It’s 1940. The film is The Great Dictator, Charlie Chaplin’s famous satire of Nazi Germany. In this celebrated scene, Chaplin dances with a large globe with Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin Overture playing in the background.
Physics for Future Presidents: Buy the Book, or Watch the Free Online Course
Richard Muller teaches one of the most popular undergraduate courses at UC Berkeley: Physics for Future Presidents. You can watch it on YouTube (above). And now you can buy Muller’s new book. Just published by W.W. Norton, Physics for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines gives citizens the scientific knowledge they need to understand critical issues facing our society — is “Iran’s nascent nuclear capability … a genuine threat to the West,” are there “viable alternatives to fossil fuels that should be nurtured and supported by the government,” and should “nuclear power should be encouraged”? These issues (and more) get tackled here. For more info on the book, you can listen to a good interview conducted this morning (mp3) here in San Francisco.
Muller’s course, Physics for Future Presidents, has been added to our collection of Free Online Physics Courses, a subset of our collection, 1,700 Free Online Courses from Top Universities.
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Understanding Modern Physics: Download Leonard Susskind Video Lectures
What’s the “theoretical minimum” for thinking intelligently about modern physics? Here’s your chance to find out. Below, you will find three courses (the first of eventually six) presented by Leonard Susskind, a Stanford physicist who helped conceptualize string theory and has waged a long-running “Black Hole War” with Stephen Hawking (see his new book on that subject here). Freely available on iTunes and YouTube (see below), these video lectures trace the beginnings of modern theoretical physics, taking you from Isaac Newton (or Newtonian Mechanics) to Albert Einstein’s work on the general and special theories of relativity. Notably, these courses were originally presented within Stanford’s Continuing Studies program, which means that the content was pitched to an audience much like you — that is, smart people who don’t necessarily have an extensive knowledge of physics. Watch the video below — the first lecture that kicks off the series of courses — and you will see what I mean.
Finally, in case you’re wondering, the next three courses (covering quantum mechanics, electromagnetism, cosmology, black holes, and more) will be presented this coming academic year and, once taped, we will give you a heads up. Sign up for our RSS Feed and you will be sure to get an update. Also see our collection of Free Online Courses for many more courses along these lines.
Modern Physics: The Theoretical Minimum
- Classical Mechanics (Fall 2007) iTunes YouTube
- Quantum Mechanics (Winter 2008) iTunes YouTube
- Special Relativity (Spring 2008) iTunes YouTube
- Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity (Fall 2009) iTunes YouTube
- Cosmology iTunes — YouTube
- Statistical Mechanics iTunes YouTube
Bonus Material
In 2006–2007, Susskind taped a separate series of lectures on Quantum Mechanics. You can download them as free video lectures as well:
When the Flintstones Peddled Cigarettes
What can you say about this? A quick trip back to the 1950s… File this under Random …
(For foreign readers, all you need to know is that The Flintstones was a classic American cartoon.)
Related Content:
Rewind the Videotape: Mike Wallace Interviews 1950s Celebrities
Watch Complete Documentary Films For Free (Featuring Super-Size Me)
Joerg, one of our readers, wrote us rather joyfully and declared: “Today I found the site of my dreams: Supposedly most of the greatest new documentaries can be watched online” and they’re “financed by ads.” The site is called SnagFilms, and indeed, it finds “the world‘s most compelling documentaries, whether from established heavyweights or first-time filmmakers, and mak[es] them available to the wide audience these titles deserve.” In exchange for making the films free, you do have to sit through some ads, but it is perhaps a small price to pay. Below we have posted Super Size Me, the 2004 documentary by Morgan Spurlock, which offers some startling commentary on the fast food industry. Other notable titles include the 2004 rock documentary Dig!, Under Our Skin, and Run Granny Run. You can see their full collection here.
NOTE: You can find this film in our collection of free online movies.
Related Content:
YouTube’s New Screening Room (Free Indie Films)
Neuroscience and the 2008 Election
How does modern neuroscience make sense of the current McCain-Obama race? Have a listen to Christopher Lydon’s fascinating conversation with George Lakoff, a professor of cognitive linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley (iTunes — MP3 — Feed — Web Site).
Lakoff is the author of the new book, The Political Mind: Why You Can’t Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain, and he’s essentially arguing here that the Democrats have traditionally framed their arguments with a cold rationalism .… and lost … while the Republicans have grounded theirs in a kind of emotionalism that squares with how the brain functions. But, with Obama, things are starting to change…
Radiohead: Making Videos Without Cameras (or Lights)
In Radiohead’s new video for “House of Cards”, no cameras or lights were used. Instead “3D plotting technologies collected information about the shapes and relative distances of objects.” And the video was made entirely with visualizations of that data. You can watch the video below and find out more about the making of the video here.
What Email Subscribers Missed Over the Past Week
I want to send a quick apology to our email subscribers. Long story short, we encountered some problems with our email subscription list over the past week (problems that we’re beyond our control). But things are working again, and I wanted to highlight some of the posts you may have missed. Sorry again. And here it goes:
- 70 Signs of Intelligent Life at YouTube
- 10 New iPhone Apps for the Thinking Person
- Download Paul Coelho’s Bestseller, “The Alchemist,” for Free on iTunes
- Stephen Colbert Reads Joyce’s Ulysses
- The African-American Freedom Struggle & Barack Obama’s American Dream (Free Stanford Course)
- The First Unintended Horror Film (1895)?
- Online Courses in the Age of High Gas Prices
- Architecture in Motion
- Will Google Kill Science?
- Seymour Hersh Reveals Covert Operations In Iran
- E=mc²: Einstein Explains His Famous Formula
- Animated Version of Howard Zinn’s History of the American Empire
- Craphound: Download Cory Doctorow’s Short Story via Free MP3 (and other Goodies)
School of Life: An Award-Winning Short Indie Film
Now featured in The YouTube Screening Room: Jake Polonsky’s School of Life. “The film may be set in an elementary school, but it tells a poignantly ironic story that any adult will relate to. School of Life won the 2004 British Independent Film Award for Best Short.” A higher quality version can be watched here. But make sure you have a high speed connection.
The African-American Freedom Struggle & Barack Obama’s American Dream (Free Stanford Course)
How about a blog post that doesn’t deal with the controversy surrounding The New Yorker’s clumsy attempt at satirizing Barack and Michelle Obama .… ? (Update: See the imagined, right-wing satirical cartoon of John McCain.)
When Stanford launched its new YouTube channel several weeks ago, it debuted with a complete series of lectures from an undergraduate course called “African-American History: Modern Freedom Struggle.” Taught by Clayborne Carson, a prominent history professor who has edited and published the papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., the course overviews the struggle for liberty and complete equality, moving from W.E.B. Du Bois (early 20th century), to MLK and Malcolm X, down to Barack Obama today. The lecture below, entitled “Barack Obama’s American Dream,” situates Obama within the larger sweep of African-American history. It’s rather conversational in style, and it does a good job of getting into Obama’s personal biography. The complete lectures can be watched in their entirety on YouTube here, or downloaded in video via iTunes. And be sure to see our larger collection of 250 Free Online Courses from Leading Universities, where you will also find this course.
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