Course Details

Course offered Autumn 2020

HONORS 396 A/HONORS 397 B: The History, Sociology, and Science of Weapons of Mass Destruction: How Nuclear Weapons Became an Existential Peril (SSc / NSc)

HONORS 396 A/HONORS 397 B: The History, Sociology, and Science of Weapons of Mass Destruction: How Nuclear Weapons Became an Existential Peril (SSc / NSc)

SLN 23140 (View UW registration info »)

Richard Freeman (Physics)
Email: rrfree@uw.edu

Credits: 3
Limit: 18 students

Credit Type

Note: this is a 3 credit course so will only count towards UW general education requirements, not Honors core curriculum.

Note: This course is available for either NW or I&S credit. If you would like to earn NW credit, enroll in HONORS 396 A (23140). If you would like to earn I&S credit, enroll in HONORS 397 B (23758).

There are now generations of young (and youngish) people who have no memory of the once all-consuming societal terror of an Armageddon from a nuclear weapons exchange with the then Soviet Union. Yet the threat to our existence remains as real today as at its peak in the late twentieth century. Nuclear weapons, if used on the Korean Peninsula, the Indian subcontinent, or in the Western Pacific, in addition to creating nearly unimaginable death and human misery for millions, have a very real prospect of drawing the US into an all out attack/response scenario with Russia and/or China, escalating the disaster to quite literally billions of people.

This course will actually teach the basic physics of nuclear weapon design, (algebra level math), study the effects of nuclear weapons (drawn from US archives of our 30 year testing of nuclear weapons), view many of the legendary films of the 1970-80s (e.g. Fail Safe, Dr. Stangelove), debate the only events in which nuclear weapons were used in anger (Hiroshima/Nagasaki ), understand the promises and failings of nuclear energy, and through research and class discussion, show that the Cold War was all about nuclear weapons, and how the cold war begat our present day terrorism.
Grades will be assigned on class presentations, assigned essays, and a term paper.