Physics P110/120
Fall 2003 & Spring 2004
Energy & Technology
  • Ben Brabson
  • Physics Department
  • Swain West 201
  • 855-3881, brabson@indiana.edu
  • Office hours MWF 2:30-3:30 and by appointment
    To go the the P110/120 Home Page for Spring 2003, click here.

    To learn more about Professor Brabson click here

Wicklewood Mill, Norfolk, 1997

Your Major:
Energy P110 (2 cr. hrs.) and Energy and Technology P120 (3 cr. hrs.) are  appropriate courses for undergraduates in the Schools of Business, SPEA, Education, and the College of Arts and Science.   This course provides a wealth of applications of the powerful concepts of physics to these very real and demanding problems of the production of energy, the consequences of this energy production and the fast-moving development of new technologies.  The course will broaden your base of attack strategies for this complex array of problems.

P110/120 offered every semester as follows:

    P110 Energy (2cr)                              Tuesdays and Thursdays each week for first 10 weeks.
    P120 Energy & Technology (3cr)   Tuesdays and Thursdays each week for full 15 weeks.

About the Course:
 You and I are deeply imbedded in a highly technological society and, at the root of our understanding of our society is the pervasive concept of energy.  As you would guess, there is a strong correlation between the energy used by a country like the US and measures of the size of its economy such as the gross domestic product (GDP). Not surprisingly, a detailed economic assessment of essentially any project is also linked to the flow of energy in that project. Understanding both the energy flow in a project and the costs associated with this use of energy is of great value. This leads to three objectives of this course.

Objective I - THE CRITICAL ROLE OF ENERGY:  Are we in danger of running out of our usual energy sources and if so, what other sources are available? As we utilize energy sources, what consequences arise from our use of these resources? Do we have the technology in hand to respond to these consequences? How do energy sources such as nuclear energy, and solar power fit into our future? How can we create a sustainable energy relationship with our world?

Objective II - A QUANTITATIVE UNDERSTANDING: This course should also position you to present and substantiate your own views more effectively using quantitative methods. At the end of this course you will be able to do a wide variety of quantitative calculations concerning energy. This quantitative approach to energy will, in my opinion, be far more useful to you than a strictly descriptive approach.

Objective III - EL NINO, GLOBAL WARMING, OZONE HOLES...: For the (fortunate) P120 people, we will explore some of the most recent global issues in environmental science. It is essential that we have a substantive understanding of these crucial problems, especially as they impact on most aspects of our economic future.

For Fun: Take a look at various assignments from this semester's version of the courses P110/120:

Spring 2003 Home Page