This is a three-credit course. According to the formula 1 credit-hour = 3 hours of work, you should be spending about 9 hours a week on work related to this course. If you are consistently having to spend more time than this on it, please let me know.

The course consists of three lectures and a tutorial every week. The text of each lecture can be found, usually with additional detail, in the second edition of the course text, "The Betterment of the Human Condition". Copies of the Powerpoints used in each lecture will be made available, shortly before each lecture is given, at this website. However, it may be difficult to follow the thread of the lecture just by looking at the Powerpoints.

Your assigned work for the course comprises 4 components:

Grading Scheme

  1. Research Paper: Counts for 40% of final grade.
  2. Project: Counts for 20% of final grade.
  3. Tutorial Participation: 10% of final grade
  4. In-class quizzes (three of them): Count for 30% of final grade.

There is no final exam.

Independent Research

The lecture part of the course covers a variety of topics, but does not treat any of them in depth. Moreover, some of the material presented in lectures may be deliberately or accidentally biased, misleading or false. 40% of your final grade for the course will be based on your independent research into one of these topics, the results of your research being presented as a report of about 2,000 words in length (depending on your line spacing and font size, this comes out to between 4 and 7 pages.)

We can distinguish between factual reports and persuasive reports. A factual report limits itself to presenting what is known about a topic, supporting its assertions with references to published work. An example might be ``A History of the Transistor''. For almost any topic, you will probably be able to find some published work that contradicts other sources -- the fact that you've seen something in writing isn't enough to establish its truth. So even in a factual paper, you have to exercise your personal judgement in deciding the relative credibility of different sources.

A persuasive report goes beyond the facts to present a particular point of view. One example would be ``Genetic Engineering Should be Banned''. This kind of report should also contain facts, but to establish your conclusion, you will have to use persuasive argument as well.

From my point of view, persuasive papers are more fun to read, whether or not I agree with them. So I will require your paper to be of this type.

A helpful resource for composing an essay is the Bibliography at the end of the course textbook. Note that you are not expected to read everything in the Bibliography, but it provides a lot of material that you could use as a basis for an essay. The items in the Bibliography should be seen as starting points for independent research, not as offering a complete and objective coverage of a topic.

Your research reports will be graded according to the following criteria:

In recent years, an increasing fraction of the references in papers refer to Web-based material. You are encouraged to use the Web as a resource, but you should bear in mind that materials found on the Web are of very variable quality. Whatever source you use for your information, you should be prepared to answer the question, ``What grounds do you have for believing this is true?'' (``I read it on the Web.'' is not a completely satisfactory answer.)

A Few Suggestions

You are encouraged to select your own topic for independent research, and to discuss it with your tutor in advance. This link, to a resource at SFU's Philosophy department, gives some excellent advice on persuasive writing: How to Write a Persuasive Essay

Participation in Tutorials

The class is divided into tutorial groups, and each group is assigned a TA as a tutor. The purpose of these groups is for you to discuss any ideas presented in lectures, or arising from your independent research, and also to work on the group Project (see below). The tutor may also assign reading or other work. 10% of your final grade will be based on your tutor's assessment of your participation in the tutorials. This assessment will be based on the following criteria:

Project

Each tutorial group will select a project to be completed by the penultimate week of the semester. This project is to be completed by the group as a whole, with some guidance from the tutor. The results of the project will be presented as a `poster session' on Tuesday December 4. A couple of weeks before that, the group will give a ten-minute oral presentation on what the project is and how it's progressing. I would also like some kind of written or electronic record of the project; the purpose of this record is just to help me remember what I saw in the poster presentation, so you shouldn't put too much effort into it -- a hard copy of your poster materials would be adequate. You can build a website to accompany the project if you like, though you don't get extra credit for this. The work should be shared equitably among the members of the group, and each member of the group should be prepared to report on the project and defend its conclusions. This project will constitute the remaining 20% of the grade for the course.

The group can make up its own project, or choose one from the list below. If you choose your own project, it should be something that your group has a reasonable chance of completing in a semester. You should have a project proposal ready to defend by October 1. This proposal should state clearly what your project will achieve, and give quantitative criteria by which its success can be judged. For example, ``Design a spaceship'' is not an acceptable proposal; ``Design a spaceship which can carry a one-ton payload and two crew members from the Earth's surface directly to low earth orbit, at a capital cost of not more than $500,000 and a per-trip cost of less than $50,000.'' is an improvement.

