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Ashoka University’s undergraduate course curriculum is taught across three semesters: Spring, Summer and Monsoon (Fall). Courses are broadly divided into three categories – Foundation Courses (core curriculum), Major & Minor Courses and Co-Curricular Courses.
You may search courses offered at Ashoka here. Please use the drop down menu to choose the specific semester and subject to see the full list of courses under each department. Foundation courses are offered in all semesters and do not have prerequisites. Offerings in other categories differ in each semester. Some higher level major/minor courses may have prerequisites.
To view Summer Semester Courses-2024: Click here
This course discusses how we evolved the concept of age and time- age of the earth and of the solar system, time in relativity (and arrow of time, entropy), time in biological systems (biological clocks) etc. Through this course we would be like to bring to the students, our current understanding about the scale and age of the Universe, and how this knowledge has evolved; How biological systems including human body maintain temporal patterns; impact of climate change and ecological damage on biological time and the evolution of survival strategies that require understanding of past, present and future.
The course will start with a general introduction and historical perspective to the concept of time in our day-to-day life and in physics and in biology. We shall discuss the history of measurement of time and invention of clocks. Without involving much mathematics, the course will help students derive relationship between speed of light and time, space-time continuum, age of the universe, stars, earth etc. We would then follow concept of time in biology in the context of birth-growth-ageing-death. Seasonal variations in morphological and life-history traits as measurement of time, mechanism of timekeeping - biological clocks, circadian rhythms. We will also discuss the evolutionary time and the important concepts pertaining to our understanding of this such as generation time of different living beings. The course ends with discussions on human cognition and the concept of time: conceptual understanding of past, present and future.
The course is taught through lectures, discussions, flip-the-classroom mode (students making presentations on various related topics), reading books/watching movies and assignments.
