Catalog Search Results
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
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
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
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
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.
86) 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
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
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
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (29 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Bring together all the concepts studied so far to gauge how close physicists are to a theory of everything. Focus on the shortcomings of the standard model. Then zero in on two burning questions: Why is the mass of the Higgs boson so low, and why does matter predominate over antimatter?
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.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2014.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (29 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Apply phase diagrams to the analysis of phase transitions of mixtures. Find that a mixture of two different components often has surprising properties. Learn why solder and other eutectic materials melt at a dramatically lower temperature than do their constituent substances.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2018.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (35 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Take a behind-the-scenes tour of the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Newport News, Virginia, where Professor Weinstein and his colleagues use high-energy electron beams to probe the structure of the nucleus. Dr. Weinstein also explains other types of particle accelerators and their purposes, including the Large Hadron Collider in Europe.
94) The Great Questions of Philosophy and Physics: Episode 2,Why Mathematics Works So Well with Physics
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2020.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (35 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Physics is a mathematical science. But why should manipulating numbers give insight into how the world works? This question was famously posed by physicist Eugene Wigner in his 1960 paper, “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences.” Explore proposed answers, including Max Tegmark’s assertion that the world is, in fact, a mathematical system.
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 other basic concepts that are critical to thermodynamics. These include the idea of a system, boundary conditions, processes that occur within systems, the meaning of the state of a system, the definition of equilibrium, and a much-misunderstood quantity called entropy.
96) The Great Questions of Philosophy and Physics: Episode 1,Does Physics Make Philosophy Superfluous?
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2020.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (30 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Trace the growth of physics from philosophy, as questions about the nature of reality got rigorous answers starting in the Scientific Revolution. Then, see how the philosophy of physics was energized by a movement called logical positivism in the early 20th century in response to Einstein’s theory of relativity. Though logical positivism failed, it spurred new philosophical ideas and approaches.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2014.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (33 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Study molar and partial molar quantities, which are indispensable for describing what happens when materials are combined. Focus on the case of water mixed with ethanol, which adds up to a surprising volume. These ideas lead to one of the most important variables in thermodynamics: chemical potential.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2009.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (28 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
At the beginning of the 20th century, Max Planck and Albert Einstein proposed revolutionary ideas to resolve puzzles about light and matter. You explore Planck's discovery that light energy can only be emitted or absorbed in discrete amounts called quanta, and Einstein's application of this concept to matter.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Take a deeper step into the quantum world, observing how the theory of quantum electrodynamics, or QED, unites quantum mechanics with special relativity. Discover that the handy sketches of subatomic behavior called Feynman diagrams (named after physicist Richard Feynman) are really equations in disguise.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2018.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
Continue your tour of Jefferson Lab by learning how scientists design an experiment, get it approved, run it, and then analyze the results. Discover why interpreting the outcome of nuclear collisions is like reconstructing car crashes. One tool relies on the shock wave produced by particles moving faster than light, which is possible in mediums other than a vacuum.
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