"The Mechanical Universe... And Beyond"

[pokerfan]

The American Universe post reminded me of this excellent series.

Mechanical Universe... And Beyond, is a 52-part telecourse filmed at the California Institute of Technology, funded by the Annenberg/CPBProject, and produced by Caltech and INTELECOM Intelligent Telecommunications (a non-profit consortium of California community colleges). The series introduces university level physics, covering topics from Copernicus to quantum mechanics. The series, produced in 1985 by Caltech and INTELECOM Intelligent Telecommunications, uses historical dramatizations and visual aides to explain physics concepts. The latter were state of the art at the time of production: almost 8 hours of computer animation were done by computer graphics pioneer Jim Blinn. Each episode opens and closes with a "phantom" lecture by Caltech professor David Goodstein. Though more than 20 years old, the series is often used as a supplemental aide for its clear explanation of phenomena such as special relativity even today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mechanical_Universe

Knowledge of calculus is helpful but not required. These mathematical concepts are presented in a graphical, intuitive fashion (Differentials in the third episode, vectors in the fifth and integration in the seventh).

You can stream the entire series http://www.learner.org/resources/series42.html">here.

[redqueen]

1. Thanks for posting this! (nt)

[Ptah]

2. Thanks for the link.

:thumbsup:

[caraher]

3. Thanks!

This will save me some trips to the library...

[salvorhardin]

4. I forgot all about this excellent series.

Thanks for reminding me.

[joshcryer]

5. Nice find, thanks for sharing!