Einstein for the Masses: Yale Presents a Primer on the Great Physicist’s Thinking

in Physics | June 24th, 2010

Who could­n’t use this? A basic intro­duc­tion to Ein­stein’s think­ing – one that assumes no pri­or knowl­edge, just an open mind. In one short hour, Rama­mur­ti Shankar (Pro­fes­sor of Physics & Applied Physics at Yale) breaks down Ein­stein’s the­o­ries and for­mu­las for a lay audi­ence. If this whets your appetite, then you’ll want to down­load Shankar’s free course called The Fun­da­men­tals of Physics. You can down­load it here (iTunes — YouTube — Web Site), or find it in the Physics sec­tion of our big col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mod­ern Physics: A Com­plete Intro­duc­tion

Bill Gates Puts Richard Feyn­man Lec­tures Online

Learn­ing Physics Through Free Cours­es

Soccer’s Lost Boys

in Current Affairs | June 18th, 2010

As the World Cup kicked off this week in South Africa, Cur­rent TV aired the lat­est episode of Van­guard called “Soccer’s Lost Boys.” It’s a sober­ing piece of inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism that digs into the dark side of the world’s most pop­u­lar game. Mov­ing from Ghana to Moroc­co to even­tu­al­ly Paris, Van­guard cor­re­spon­dent Mar­i­ana van Zeller details how preda­to­ry agents sell African teenagers on the hope of land­ing big con­tracts with elite Euro­pean teams. The next thing they know, the young play­ers find them­selves des­ti­tute and strand­ed in an unfa­mil­iar coun­try, some­times home­less and forced into pros­ti­tu­tion, and mean­while their fam­i­lies get fleeced of their life sav­ings. It’s a grim real­i­ty tak­ing place in the shad­ow of the sport’s show­case event. Run­time is 45 min­utes.

Thanks to Rob for send­ing this along. We have added Cur­rent to our list of Intel­li­gent Video Sites.

Heartless: The Story of the Tin Man

in Film, Literature | June 17th, 2010

In 1900, L. Frank Baum wrote The Won­der­ful Wiz­ard of Oz, which went on to become one of the most beloved chil­dren’s books of all time, reprint­ed and rein­vent­ed in a myr­i­ad stage plays, films, TV series, musi­cals and oth­er adap­ta­tions. But Baum’s orig­i­nal tale fea­tured a lit­tle-known back­sto­ry about the Tin Woods­man – a moral­i­ty tale about a man who gets so caught up in his work that he los­es sight of what real­ly mat­ters in life.

Direc­tor Bri­an McCormick decid­ed to cap­ture this poet­ic tale and the hid­den love sto­ry about a sim­ple woods­man and a beau­ti­ful maid­en in Heart­less: The Sto­ry of the Tin Man — an art­ful­ly shot short film, view­able for free online.

Addi­tion­al behind-the-scenes footage reveals the pro­duc­tion process and metic­u­lous crafts­man­ship of the film’s art direc­tion, sound design and cin­e­matog­ra­phy.

Maria Popo­va is the founder and edi­tor in chief of Brain Pick­ings, a curat­ed inven­to­ry of eclec­tic inter­est­ing­ness and indis­crim­i­nate curios­i­ty. She writes for Wired UK, GOOD Mag­a­zine, Big­Think and Huff­in­g­ton Post, and spends too much time curat­ing inter­est­ing­ness on Twit­ter.

Johnny Cash Remembered with 1,000+ Drawings

in Art, Music | June 17th, 2010

Give cred­it to The John­ny Cash Project. They took took hun­dreds of draw­ings, each done by a dif­fer­ent per­son, then stitched them togeth­er to pro­duce a video (above) that accom­pa­nies the title track of John­ny Cash’s last album, Ain’t No Grave. H/T to men­talfloss

Brontë Sisters Power Dolls

in Comedy, Literature | June 16th, 2010

On the lighter side…

On a more seri­ous note, if you want some free audio books by the Bron­të’s (includ­ing Wuther­ing Heights and Jane Eyre), sim­ply find them in our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books.

