With an eye toward the year 3000, students will consider what it currently means to be “state of the art” in the fields of mathematics and science in order to imagine the evolution of these fields over the next 981 years. Students will engage the traditional skills of the scientific method (including observation, experimentation, reasoning, interpretation, and modeling) to understand how their application creates or forecloses the “state of the art” in a variety of fields. These considerations will necessarily involve grappling with the longstanding historical relationships among mathematics, science, art, and technology, as well as the variety of human and non-human communities implicated and impacted by these material practices. From our unique proximity Silicon Valley, we will explore today’s “state of the art” in computer science, biology, and physics, then bring to bear creative, critical perspectives from the fields of contemporary art and feminist/postcolonial science and technology studies. Topics may include integrated circuits, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, cryptocurrency, global climate change, genetic engineering, gerontology, particle physics, aerospace and astrophysics. In order to customize and integrate their scientific learning, students will formulate their own driving questions, conduct research, then prepare and present a research-inspired creative project that addresses the question: Where is the state of the art taking us?

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