The Mechanical Universe(1985)
Documentary
First Air Date: 1985-01-01
Average Runtime: N/A
Rating: 8.6
Votes: 4
Seasons: 1
Episodes: 52
The Mechanical Universe... And Beyond, is a 52-part telecourse filmed at the California Institute of Technology, and produced by Caltech and INTELECOM Intelligent Telecommunications. The series introduces university level physics, covering topics from Copernicus to quantum mechanics. Produced starting in 1985, the videos make heavy use of historical dramatizations and visual aids to explain physics concepts. The latter were state of the art at the time, incorporating almost 8 hours of computer animation created by computer graphics pioneer Jim Blinn. Each episode opens and closes with a "phantom" lecture by Caltech professor David Goodstein. After more than a quarter century, the series is still often used as a supplemental teaching aid, for its clear explanation of fundamental concepts such as special relativity. The Mechanical Universe lectures are actual freshman physics lectures from Physics 1a and 1b courses at the California Institute of Technology. The room seen in the videos is the Bridge lecture hall. The series can be purchased, or viewed by streaming from the Annenberg website, or can be viewed on other video streaming sites such as YouTube and Google Video.
Seasons & Episodes
Season 1
Episodes: 52E01
Introduction
Air Date: 1985-01-01
This preview introduces revolutionary ideas and heroes from Copernicus to Newton, and links the physics of the heaven...
E02
The Law of Falling Bodies
Air Date: N/A
Galileo's imaginative experiments proved that all bodies fall with the same constant acceleration.
E03
Derivatives
Air Date: N/A
The function of mathematics in physical science and the derivative as a practical tool.
E04
Inertia
Air Date: N/A
Galileo risks his favored status to answer the questions of the universe with his law of inertia.
E05
Vectors
Air Date: N/A
Physics must explain not only why and how much, but also where and which way.
E06
Newton's Laws
Air Date: N/A
Newton lays down the laws of force, mass, and acceleration.
E07
Integration
Air Date: N/A
Newton and Leibniz arrive at the conclusion that differentiation and integration are inverse processes.
E08
The Apple and the Moon
Air Date: N/A
The first real steps toward space travel are made as Newton discovers that gravity describes the force between any tw...
E09
Moving in Circles
Air Date: N/A
A look at the Platonic theory of uniform circular motion.
E10
Fundamental Forces
Air Date: N/A
All physical phenomena of nature are explained by four forces: two nuclear forces, gravity, and electricity.
E11
Gravity, Electricity, Magnetism
Air Date: N/A
Shedding light on the mathematical form of the gravitational, electric, and magnetic forces.
E12
The Millikan Experiment
Air Date: N/A
A dramatic recreation of Millikan's classic oil-drop experiment to determine the charge of a single electron.
E13
Conservation of Energy
Air Date: N/A
According to one of the major laws of physics, energy is neither created nor destroyed.
E14
Potential Energy
Air Date: N/A
Potential energy provides a powerful model for understanding why the world has worked the same way since the beginnin...
E15
Conservation of Momentum
Air Date: N/A
What keeps the universe ticking away until the end of time?
E16
Harmonic Motion
Air Date: N/A
The music and mathematics of periodic motion.
E17
Resonance
Air Date: N/A
Why a swaying bridge collapses with a high wind, and why a wine glass shatters with a higher octave.
E18
Waves
Air Date: N/A
With an analysis of simple harmonic motion and a stroke of genius, Newton extended mechanics to the propagation of so...
E19
Angular Momentum
Air Date: N/A
An old momentum with a new twist.
E20
Torques and Gyroscopes
Air Date: N/A
From spinning tops to the precession of the equinoxes.
E21
Kepler's Three Laws
Air Date: N/A
The discovery of elliptical orbits helps describe the motion of heavenly bodies with unprecedented accuracy.
E22
The Kepler Problem
Air Date: N/A
The deduction of Kepler's laws from Newton's universal law of gravitation is one of the crowning achievements of West...