Thanks to @wesalwan for send­ing our way.

The Search For Hidden Dimensions

in Physics, Science, Video - Science | June 16th, 2010

An impor­tant Amer­i­can string the­o­rist, Bri­an Greene has­n’t shied away from bring­ing heady the­o­ret­i­cal physics to the broad­er pub­lic. His 1999 best­selling book, The Ele­gant Uni­verse, intro­duced string the­o­ry to non spe­cial­ists, and it was lat­er adapt­ed into a three hour, Emmy award-win­ning tele­vi­sion series by NOVA. (You can buy it on DVD, or sim­ply watch it online here.) Now, on RichardDawkins.Net, Greene hosts a short video that takes us into the spec­u­la­tive world of “hid­den dimen­sions.” If borne out, these the­o­ries could entire­ly reframe our under­stand­ing of the Big Bang and where our world fits into the larg­er cos­mos. You can find more videos along these lines on RichardDawkins.net, and also on his relat­ed YouTube Chan­nel (which hap­pens to appear in our col­lec­tion of Intel­li­gent YouTube Chan­nels).

What the Big Spill Means for Sea Life

in Current Affairs, Science | June 11th, 2010

The BP oil spill has tak­en us into some unchart­ed waters. We still don’t know how much oil is pour­ing into the ocean each day. (Here’s the lat­est esti­mate.) Nor do we know the exact toll this dis­as­ter will take on the ecosys­tem of the Gulf. We only know that things are mov­ing in a very dis­cour­ag­ing direc­tion. Above Dr. Lisa Sua­toni, a marine expert at the Nat­ur­al Resources Defense Coun­cil, answers some basic ques­tions: “Where is the oil?  What is it harm­ing?  What unique habi­tats and bio­log­i­cal diver­si­ty are at risk?” You can keep abreast of these issues at the NRD­C’s Dis­as­ter in the Gulf blog, and also help save Gulf Coast wildlife by mak­ing a dona­tion to the NRDC.

Michael Sandel: The Lost Art of Democratic Debate

in Philosophy, Politics | June 10th, 2010

If you think that civic dis­course & engage­ment still mat­ter, then Michael Sandel, the Har­vard philoso­pher, has a lit­tle some­thing for you: a refresh­er (pre­sent­ed at TED) that gets you back into the prac­tice of civic debate. Some of the top­ics cov­ered here dove­tail with themes cov­ered in Jus­tice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?, a huge­ly pop­u­lar Har­vard course that Sandel has now made freely avail­able online. You can find the course on YouTube, iTunes and Har­vard’s web site. It’s also list­ed in our big col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es. You’ll find it list­ed with oth­er free phi­los­o­phy cours­es.

Andrei Tarkovsky: Two Free Films & Some Polaroids Too

in Art, Film | June 10th, 2010

A quick fyi: Film Annex is now mak­ing avail­able two films by the great Sovi­et film­mak­er Andrei Tarkovsky: Stalk­er and Andrei Rublev (Part 1 and Part 2). You can also find them list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online. When not mak­ing movies, Tarkovsky snapped some polaroids too…

Smile or Die: The Perils of Positive Psychology

in Psychology | June 8th, 2010

Pos­i­tive psy­chol­o­gy is a dis­ci­pline tai­lor made for Amer­i­can cul­ture. Our cul­tur­al DNA inclines us towards opti­mism and pos­i­tive think­ing. These days we’ll even send pos­i­tive vibes your way, and what can be wrong with that? If you ask Bar­bara Ehren­re­ich, the author of the best­selling book Nick­el and Dimed, she’ll tell you what’s the prob­lem in 10 ani­mat­ed min­utes. Like the Philip Zim­bar­do video we fea­tured last week (The Secret Pow­ers of Time), this clip comes from the RSA YouTube Chan­nel, which we’ve now added to our col­lec­tion of Intel­li­gent YouTube chan­nels.

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