Principles of Science

Code: FC-0801-1 | Semester: Monsoon 2025

This foundation course will engage in discussions synthesizing three relevant dimensions of the Science-Visual art symbiosis, viz. a) how artistic endeavours for recording observations have enriched the scientific pursuit and shaped the epistemic landscape (for example, how sketches by anatomists, astronomers and naturalists enriched contemporaneous understanding about the natural world), b) how artistic imaginations have contributed to scientific contemplations and vice versa (from Leonardo to Heath Robinson’s caricatures), c) how aesthetics, in terms of morphogenesis and organismal behaviour as well as cognitive inclinations to art, emerged in the course of evolution (mate selection in the animal world and the neuroscience of visual aesthetics in humans).

Code: FC-0801-2 | Semester: Monsoon 2025
Faculty: Gautam Basu; Kasturi Mitra
Almost all High School graduates have studied science in school. However, invariably the science they studied mostly were about the products of science and not the process behind the product (discoveries or inventions), disconnected with the person(s) responsible for the discovery or the invention or the role of the society and funding. The aim of this course is to make students aware about how science is done. This will include how discoveries or inventions are made, how society, including the media or the state, responds, how prizes are awarded (or not awarded) for discoveries, how the nature of science has changed from being the pursuit of isolated individuals to Big Science, where a large number of people collaborate worldwide, and how science can be used to understand global issues like epidemics, climate change or the large scale environmental pollution, all immediate concerns for humanity at large.

This will be accomplished through lectures, readings, discussions, student seminars on self-assigned topics and/or assigned by the instructors, interviewing scientists at Ashoka University after reading some of their select publications in primary journals, and by enacting a play (Oxygen by Carl Djerassi and Roald Hoffmann).

Code: FC-0801-3 | Semester: Monsoon 2025
This course concerns the nature of Time and the important role it plays in our lives. It introduces the concept of age and time in the context of Physics and Astronomy- how Time is measured, its connection with Space, and why it moves in one direction, as well as the way Time is perceived in biological systems. 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; the impact of climate change and ecological damage on biological time and the evolution of survival strategies that require the 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 writing assignments.

Code: FC-0801-4 | Semester: Monsoon 2025

This course throws a light on the principles of science and central role of chemistry in science. Historically, chemistry has been focusing on the variation of matter, their properties and how these matters can undergo interesting chemical transformations. The intriguing chemical and physical properties of these matters attract the attention of scientific community. Chemistry has been the building block of matters, small to large. Materials at different length scales will be addressed and how different pedagogies can explain matter at varying length scales

Therefore, in this course, we will discuss about principles of science involved in the deeper understanding of matters (from quantum dots to supramolecular arrangements) at different length scales.

Focus will be on concepts and units of lengths, change of paradigm and pedagogy as small molecules become larger molecules, polymers, biomolecules, transition from quantum mechanics to classical mechanics at a pedagogical level. General principles of thermodynamics and kinetics will be highlighted as basic principles of science.

At a chemical length scale, periodic table of elements, their electronic structure and properties, introduction to organic chemistry as a great utility in science from building blocks of life to renewable energy, healthcare, medicines, and materials with value-addition in society will be discussed to understand logic of chemical reactivity.

Code: FC-0801-5 | Semester: Monsoon 2025

The Planet Earth: Its status in the Universe, potential threats and the ultimate fate

A formidable combination of astronomical and geological conditions has made it possible for the Earth to harbour life on it. But there are many catastrophic events in the space that may destroy life, even the planet which in the vast cosmic arena appears as a mote of dust suspended in a beam of sunlight and floating in the vast emptiness of space. Search for extra-terrestrial life has taught us an important lesson that our world, mother Earth is an extremely rare place in our galaxy and possibly the only planet that has the required astrophysical and geological conditions for harbouring life. Even if there are other planets similar to the Earth wherein life may exist, the number of such planets in the vast galaxy is extremely small and so we are alone at least within a radius of few hundreds of light years. This course will unfold the fact that our home, the planet Earth is so special yet so vulnerable, so crowded yet so lonely, so common yet so unique, so insignificant yet so great!

The following topics will be covered in the whole course: 

(i)    Our address in the Universe, the hierarchy in the structure of the visible Universe – super clusters of galaxies, clusters of galaxies, galaxies, the Milky Way Galaxy, stars: the building blocks of galaxies, The Sun and the Solar System.

(ii)   Birth of the Sun and its planets including the Earth. A brief history of the solar planets

(iii)  We are made of star dust – the origin of heavy elements including carbon the building block of organic molecules.

(iv)   Life is a puzzle: Definition of life- its main functions: Metabolism, replication and evolution by natural selection.  Origin of life on the Earth.

(v)   Evolution of life in a changing Earth – the first, second and the third atmosphere of the Earth, formation of the Oceans, Continents and forest. The ecological system.

(vi)  The potential threats to the Earth – Astronomical, Geological and Man-made threats. Extinction of life in the past.

(vii) The natural protection for life – The extremely rare combination of astronomical and geological coincidences that has enabled life on the Earth to survive and evolve.

(viii)  Are we alone? Search for extra-terrestrial biosignature and techno-signature.

(ix)    The evolution of the Sun – from a faint young star to a red giant and a changing environment of the Earth – from habitable to uninhabitable planet.

(x)     The death of the Sun and the fate of its planets.