Main definitions and laws used to estimate the energy content of different systems. Study of energy consumption mechanisms in systems including cars, planes, heating/cooling, lighting, gadgets, and food/farming. Study of sustainable energy production methods including wind, solar, hydroelectricity, offshore wind, wave, tide, geothermal and nuclear. A balance sheet will be put together in order to answer the question: "Can we conceivably live sustainably without the need for fossil fuels?"

Does light behave as waves or particles? How does light interact with atoms? What is special about the speed of light? The revolutionary theories of light that have emerged over the recent centuries. Topics include a historical survey of the milestones and pioneers, wave nature of light, photons, quantum theory, Einstein?s relativity theories, and interaction of light with atoms. Lasers, fiber optics, and other technological applications based on light.

Fundamentals of optics and applications are discussed. Topics covered are photon and wave nature of light; reflection and refraction laws and geometrical optics; optical instruments (camera, eye, telescope, microscope); waves; interference and interferometers; fiber optics; diffraction and Fourier optics, gratings and micro-optical elements; polarization and applications, display technologies. The course is supplemented with in-class demonstrations and examples from everyday optics phenomena such as color of the sky and rainbows. A course in electromagnetic theory, such as ELEC 206, is helpful but not required.

The importance of the spherical geometry; applications in navigation and communication instruments; geosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, celestial sphere; navigation, sailing and flight; spherical coordinates, spherical harmonics, spatial and temporal measurements.

Sources of modern astronomy. Study of motion in the sky. Universal gravitation. Observation of outer space: Telescopes. Our planetary system. Stars and Galaxies. Life cycle of stars. Universe at large. Exploration of outer space: Rockets and Satellites. Space travel. Global positioning systems. Remote sensing.

Random walk problems and probability concepts. Theory of polymers. Statistical mechanical concepts with emphasois on self-avoiding walks and biological polymer models: ensembles, free energy, entropy, scaling. Lattices as interacting models of random systems and phase transitions. Dynamical phenomena: Master equation (Examples: random walk and lattice growth), Langevin equation and its generalizations. Chaos and order.