E23
Energy and Eccentricity
Air Date: N/A
The precise orbit of a heavenly body — a planet, asteroid, or comet — is fixed by the laws of conservation of energy ...
E24
Navigating in Space
Air Date: N/A
Voyages to other planets use the same laws that guide planets around the solar system.
E25
Kepler to Einstein
Air Date: N/A
From Kepler's laws and the theory of tides, to Einstein's general theory of relativity, into black holes, and beyond.
E26
Harmony of the Spheres
Air Date: N/A
A last lingering look back at mechanics to see new connections between old discoveries.
E27
Beyond the Mechanical Universe
Air Date: N/A
The world of electricity and magnetism, and 20th-century discoveries of relativity and quantum mechanics.
E28
Static Electricity
Air Date: N/A
Eighteenth-century electricians knew how to spark the interest of an audience with the principles of static electricity.
E29
The Electric Field
Air Date: N/A
Faraday's vision of lines of constant force in space laid the foundation for the modern force field theory.
E30
Potential and Capacitance
Air Date: N/A
Franklin proposes a successful theory of the Leyden jar and invents the parallel plate capacitor.
E31
Voltage, Energy, and Force
Air Date: N/A
When is electricity dangerous or benign, spectacular or useful?
E32
The Electric Battery
Air Date: N/A
Volta invents the electric battery using the internal properties of different metals.
E33
Electric Circuits
Air Date: N/A
The work of Wheatstone, Ohm, and Kirchhoff leads to the design and analysis of how current flows.
E34
Magnetism
Air Date: N/A
Gilbert discovered that the earth behaves like a giant magnet. Modern scientists have learned even more.
E35
The Magnetic Field
Air Date: N/A
The law of Biot and Sarvart, the force between electric currents, and Ampère's law.
E36
Vector Fields and Hydrodynamics
Air Date: N/A
Force fields have definite properties of their own suitable for scientific study.
E37
Electromagnetic Induction
Air Date: N/A
The discovery of electromagnetic induction in 1831 creates an important technological breakthrough in the generation ...
E38
Alternating Current
Air Date: N/A
Electromagnetic induction makes it easy to generate alternating current while transformers make it practical to distr...
E39
Maxwell's Equations
Air Date: N/A
Maxwell discovers that displacement current produces electromagnetic waves or light.
E40
Optics
Air Date: N/A
Many properties of light are properties of waves, including reflection, refraction, and diffraction.
E41
The Michelson-Morley Experiment
Air Date: N/A
In 1887, an exquisitely designed measurement of the earth's motion through the ether results in the most brilliant fa...
E42
The Lorentz Transformation
Air Date: N/A
If the speed of light is to be the same for all observers, then the length of a meter stick, or the rate of a ticking...
E43
Velocity and Time
Air Date: N/A
Einstein is motivated to perfect the central ideas of physics, resulting in a new understanding of the meaning of spa...
E44
Mass, Momentum, Energy
Air Date: N/A
The new meaning of space and time make it necessary to formulate a new mechanics.
E45
Temperature and Gas Laws
Air Date: N/A
Hot discoveries about the behavior of gases make the connection between temperature and heat.
E46
Engine of Nature
Air Date: N/A
The Carnot engine, part one, beginning with simple steam engines.
E47
Entropy
Air Date: N/A
The Carnot engine, part two, with profound implications for the behavior of matter and the flow of time through the u...
E48
Low Temperatures
Air Date: N/A
With the quest for low temperatures came the discovery that all elements can exist in each of the basic states of mat...
E49
The Atom
Air Date: N/A
A history of the atom, from the ancient Greeks to the early 20th century, and a new challenge for the world of physics.
E50
Particles and Waves
Air Date: N/A
Evidence that light can sometimes act like a particle leads to quantum mechanics, the new physics.
E51
From Atoms to Quarks
Air Date: N/A
Electron waves attracted to the nucleus of an atom help account for the periodic table of the elements and ultimately...
E52
The Quantum Mechanical Universe
Air Date: N/A
A last look at where we've been and a peek into the future.
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