A new course this quarter, “Gateways to Emergence in Science and Society: Toward a Science of Sustainability,” comes with a lecture series featuring distinguished speakers.

Next up is Peter Littlewood of the Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago, speaking on “The Physics (and Chemistry and Materials Science) of Sustainability.”

Littlewood’s talk is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Thursday (Jan. 26) in 66 Roessler Hall.

David Pines, distinguished professor of physics, and Alexandra Navrotsky, distinguished interdisciplinary professor of ceramic, earth and environmental chemistry, organized the course and are teaching it.

“This new course is an experiment, stressing interdisciplinary and integrative learning at the upper undergraduate and graduate level,” reads the course website. It lists several aspects to the experiment, including the topic of emergence as a unifying principle bringing together students in different sciences, and an emphasis on emergent global problems and the science needed to assure clean, secure and sustainable energy and food supplies to power and stabilize the world.

More information about the course and speaker series is available online.