Catalog Search Results
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (33 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Embark with Dr. Lincoln on a search for a theory of everything - a simple and comprehensive explanation for all physical phenomena in the universe. Confront the incompatibility of our two best prototypes: the standard model of particle physics and the general theory of relativity.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (30 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Einstein's greatest triumph was his general theory of relativity, which built on special relativity and led to a radically new understanding of the geometry of space and time. Einstein followed a rocky road to this breakthrough, with mistakes that hampered his progress and almost gave the honor of discovery to a rival.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (28 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Follow Einstein's quest to overturn the standard view of quantum mechanics known as the Copenhagen interpretation. Focus on his famous EPR paper, written with two collaborators, which identified a paradoxical phenomenon later called entanglement. Study two proposals to supplant the Copenhagen view: the "hidden variable" and "many worlds" interpretations.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2000.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (32 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
In 1923, Louis de Broglie proposed that, like light photons, particles of matter might also display wave properties. The wave nature of smaller particles such as electrons is quite visible and leads to many unusual phenomena, including quantum tunneling mentioned in Lecture 1.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2020.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (35 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
If the point of physics is to explain reality, what counts as an explanation? Professor Gimbel goes deeper to probe what makes some explanations scientific and whether physics actually explains anything. Along the way, he explores Bertrand Russell’s rejection of the notion of cause, Carl Hempel’s account of explanation, and Nancy Cartwright’s skepticism about scientific truth.
66) Black Holes
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2000.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
General relativity is similar to Newtonian gravitation except in the case of very dense objects such as collapsed stars. Learn why they are called black holes.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
The first inklings of a successful theory of everything will probably arise from symmetries and group theory. Prepare for this epochal moment by digging into these important mathematical ideas. Also, learn to approach proposed theories of everything with fascination, tinged with healthy skepticism.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2018.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (28 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
The holy grail of nuclear power is fusion, which has been tantalizingly out of reach for decades. Learn why fusion power is so desirable and so difficult to achieve. Study the different strategies for attaining a contained, self-sustaining thermonuclear reaction, focusing on the tokamak, which confines a high-temperature plasma in a powerful toroidal magnetic field.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (35 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Finish by reviewing unified theories since Newton, analyzing a remarkable equation that brings major insights together and represents the current status of a theory of everything. Then look ahead to the next steps, and hear Dr. Lincoln's own research agenda for this momentous quest.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (30 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Einstein is the most famous and influential scientist of modern times. But no one is perfect, and his powerful intuition led him astray in several key areas of physics, which are now among the most fruitful areas of the discipline. Begin your study of Einstein mistakes by looking at what he got spectacularly right, starting with his revolutionary special theory of relativity.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (27 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Einstein's friend Kurt Gödel discovered a solution to the general relativity equations that implied the possibility of time travel, an idea that Einstein found interesting but impossible. Was he right to dismiss time travel? Explore other solutions to Einstein's equations that posit the existence of rotating black holes and worm holes, which may be portals to the past and future.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2020.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (33 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
What’s left when you take all the matter and energy out of space? Either something or nothing. Newton believed the former; his rival, Leibniz, believed the latter. Assess arguments for both views, and then see how Einstein was influenced by Leibniz’s relational picture of space to invent his special theory of relativity.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2018.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (29 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Explore the current state of fission power, now in its third generation since the dawn of the nuclear age, with a fourth generation in the works. Today's nuclear plants are designed to produce power more cheaply, more safely, with less waste, and less risk of proliferation than earlier designs. Survey the latest technology, from advanced light water reactors to molten salt and thorium reactors.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2009.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (30 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
At the fundamental level, bosons and fermions differ in a single minus sign. One way of understanding the origin of this difference is with the Feynman ribbon trick, which Dr. Schumacher demonstrates.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2000.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
In 1905 a young Swiss patent clerk named Albert Einstein resolved the crisis that flowed from the Michelson-Morley result. When Einstein discarded the ether concept and asserted that the principle of relativity holds for all of physics, mechanics as well as electromagnetism, he was making a simple claim with almost unimaginably profound implications.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2009.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (28 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
When two particles are part of the same quantum system, they may be entangled with each other. In their famous "EPR" paper, Einstein and his collaborators Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen used entanglement to argue that quantum mechanics is incomplete. You chart their reasoning and Bohr's response.
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
2009.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (30 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
You explore the mystery of why atoms are stable. Niels Bohr suggested that quantum theory explains atomic stability by allowing only certain distinct orbits for electrons. Erwin Schrödinger discovered a powerful equation that reproduces the energy levels of Bohr's model.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2020.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Compare proof for the reality of atoms with evidence for the existence of Santa Claus. Both are problematic hypotheses! Trace the history of atomic theory and the philosophical resistance to it. End with Bas van Fraassen’s idea of “constructive empiricism,” which holds that successful theories ought only to be empirically adequate since we can never know with certainty what is real.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2018.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Study the fusion reactions that take place inside the Sun. First, consider the formidable barrier that hydrogen nuclei must overcome to fuse into helium. Then, see how the mass and temperature of a star govern the types of reactions it can support. One product of stellar reactions is neutrinos, ghostly particles that pass through the Earth (and us) in colossal numbers.
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