Catalog Search Results
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 17
Language
English
Description
Start a new section in which you apply Newtonian mechanics to more complex motions. In this episode, study oscillations, a universal phenomenon in systems displaced from equilibrium. A special case is simple harmonic motion, exhibited by springs, pendulums, and even molecules.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 2
Language
English
Description
Darwin believed that musical behavior arose because it gave our early ancestors a biological advantage. But what advantage? Investigate Darwin's theory and other adaptationist explanations for the evolution of music. Then look at two alternatives: invention theories and gene-culture co-evolution theories.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 11
Language
English
Description
See how the precise definition of work leads to the concept of energy. Then explore how some forces give back the work done against them. These conservative forces lead to the concept of stored potential energy, which can be converted to kinetic energy. From here, develop the important idea of conservation of energy.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 3
Language
English
Description
Investigate the latest anthropological and scientific understanding behind a pervasive part of our everyday lives: stress. You'll discover what makes psychological stress so damaging to health, where individual differences in stress come from, the nature of disorders including toxic hostility and clinical depression, and why it's impossible to be completely free of stress.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 15
Language
English
Description
Explore the chemistry of food and drink from the point of view of the cook and the consumer. What are the chemicals in an egg, a piece of toast, a slice of bacon, and other typical foods? How does cooking transform them, and how are the chemicals utilized by our bodies?
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 12
Language
English
Description
Water doesn't just flow on the surface; it also flows underground, carving caves in the process. The largest cave system in the world is Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. Discover how groundwater excavated this network of passages that extends for at least 390 miles.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 10
Language
English
Description
Sharpen your understanding of entropy by examining different macroscopic systems and asking, which has higher entropy and which has lower entropy? Also evaluate James Clerk Maxwell's famous thought experiment about a demon who seemingly defies the principle that entropy always increases.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 20
Language
English
Description
Investigate the ease of recycling some materials, such as aluminum and asphalt, and the impracticality of reusing others, such as certain plastics. Look at the different types of plastic, metal, paper, and glass, and discover what you can put in the recycle bin and why.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 5
Language
English
Description
Delve deeper into the emotional reactions that people have to music. Feel the chills induced by certain musical passages and study the theories about where these powerful feelings come from. Then look at eight distinct psychological mechanisms by which music arouses emotions in listeners.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 11
Language
English
Description
Boltzmann explains why entropy will be larger in the future, but he doesn't show why it was smaller in the past. Learn that physics can't account for this difference except by assuming that the universe started in a state of very low entropy. This assumption is called the past hypothesis.
51) Experiencing Hubble: Understanding the Greatest Images of the Universe: The Sagittarius Star Cloud
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 3
Language
English
Description
Hubble's view of a tiny region of the Sagittarius Star Cloud has an astonishing 12,000 stars. Study this dazzling image and learn how its unprecedented resolution is helping to chart the stellar history and evolution of the Milky Way galaxy.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 5
Language
English
Description
Add the concept of vector to your physics toolbox. Vectors allow you to specify the magnitude and direction of a quantity such as velocity. The vector's direction can be along any axis, allowing analysis of motion in three dimensions. Then use vectors to solve several problems in projectile motion.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 29
Language
English
Description
Reality for the individual ends at death. But medical technology is making that endpoint increasingly hard to define. Consider what it means to die and the complications that would ensue if we developed brain transplants or found the secret of immortality.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 3
Language
English
Description
Welcome to the night shift at an emergency department, where anything can happen. Through the patient cases in this lecture, you'll get a deeper understanding of how emergency doctors think twice about a young man having a heart attack, a college student who is vomiting, and an elderly man who is having trouble walking.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 1
Language
English
Description
Explore the history of alternative approaches to care that have evolved into integrative therapies still in use today. You'll understand why some doctors may still have questions about integrative practices, while others firmly believe they are worthwhile.
56) Mathematics of Games and Puzzles: From Cards to Sudoku: Optimal Blackjack and Simple Card Counting
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 3
Language
English
Description
Depending on how you play it, blackjack can be the best or the worst game in a casino. Here, Professor Benjamin shows you how to get the best of blackjack before it gets the best of you. By taking you through scenarios of increasing difficulty to strengthen your skills, he reveals optimal strategies for knowing when to stand, when to hit, when to double, and when to split.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 4
Language
English
Description
Intelligent behavior in robots is rooted in the sensors that determine how much robots know about the world around them. Professor Long demonstrates how sensors work to communicate across the electromagnetic spectrum, including through infrared (like in Roombas) and visible light (for underwater robots that communicate using flashing blue lights).
58) World's Greatest Geological Wonders: 36 Spectacular Sites: Planetary Wonders - Out of This World
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 36
Language
English
Description
Tour some of the amazing geological features beyond Earth, among them planet-circling lava flows on Venus and the solar system's largest volcano and canyon on Mars. Close with the hydrocarbon lakes on Saturn's moon Titan, proving that there is no end to geological wonders throughout the cosmos.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 8
Language
English
Description
So you want to make a robot. Where should you start? Learn how to work with tools like multimeters and solid-core wires; how to perform basic tasks including stripping wire and building simple circuits; and how to hack into existing robots to get them to perform tasks they weren't intended to do.
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 8
Language
English
Description
Study the amazing properties of the carbon atom, which can attach itself to other carbon atoms to form the hardest known mineral (diamond) and also one of the softest (graphite). It all depends on the geometry of the bonds. Discover other types of pure carbon: fullerenes, nanotubes, and graphene.