Catalog Search Results
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2014.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (30 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Dig deeper into the properties of phases and phase diagrams. First, see how a flask of water can be made to boil by cooling it. Then, explore why a curve in a phase diagram has a certain slope. Close with a multicomponent phase diagram that explains why salt causes ice to melt.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2020.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (373 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
The Great Questions of Philosophy and Physics guides you through the concepts, theories, and speculations that underlie our understanding of reality. In 12 stimulating episodes, award-winning teacher and philosopher Steven Gimbel covers the fundamental ideas of modern physics, highlighting the role of philosophy in setting ground rules, interpreting the results, and posing new questions.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2009.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (29 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
You explore quantum information and quantum computing - Dr. Schumacher's specialty, for which he pioneered the concept "qubit," the unit of quantum information. You learn that unlike classical information, such as a book or musical recording, quantum information can't be perfectly copied.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2000.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Why does the simple statement of relativity - that the laws of physics are the same for all observers in uniform motion - lead directly to absurd-seeming situations that violate our commonsense notions of space and time?
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (345 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Taught by physicist Dan Hooper of Fermilab and the University of Chicago, this course focuses on Einstein’s mistakes as a window into his theory-building technique. He was spectacularly effective with relativity and early quantum mechanics, but he also made some missteps by doubting some of the staple concepts of today’s physics, including black holes, the big bang, and the uncertainty principle.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
A theory of everything must fit gravity into the quantum realm, reconciling the general theory of relativity with the standard model of particle physics. Explore the features of gravity that make this unification so difficult, and evaluate two intriguing approaches: superstring theory and loop quantum gravity.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2014.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Chemical reactions are fundamentally part of everything we do. Learn how the concepts of thermodynamics reveal when a reaction will occur, and when it will not. Focus on the famous Haber process, which transformed agriculture by allowing nitrogen to be easily extracted from the atmosphere.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (27 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Probe Einstein's devotion to the principle of determinism, seeing how it prompted him to reject the probabilistic interpretation of quantum mechanics accepted by most of his peers. Einstein famously said that "God does not play dice," meaning that quantum events only look probabilistic. He sought to make the quantum world less weird by finding a deterministic version of the theory.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2014.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (33 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Analyze the most central idea of thermodynamics: temperature. Investigate the origin of different temperature scales and the various methods for measuring temperature. See how the concept of temperature is a consequence of the zeroth law of thermodynamics, which deals with the nature of thermal equilibrium.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2014.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Discover that the values for work and heat in a given system depend on the path taken to get to a particular state. But note that the sum of work and heat does not depend on the path; it is a constant. This remarkable fact is the foundation of the first law of thermodynamics.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2014.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Explore the phenomenon of mixing - a crucial process for any situation where the product is composed of more than one material. Focus on the case of oil and water, which are notoriously unmixable, and discover what keeps them separate at the molecular level.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2000.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (30 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Wave-particle duality gives rise to strange phenomena, some of which are explored in Schrödinger's famous "cat in the box" example. Philosophical debate on Schrödinger's cat still rages.
54) Curved Spacetime
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2000.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
What causes spacetime to curve? Einstein's theory of relativity offers an answer, but for decades after he published it, there were only a few, very subtle tests of its validity. How has modern astrophysics changed all that?
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2000.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
As a dramatic example of what relativity implies, you will consider a thought experiment involving a pair of twins, one of whom goes on a journey to the stars and returns to Earth younger than her sister!
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2009.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (30 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Thirty years after EPR, physicist John Bell dropped an even bigger bombshell, showing that a deterministic theory of quantum mechanics such as EPR violates the principle of locality - that particles in close interaction can't be instantaneously affected by events happening in another part of the universe.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2020.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (32 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
The laws of physics have been invoked on both sides of the debate over the existence of God. Professor Gimbel closes the series by tracing the history of this dispute, from Newton’s belief in a Creator to today’s discussion of the “fine-tuning” of nature’s constants and whether God is responsible. Such big questions in physics inevitably bring us back to the roots of physics: philosophy.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2009.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (30 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
You explore the intriguing capabilities of quantum computers, which don't yet exist but are theoretically possible. Using the laws of quantum mechanics, such devices could factor huge numbers, allowing them to easily decipher unbreakable conventional codes.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2014.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (30 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Turn to the problem of thermal energy flow and volume. This phenomenon causes materials to expand when heated and contract when cooled. Analyze these events at the atomic scale, and study the unusual behavior of water when it freezes - an attribute that is essential to life as we know it.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2000.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Shortly after publishing his 1905 paper on special relativity, Einstein realized that his theory required a fundamental equivalence between mass and energy, which he expressed in the equation E=mc2. Among other things, this famous formula means that the energy contained in a single raisin could power a large city for an entire day.
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