor either in class (if class meets that day), in person, or by sliding the paper under the door of your instructor's office.

Papers are due as hardcopy one week after the sixth meeting of group conference, which means one week after:

(α) Dan King - Friday, April 14.
(β) Mali Yin - Monday, April 17.
(γ) Leah Olson - Monday, April 17.
(δ) Mike Siff - Tuesday, April 18.
(ε) Scott Calvin - Tuesday, April 18.

Topics

You need to choose one of the three main topics described below. Then, within that main topic, choose a specific topic (an experiment, a pair of scientists, or a "scientific revolution"). The specific topic, as mentioned above, is due via email to your group conference instructor, no later than Tuesday, March 7. If you have questions on how to choose a topic, or as to whether the specific topic you have in mind is suitable, please do not hesitate to ask any of the Origins faculty.

1. Write about a famous science experiment that we have not discussed in class or in conference. Specifically, describe what the experiment attempted to demonstrate or what question it tried to answer. Describe the details of the experiment and challenges that had to be overcome. Why is the experiment and/or its results significant? How does it illustrate the principles we have been discussing in class?


2. Choose a pair of famous scientists who studied the same or very similar subjects. Compare and contrast their work.


3. Choose one scientific revolution other than those focused on in class (i.e. not those associated with Copernicus, Galileo, Newton's Principia, Darwin, or general relativity). At the beginning of the revolution, what were some of the reasons for preferring the new theory/paradigm? What were some of the reasons for sticking with the old one? By the time the revolution was complete, had the reasons changed?

Format

• The paper should be six-to-eight pages in length, double spaced, not including the bibliography.


• The paper should be typed and then printed using a standard serif (preferably Times) 11- or 12- point font. Please refrain from using colors other than black.


• You should cite references wherever appropriate in the body of your paper and include a full bibliography at the end of your paper.


• Your sources must be from something that exists in hardcopy (i.e., printed books or periodicals). If you have access to these materials via the Web, great, but your citations should still refer to the hardcopy version. For example, you might read an article at:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/29/my-favorite-article.html
  

  but your bibliographic citation should be of the form:

    Bogus, McBogus. "Why Occam's Razor Cuts Like a Knife." New York Times 29 Feb. 2006: 31-33.