The Maroon Edition October events will conclude this week with a presentation from upper division economics students and a showing and discussion of questionable science in a popular science fiction movie, Armageddon. 
The Maroon Edition provides Mississippi State University students a common book to read before arriving on campus and a slew of related activities throughout the semester. This year students were asked to read “Physics for Future Presidents” by Richard A. Muller.
Tuesday’s event is called Economics for Future Presidents, which will be a hypothetical presidential debate put on by nine upper division economics students as part of a class project for their learning community on campus. A learning community is a university-sponsored project students can participate in designed to give them in-depth knowledge on a subject. They can involve diverse experiences that bring students together from different backgrounds to live together or get students to cooperate on a presentation.
Meghan Millea, MSU economics professor, is the faculty advisor for the group of nine students that will present.
Millea said her role is to keep them focused on the subject and double-check their facts and arguments.
“They run the scripts by me,” Millea said. “I am like their consultant.”
The students will begin the mock debate at 3:30 p.m. in the Fowlkes Auditorium in the Colvard Student Union. Presentations will cover mostly macro issues.
“This is not a principles class. These will be realistic macro issues that people should know, including future presidents,” Millea said. “They will be presenting to mostly lower division economics students, though everyone is invited to come.”
 
Millea said students will be using character adaptation.
“They have worked hard on this,” Millea said. “Each of the nine students has their own character that they have created and will be portraying. It is more than just the two presidential candidates.They have their own staff and support characters. It will be fun.” 
Thursday there will be a showing of what promotional material for the event calls “arguably the science fiction movie with the worst science.” They will screen science fiction movies or clips and host a short panel discussion about the bad science after the movie. The movie starts at 6:30 p.m. in the Taylor Auditorium in McCool Hall.
One of the panelists, Josh Winter, said, “We will discuss the science content or the lack there of in these movies. It will be a lot of fun. We don’t want to ruin the enjoyment of these movies, we just want viewers to be more educated on the science involved when watching science fiction movies.”
These will conclude the Maroon Edition events for October, but there are many more events planned to extend through the school year, including a chance to hear Muller speak on the concepts laid out in his book and an essay competition in the spring.
“I have enormous pride in this book,” Mullen said. “Physics is the liberal arts of high technology.”
Muller’s course on the subject was voted best course on campus at Berkeley the two years he has taught it. The course focused on making the concepts of physics available to any student, not just those studying physics and engineering. He says physics is not just math, and when you get students to understand that they are less intimidated and can understand it better.
“Anytime you study something with a technical component it can be related to physics, oil, energy, climate change,” Muller said. “And I wanted more than just the physics students to understand it, the future presidents so to speak. I am very happy to hear it was adopted for freshman reading.”
Muller will speak on Nov. 14 in the Foster Ballroom in the Colvard Student Union at 6:30 p.m.