Catalog Search Results
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2020.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (24 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Test your wits against the puzzle that likely inspired the famous expression "thinking outside the box." Then apply this strategy to a variety of brain teasers, involving matchsticks, cards, light switches, and other objects in interesting and puzzling situations. Also ponder the legendary physics exam question: How can you find the height of a building by using a barometer?
2) The Evidence for Modern Physics: How We Know What We Know: Episode 7,Discovering Subatomic Particles
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2021.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (28 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Survey the fundamental particles and forces of the Standard Model, which is the prevailing theory of particle physics. Then focus on nonfundamental particles and their discovery tools, such as the cloud chamber. Easily built at home, the cloud chamber reveals the products of radioactive decay, including antimatter -- which sounds like science fiction but is an authentic feature of reality.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2021.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Scientists did not know the exact composition of the Moon until astronauts brought back rocks. So how do we know what the unimaginably more distant stars are made of? Get a short course in astrophysics as you explore the secrets of starlight, which reveal stellar temperature and elemental composition to observers on Earth. Then apply the lessons of nuclear physics to the life cycle of stars.
4) The Evidence for Modern Physics: How We Know What We Know: Episode 18,The Case for Cosmic Inflation
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2021.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (30 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Unlike the well-founded theories you've studied so far in this series, turn to one that is as-yet-unproven -- but mindboggling in its implications. Cosmic inflation proposes that a period of explosive expansion occurred in the first instants of the Big Bang. This startling idea accounts for two puzzling features of today's universe: the observed uniformity of matter and the flat geometry of space.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2021.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (29 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Evaluate three alarmist scenarios for a physics experiment gone horribly wrong. Some theorists predict that exotic phenomena such as strangelets, a false vacuum, and miniature black holes could be produced by new particle accelerators, leading to the destruction of Earth and even the universe! The risk, however small, hardly seems worth it. But Dr. Lincoln gives you good reasons to sleep soundly.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2021.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (28 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Learn how Dr. Lincoln routinely conducts experiments that show the bizarre effects of Einstein's special theory of relativity, which come into play at speeds approaching that of light. Like quantum theory, relativity strains credulity, but clocks really do slow down and length contracts at relativistic speeds; we just don't notice these effects in our relatively slow-moving lives.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2021.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (713 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Taught by Dr. Don Lincoln of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, this series probes the clues to the most astounding discoveries in modern physics, covering everything from quarks to the accelerating universe. The theories covered include special and general relativity, quantum mechanics, and the Big Bang, along with speculative ideas such as cosmic inflation, dark matter, and dark energy.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2021.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (30 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Investigate evidence that the expansion of the universe reversed its gradual slow-down and stepped on the accelerator 5 billion years ago. "Dark energy" is the term given to this mysterious force that is expanding space at an ever-increasing rate. Learn how this remarkable phenomenon was discovered and explore its link to the cosmological constant proposed by Einstein a century ago.
9) The Evidence for Modern Physics: How We Know What We Know: Episode 24,Are Space and Time Quantized?
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2021.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (33 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Finish the series with a leap into one of the most speculative realms of physics -- the quest to understand gravity at the quantum scale. Examine why Einstein's theory of gravity -- general relativity -- is incompatible with quantum mechanics. Then consider what a quantized theory of gravity would imply. One thing it means for sure is a future filled with bold theories and big surprises!
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2021.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Until 100 years ago, our Milky Way galaxy was thought to comprise the entire universe. Now we think there are roughly a trillion galaxies of various sizes and shapes in the observable universe. Investigate how astronomers reached this conclusion and how they mapped the structure and contents of the Milky Way, discovering a supermassive black hole at its center -- among other galactic attractions.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2021.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (28 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
How can the speed of light be the same for everyone, regardless of their state of motion? First, investigate how the speed of light is determined. Next, consider the hypothesized medium for light propagation -- the aether -- which was dealt a fatal blow by the Michelson-Morley experiment in the 1880s. Finally, examine laboratory proof that the speed of light is constant for all observers.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2021.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (28 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Dr. Lincoln opens the series with the observation that all matter is made of atoms. But how do we know? The atomic hypothesis goes back to antiquity, although that was just an inspired guess. Survey the contributions of later scientists such as John Dalton and Albert Einstein. Discover why atoms are invisible to light microscopes, but not to the scanning transmission electron microscope.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2021.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (30 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Dr. Lincoln boldly confronts the paradox of quantum entanglement, which governs the behavior of particles that share the same quantum state. Discover that the rules of quantum mechanics defy every attempt to explain what seems inexplicable -- implying, for example, that a cat could be simultaneously dead and alive in Erwin Schrödinger's famous thought experiment. Explore other spooky examples.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2021.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (29 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Probe one of the most baffling mysteries of physics: the wave-particle duality of light. Trace the debate over the nature of light to its apparent solution in 1801, when Thomas Young demonstrated that light is a wave. A century later, Einstein proved that light also behaves as a particle. Astonishingly, further work showed that electrons and other matter also have this Janus-faced identity.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2021.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (28 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Planets beyond our solar system weren't discovered until the 1990s. Since then, thousands have been confirmed around nearby stars, and billions likely populate the Milky Way Galaxy. Planets are so dim compared to the stars they orbit that observers had to come up with clever techniques to infer their presence. Focus on the "wobble" and "shadow" methods, which have been remarkably productive.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2021.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
The Big Bang is one of the few scientific concepts that has entered popular culture. But where did the idea come from? Trace this gripping detective story to attempts by a young female astronomer in the early 1900s to measure distances to stars. Her success set the stage for others to discover that the universe is expanding, as if from an initial "big bang." More clues filled in the picture.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2021.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (27 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Learn the secret for measuring the masses and lifetimes of subatomic particles that exist for roughly a trillionth of a trillionth of a second. Using the Higgs boson and top quark as examples, Dr. Lincoln draws on a simplified version of Einstein's mass-energy equation and Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle to infer detailed information about truly ephemeral entities.
18) The Evidence for Modern Physics: How We Know What We Know: Episode 9,Capturing the Ghostly Neutrino
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2021.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (30 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Hear the story of the neutrino, the ghostly particle that passes through you at the rate of one quadrillion per second, with no ill effects. Neutrinos are created copiously in nuclear reactions and are fiendishly difficult to detect. Pinning them down took great experimental ingenuity, especially since neutrinos turn out to be quick-change artists, often transforming their identities in flight.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2021.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (29 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Dr. Lincoln covers general relativity, which incorporates gravity and predicts the warping of spacetime around massive objects. Study three phenomena that prove general relativity: an anomaly in the orbit of Mercury, the bending of starlight passing near the Sun, and the slowing of clocks in regions of stronger gravity.
20) The Evidence for Modern Physics: How We Know What We Know: Episode 10,The Search for the Higgs Boson
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2021.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (30 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
As a member of the research team, Dr. Lincoln recounts the discovery of the Higgs boson, one of the major science stories of the past half century. Predicted in 1964, the Higgs particle wasn't experimentally confirmed until 2012. Trace the path to this triumph, as physicists narrowed down the properties of the elusive particle and utilized powerful particle accelerators in the hunt.
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