A good general rule in deciding on a project is, ``When we've finished, how can we tell if we've succeeded or failed?'' If there's no way to tell if you've succeeded or failed, then you probably didn't choose the right project. For example, ``Let's collect some facts about solar energy'' is not a proposal that can succeed or fail; ``Can we power and heat a house in North Burnaby, using only solar power, more cheaply than we can power and heat it using electrical power from BC Hydro?'' is an acceptable proposal, because it asks a sharply defined question, to which you'll come up with an answer that's either right or wrong.

Here is a list of some possible projects, though you may wish to suggest your own.

Projects

General preamble: Your group has been assigned the project described below. You have approximately three months to develop a solution to the given problem, or to show why no solution is possible. It is not expected that you will be able to specify all the details of the solution, but you should indicate what further work would be needed to determine these details. Where significant uncertainties exist, you should describe them, and suggest means for resolving them.

Your presentation of the solution should show that you have considered alternatives, and justify your choice of one alternative over the others.

Projects for Engineers without Borders

Chaos

Locate or develop a simple physical system that displays chaotic behaviour. (For the purposes of this project, software running on a computer does not qualify as a simple physical system.) If possible, demonstrate that varying a system parameter can change the system's behaviour from orderly to chaotic. How can you tell that the behaviour is chaotic rather than random?

Perpetual Motion

Your group has been hired by a newly formed company. The company is selling stock on the VSE, based on their claim to have developed a source of perpetual motion. You are required to develop a demonstration which will convince sceptical investors that perpetual motion is indeed possible. A suitable demonstration would show energy being consumed with no obvious source of power -- for example, an eternally lit bulb inside a hermetically sealed glass case. A mobile demonstration would be best, but a stationary one would be acceptable. The demonstration should be visually appealing and should survive examination by all but the most sophisticated audience.

Strange Plastic Objects

I have two small plastic objects with peculiar mechanical properties. Explain their behaviour, if possible. Build another one, twice as big, that has the same properties.

World Science Council

In the near future, a world government is set up. The government creates a body, the World Science Council, whose task it is to monitor new scientific and technological ideas, and to prevent or control the development of technologies whose consequences would be undesirable.

There are two possible projects here, and it might be interesting to split the group and let different members pursue each project. The first project would be to develop guidelines that the Science Council could use to make and enforce its judgements, based on historical developments. The second project would be to formulate a case for the abolition of the World Science Council, on the grounds that science and technology should be allowed to develop freely.

The group(s) choosing this project will be presented with three (or more) examples of new technologies during the semester, and asked to make the case either for controlling the technology, or for allowing it to develop freely.

Example: A major chemical company has produced a pill. The pill comes in two colours, pink and blue. By taking a pill of the appropriate colour, a woman can fix the gender of her next child -- pink for a girl, blue for a boy. What are the probable consequences of this technology becoming widely available? Should the company be allowed to market the technology?

Turing Test

Write a program that can pass the Turing test. If this is too difficult, can you restrict the scope of the Turing test to make it easier, while still being interesting?

Other Projects

You are encouraged to suggest additional projects. Some guidelines and pitfalls:

Quizzes

The quizzes consist of multiple choice questions, divided into two sections of 24 and of 16 questions. The first section, `Ephemera', will consist of general questions about what you've read in the text up to that point. You're not expected to memorise the text, so you can get full marks on this section by answering 16 or more questions (out of 24) correctly. These questions will be similar in difficulty to those listed on the mock exam papers: Mock Exam 1 and Mock Exam 2 To see the recommended answers to the mock exam, go to Mock Exam 1 Answers and Mock Exam 2 Answers

The second section of each exam, `Essentials', will consist of multiple-choice questions about key topics in the text. A `key topic' is something that you need to know, either because it'll be useful in subsequent courses or because it's important in its own right. Examples would include the lectures on thermodynamics, AI and information theory. In this section, you need to get all the questions right in order to get full marks.

Textbook

The textbook for this course is `The Betterment of the Human Condition', 2nd edition, available from the bookstore. Unscrupulous students from previous offerings of this course may attempt to sell you the First Edition, but this is not a satisfactory substitute -- the cover art is much uglier, there are more typos and errors of fact, and a lot of important material is missing, particularly from the sections on Communications and AI. The Second Edition has a proper index and a lengthy Bibliography, which you can use to get useful source material for your essays.