Undergraduate Courses

Undergraduate Courses

25.130 Introduction to Nano-Engineering. Nanotechnology and nanoengineering involves working at the atomic, molecular, and supramolecular levels (i.e., lengths of about 1 to 100 nm) to understand, create, and use materials, devices, and systems with fundamentally new properties and functions because of their small structure. Discoveries in nanotechnology could change the future, but may have unintended societal implications. "Introduction to NanoEngineering" is a course that has been designed to help you understand the science, technology, and issues associated with nanotechnology. Since the nanotechnology revolution is about changing materials at the atomic and molecular level to produce new products, this course focuses on introducing the nanoscale, measurement at the nanoscale; nanomaterials; nanodevices, specifically nanoelectronics; nanomanufacturing; and the societal impact of nanotechnology.
Level: introductory/non-technical
Instructors: varies

Offerings: fall 2007 and spring 2008

42.465 Nanoscience and Literature. Beginning in the mid-1980's, when nanoscience pioneer K. Eric Drexler and others were vigorously starting to popularize the technological possibilities of nanoscience and molecular engineering, fiction writers began imagining possible future nanoscientific scenarios and grappling with the potential social and moral consequences of developments in nanoscience. This is a rapidly growing genre or subgenre of science fiction. The purpose of this course is to: 1) offer students the opportunity to explore a representative survey of literary responses to, reflections on, and representations of nanoscience, 2) allow students to consider these responses, reflections, and representations in the context of relations between the two cultures of scientific and humanistic inquiry that developed during the nineteenth century and that was described by the British physicist and novelist C. P. Snow in the late 1950's, and 3) provide an occasion for students to consider literary engagements with nanoscience in the context of emergent and ongoing efforts within higher education to bridge the two cultures through an array of inter-, multi-, and transdisciplinary undertakings.

Level: elective for upper-level undergraduate students
Instructor: Todd Avery, English Department, UML

Offerings: spring 2008

Senior electives. Listed with Graduate Certificate in Nanotechnology