In this class, we'll explore acting exercises to help get yourself out of your head and into the present moment. We'll do physical exercises followed by nonsense word improv, and wrap up with some Meisner technique. The class is open to anyone who is willing to commit to things that might make them look really silly.

Is this electric shock as painful as this noise is loud? Is this color as blue as this ice is cold? Is this building as tall as this taste is spicy? From the perspective of a physicist, these questions make no sense. You're comparing apples and oranges! And yet, they make perfect sense to ordinary humans. Why? We'll explore some of the answers in this class, using the power of cognitive science and psychophysics.

Let's say that you've got a Geiger counter which detects random radioactive decay. You're trying to calibrate it, and normally you see a blip about every minute, but it's been 10 minutes since you detected a blip. How likely is it that the Geiger counter is broken?* It turns out that the mathematical rule for changing how much you believe something based on observation, Bayes' Rule, is simple and elegant. In this class, we will derive the rule, show some simple examples of applying it, and talk about some studies that show how people violate this rule when making intuitive judgments. We'll even talk about how trained researchers and medical professionals get stuck when answering the question above. *Protip: I left out a key piece of information.

What is spacetime? Are space and time the same thing? Could you rotate one into the other? What's the deal with all this time dilation and space contraction and all these paradoxes? How long can I make this description while still having it consist entirely of questions? Would you like to take this class? Can you answer questions with questions?

According to astronomers, we can't see 85% of the mass in the universe. Even more interestingly, nobody knows what it's made of! In this class, we'll talk about why there is almost certainly dark matter (and why there might not be). I'll also talk about the efforts of the DMTPC (Dark Matter Time Projection Chamber) group in determining the nature of these elusive particles.

Cosmology is the field of science that attempts to answers some of humanity's deepest questions. What is our place in the universe? How did everything begin? Will it all end in fire or in ice, or never end at all? Come learn about some of the attempts we have made to answer these questions, as well as some bits about the big bang, the expanding universe, general relativity, dark matter, dark energy, and techniques of astronomy.

According to astronomers, we can't see 85% of the mass in the universe. Even more interestingly, nobody knows what it's made of! In this class, we'll talk about why there is almost certainly dark matter (and why there might not be). I'll also talk about the efforts of the DMTPC (Dark Matter Time Projection Chamber) group in determining the nature of these elusive particles.

Does F=ma seem unsatisfactory to you? Have you ever wondered if there were deeper principles governing the motion of objects? In this class, we start from the principle of least action to derive the Euler-Lagrange equations, F=ma, and conservation of energy, linear momentum, and angular momentum. We will end up with a powerful system to express classical mechanics that can be extended to describe the quantum and relativistic world.

According to astronomers, we can't see 85% of the mass in the universe. Even more interestingly, nobody knows what it's made of! In this class, we'll talk about why there is almost certainly dark matter (and why there might not be). I'll also talk about the efforts of the DMTPC (Dark Matter Time Projection Chamber) group in determining the nature of these elusive particles.

What if photosynthesis was actually a form of quantum computation? What if the flight paths of migratory birds depended on carefully maintained quantum decoherence? What if you could learn about all this and more at Splash? In this class, we'll explore many experiments that show how the weird world of quantum mechanics has interesting biological effects, then wrap up with some speculation on how consciousness may be the result of quantum effects.