Grand Challenge Problem

The focal event of each semester is the solving of a Grand Challenge problem. This is a physics problem with no textbook solution. Rather, you will draw upon your own creativity, informed by the principles of physics that you are learning in PHYS 130X, to address the question in as detailed a manner as possible. You will be assessed on: This is not purely a storytelling process; rather, you will engage in a mathematical and physical exercise where the math speaks, and you will describe what it says. The Grand Challenge process and solution will build gradually over the semester, woven into the fabric of the Honors Introductory Physics course. The Grand Challenge will be a team exercise. You will be assembled into teams at the beginning of the semester. Your team will be expected to meet at least once per week outside of class to discuss the Grand Challenge and, in particular, how what you have learned that week might be used to explore a consequence of the theme of the Grand Challenge. Your team will report the status of your work (each individual presenting a brief, 5-minute overview of their status) at the Honors Collaboration Meetings - periods of in-class time (see schedule) devoted entirely to a public airing of progress. Members of other teams are free to ask questions and offer suggestions or criticism of presented work. This entire exercise is to model how real, collaborative, scientific work, as well as peer review, operates in the real world.

This semester, the Grand Challenge problem will be to apply your knowledge of physics to claims of paranormal or supernatural purported phenomena. Examples include, but are not limited to: Vitamin dosing via bluetooth; N95 masks and oxygen levels; 5G causing Covid-19; Flat-earthism; alien visits to Earth; loss of craft in the Bermuda Triangle; dowsing for water, precious metals, or explosives; ESP; telekinesis; free-energy devices (perpetutal motion machines); Roger Shawyer's reactionless EmDrive (which violates Conservation of Linear Momentum); Andrea Rossi's E-Cat cold fusion reactor; and alternative medicine (like homeopathy). An early lecture in the course will give you a template for analysis using homeopathy as the example.

The idea is to find a claim that someone has made (you can not make the claim yourself - that is a strawman fallacy) and debunk it using the tools of science in general and physics in particular. Some claims will fall outside the purview of this course; for example, the claim that angels and demons exist. There is no way to gather evidence either to support or to refute that claim. Other claims can be debunked, but not mainly by physics. Part of the challenge is choosing a topic wisely.

SMU's KNW2333 course: The Scientific Method - Critical and Creative Thinking (Debunking Pseudoscience) is a great place to start your investigation.