Splash Biography

Can you have something bigger than infinity? Do all things of infinite size have the same size? Are there more real numbers than integers? In this class, we'll develop a way to think about and answer these seemingly nonsensical questions.

Would you sacrifice one person to save five? How do you decide? The person to be sacrificed has as much right to live as the five. Yet sacrificing the one lets more people live happy lives. In this class, we'll talk about different theories of justice to help us answer tough questions like this. After thinking about moral philosophy, we'll see how (or if!) it helps us construct a just society.

"Buddhism" may call to mind bald monks, karate, this old guy named after... a llama?, sitting cross-legged and saying "OHMMMMMMMMMM", and some jolly fat dude. But Buddhism is more: it's a religion, it's a philosophy, it's a way of living. The teachings of Buddhism are radically different from Western attitudes and thought, but they can bring us the insight and inner peace we seek. This class will explain some key concepts in Buddhism and what they mean to our lives, and will end with group meditation!

(Disclaimer: This is not about video games or board games. But it's still awesome.) The Cold War was a delicate and dangerous time. The threat of nuclear apocalypse loomed constantly overhead, and the world seemed always on the brink of utter destruction. But was there ever really a risk of nuclear annihilation? We use the mathematical tools of game theory to try to answer this question. After a brief introduction to game theory, we'll see how it applies to Cold War and current nuclear policy, and come to some striking conclusions.

You’ve heard the term thrown around as one of those crazy new discoveries in cosmology, but what IS dark matter? What does it do? And how do we know it exists? Scientists predict that there's five times as much dark matter as there is regular matter, which means many laws of physics and chemistry may apply only to a fraction of the cosmos. It seems like our place in the universe is ever shrinking, but our understanding of the mechanisms governing it expands with theories like this on the frontiers of science. While not everything is known about dark matter, this class will shed some light on this mysterious substance. (I’m sorry, astrophysics puns aren’t easy.) We will discuss galactic rotation curves, gravitational lensing, the role of dark matter in forming cosmic structures, dark matter’s possible compositions, and alternative theories without dark matter.