Essays for Class Use

I wrote these essays to provide some extra material for some of the course topics.

"It All Started With Aristotle" Both the words "physics" and "metaphysics" come from Aristotle. Here is an introduction to the most influential scientist of our tradition.

"Quantum Mechanics" Quantum mechanics challenges our notions of reality and forces us to think about the "real world" in more philosophical terms. This essay discusses some of the famous paradoxes.

"Theories of Everything" Is it possible to have a theory that (even in principle) explains everything? Many physicists think we may be converging on such a theory.  What are the implications?

"Why Does Math Work?" Why does it work anyway? This is the text of a talk presented to the Society for Reason and Logic last year.