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Calculus has been one of the most influential ideas in human history. Its impact on our daily lives is incalculable, even with calculus. Economics, population growth, traffic flow, money matters, electricity, baseball, cosmology, and many other topics are modeled and explained using the ideas and language of calculus. However, as important as calculus is, many people have difficulty understanding the concepts of calculus. In these accessible lectures,...
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English
Description
Who was the greatest baseball hitter of all time? How likely is it that a poll is correct? Is it smart to buy last year's highest-performing stock? These questions all involve the interpretation of statistics, and this film is an introduction to this vitally important subject in today's data-driven society. Explanations for terms such as mean, median, percentile, quartile, statistically significant, and bell curve, and scores of other statistical...
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English
Description
Lecture series on sensation, perception and how these are affected and change with age taught from an academic psychology perspective. A recurring concern throughout the course is the understanding of human behavior. Behavior does not occur randomly or haphazardly. Behavior has reasons and happens in response to some detectable stimulus event that has taken place in our internal or external environment.
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English
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Ready to exercise those brain cells? Professor Arthur T. Benjamin is renowned for his feats of mental calculation performed before audiences at schools, theaters, museums, conferences, and in this series, he shows that there are simple tricks that allow anyone to look like a math magician. Throughout these lectures, he shows how everything in mathematics is connected--how the beautiful and often imposing edifice that has given us algebra, geometry,...
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English
Description
What is your definition of number? Defining the abstract idea of number is extremely difficult and today, we still struggle with the notion of what numbers mean. Numbers neither came to us fully formed in nature nor did they spring fully formed from the human mind. Like other ideas, they have evolved slowly throughout human history. Both practical and abstract, they are important in our everyday world but remain mysterious in our imaginations. If...
10) Chaos
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English
Description
Chaos theory, " according to Dr. Steven Strogatz, Director of the Center for Applied Mathematics at Cornell University, "is the science of how things change." It describes the behavior of any system whose state evolves over time and whose behavior is sensitive to small changes in its initial conditions.
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English
Description
Cosmology is the study of the origin and nature of the entire Universe and it is currently one of the most exciting of the academic disciplines. This course assumes no prior knowledge of astronomy, nor science beyond high school and touches upon many areas of cosmology using non-technical, everyday language to make difficult concepts accessible for all learners.
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English
Description
Introduces the remarkable story of Darwin's ideas, how scientists and religious leaders reacted to them, and the sea of change in human thought that resulted. Perhaps more than any other idea in science, Darwin's theory of natural selection shows how a strikingly original concept can break the bounds of its discipline to influence society at large -- in religion, politics, philosophy, and other spheres.
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English
Description
Game theory plays a crucial role in our lives and provides startling insights into all endeavors in which humans cooperate or compete, including biology, computer science, politics, agriculture, and, most importantly, economics. Game theory is used in economics, corporate decision-making, international diplomacy and military strategy, psychology, and evolutionary biology. Game theory is observable in everyday situations like buying a car, or deciding...
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English
Description
Course covers the making of our planet from the Big Bang, to the formation of the solar system, to the subsequent evolution of Earth. Travel to the center of our planet and out again, charting the geologic forces that churn beneath our feet to push the continents and seafloor.
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English
Description
In the 17th century, scientist and mathematician Galileo Galilei noted that the book of nature "cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the characters in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics . . . without which it is not humanly possible to understand a single word of it." The same feeling prompted German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss to call mathematics the "queen of the sciences"...
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"Understanding genetics is like sitting down to work a massive puzzle. With each piece you examine, think through, and solve, you glean a new and amazing insight into humanity. Put several pieces together, and you can treat or cure a disease, save a developing fetus from a fatal birth defect, catch a criminal, or reunite a family ... Each lecture begins with a helpful story that illustrates the importance of genetics. The course explicitly outlines...
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English
Description
Nearly everyone has heard of black holes, but few people outside of complex scientific fields understand their true nature and their implications for our universe. This lecture course makes this cosmological subject graspable, with 12 lavishly illustrated lectures by veteran Great Courses Professor Alex Filippenko, a distinguished astronomer and award-winning teacher at the University of California, Berkeley.
20) Chemistry
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English
Description
Many students struggle in high school chemistry, feeling confused and uncertain even if they earn a good grade. Why? What can be done to help students succeed in this vitally important course? Success in chemistry doesn't require any special intellectual gifts or talents or advanced mathematical skill--it does require grasping the ideas behind key topics in chemistry. This course is designed to give students a deep and thorough understanding of the...
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