Newton, Copernicus, Galileo, Bohr and many other great scientists appear on paper currencies from around the world. Note that you can click on each image to see it in a higher resolution.
via @olfus
The 2:30 A.M. Nobel Prize Call
Apparently, the Swedes call when they know you’ll be home. Worth a listen.
Richard Dawkins on the Awe of Life & Science
Here’s some vintage Richard Dawkins. Back in 1991, the Oxford University biologist presented a series of lectures for the Royal Institution. In the very first lecture (presented above), Dawkins forces his audience to confront some big questions. (What’s the origin of life? Where do we fall in the scheme of life on planet Earth? What’s our role in the larger universe? etc.) And he reminds us that we’re extremely privileged to have the brains and tools (namely, reason and science) to make sense of the awesome wonders that surround us. We’ve evolved and grown up, he says. We don’t need superstition and the supernatural to explain it all. We just need ourselves and our faith in science and its methods. It’s classic Dawkins.
The 55-minute talk is now added to our YouTube favorites, and we’ve also added Dawkins’ YouTube Channel to our collection of Intelligent YouTube Channels.
The Stanford Mini Med School: A Free Course Now Online
Image by King of Hearts, via Wikimedia Commons
Starting this past fall, Stanford’s School of Medicine and Stanford Continuing Studies (my day job) teamed up to offer The Stanford Mini Med School. Featuring more than thirty distinguished faculty, scientists, and physicians, this yearlong series of courses (three in total) offers students a dynamic introduction to the world of human biology, health and disease, and the groundbreaking changes taking place in medical research and health care. 250 lifelong learners (like yourself) attended the first course on Stanford’s campus this fall. And you can now access it on iTunes. We’ve posted the first two lectures (in video), and eight more lectures will soon be coming online. (Update: You can now find the videos on YouTube too.) Below, I’ve added the course description for the fall course, and you can also find it listed in the Biology Section of our ever-growing collection of Free Online Courses. When the winter and spring courses arrive, I’ll be sure to give you a heads up.
This Fall, the Stanford Mini Med School will get started with a journey inside human biology. We will start by familiarizing ourselves with the world of very small things. We will take a close look at DNA, stem cells, and microbes, and see how these and other small players form the building blocks of the human body. This will allow us to understand how human organs develop (and can also regenerate), how our nervous and immune systems work, and how diseases can afflict us. From there, the course will move beyond the individual and take a more global view of health. How do pandemics take shape? How does the environment affect our collective health? And how can we finally implement a healthcare system that makes sense for our nation? Various experts from the Stanford School of Medicine will address these and other big picture questions during the first course in the Stanford Mini Med School.
For a description of the current Mini Med School course (which we will eventually post online) please
The Neurons That Shaped Civilization
TED recently took its show to India, and one of the more interesting presentations featured neuroscientist Vilayanur Ramachandran (UCSD) explaining how mirror neurons, a recently discovered system in the brain, “allow us to learn complex social behaviors, some of which formed the foundations of human civilization,” and also helped us evolve as a species. Good stuff. You can find more TED India Talks here.
A.C. Grayling on “Teaching the Controversy”
In this clip from Richard Dawkins’ YouTube Channel, philosopher A.C. Grayling offers an argument for why intelligent design should’t be taught alongside evolution in the classroom. Some will agree with his position, and some won’t. And probably few will have no opinion. If you have reactions to Grayling’s argument, please state them civilly and intelligently in the comments below.
via @courosa
How is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?
Every year, The Edge.org poses a thought-provoking question to 150+ engaging thinkers, and the answers never disappoint. This year, they throw out the question: How is the Internet Changing the Way You Think? In this collection, you will find answers by George Dyson, Clay Shirky, Tim O’Reilly, Marissa Mayer, Richard Dawkins and many more. Below, I’ve included an excerpt from Nassim Taleb (author of The Black Swan), who has a less sanguine outlook on how the internet is changing our world. He writes:
I used to think that the problem of information is that it turns homo sapiensinto fools — we gain disproportionately in confidence, particularly in domains where information is wrapped in a high degree of noise (say, epidemiology, genetics, economics, etc.). So we end up thinking that we know more than we do, which, in economic life, causes foolish risk taking. When I started trading, I went on a news diet and I saw things with more clarity. I also saw how people built too many theories based on sterile news, the fooled by randomness effect. But things are a lot worse. Now I think that, in addition, the supply and spread of information turns the world into Extremistan (a world I describe as one in which random variables are dominated by extremes, with Black Swans playing a large role in them). The Internet, by spreading information, causes an increase in interdependence, the exacerbation of fads (bestsellers like Harry Potter and runs on the banks become planetary). Such world is more “complex”, more moody, much less predictable.
So consider the explosive situation: more information (particularly thanks to the Internet) causes more confidence and illusions of knowledge while degrading predictability.
You can find Taleb’s full answer here, and the entire collection of thoughts here. If you want to tell us how the internet has changed the world for you, please add your thoughts to the comments section below.
Modern Physics: A Free 6‑Course Introduction by Stanford’s Leonard Susskind
For the past two years, Stanford has been rolling out a series of courses (collectively called Modern Physics: The Theoretical Minimum) that gives you a baseline knowledge for thinking intelligently about modern physics. The sequence, which moves from Isaac Newton, to Albert Einstein’s work on the general and special theories of relativity, to black holes and string theory, comes out of Stanford’s Continuing Studies program. And the courses are all taught by Leonard Susskind, an important physicist who has engaged in a long running “Black Hole War” with Stephen Hawking. The final course, Statistical Mechanics, has now been posted on YouTube. The rest of the courses can be accessed immediately below. (The courses also appear in our list of Free Online Physics Courses, a subset of our collection, 1,700 Free Online Courses from Top Universities.) Six courses. Roughly 120 hours of content. A comprehensive tour of modern physics. All in video. All free. Beat that.
Modern Physics: The Theoretical Minimum
- Classical Mechanics — YouTube
- Quantum Mechanics — YouTube
- Special Relativity — YouTube
- Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity — YouTube
- Cosmology — YouTube
- Statistical Mechanics — YouTube
Related Content:
What Made Richard Feynman One of the Most Admired Educators in the World
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