Catalog Search Results
Pub. Date
2000.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (30 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
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.
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Description
Consider why mathematics is such an effective tool for describing nature. Then focus on mathematician Emmy Noether's remarkable insight that links symmetries in the equations of a physical system to conservation laws, such as the conservation of energy and conservation of momentum.
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (32 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Description
Explore the force that helps hold the atomic nucleus together, called the strong force. Chart the discovery of this mysterious mechanism - which only works at extremely short range - and see how it led to concepts such as quarks, gluons, and the color force, which is responsible for the strong interaction.
Pub. Date
2018.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
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.
Pub. Date
2014.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
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.
Pub. Date
2018.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
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.
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
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.
Pub. Date
2014.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
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.
Pub. Date
2014.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (33 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
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.
Pub. Date
2009.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (30 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
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.
Pub. Date
2009.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (30 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
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.
Pub. Date
2020.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (32 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
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.
Pub. Date
2000.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
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!
Pub. Date
2014.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (30 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
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.
Pub. Date
2000.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
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.
Pub. Date
2009.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (28 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
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.
Pub. Date
2000.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (30 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Description
In mechanics (the branch of physics that studies motion), the principle of Galilean relativity holds - meaning that the laws of mechanics are the same for anything in uniform motion. Is the same true for the laws of electromagnetism?
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (28 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Description
Einstein spent the last decades of his life searching for a unified field theory that would unite general relativity with Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism. But by then, quantum theory had superseded Maxwell's work, rendering the entire exercise futile. See how this quest has nonetheless stimulated ideas for unification in proposals such as string theory.
Pub. Date
2014.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (31 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
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.
40) The Great Questions of Philosophy and Physics: Episode 1,Does Physics Make Philosophy Superfluous?
Pub. Date
2020.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (30 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
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.
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