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Lectures On the Frontiers of Physics Online

Posted by kdawson on Tue May 13, 2008 07:14 AM
from the current-perimeter dept.
Education Science
modernphysics writes "The Outreach Department at Canada's Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics offers a wide array of online lecture playbacks examining hot topics in modern physics and beyond. Presentations include Neil Turok's 'What Banged?,' John Ellis with 'The Large Hadron Collider,' Nima Arkani-Hamed with 'Fundamental Physics in 2010,' Paul Steinhardt with 'Impossible Crystals,' Edward Witten with 'The Quest for Supersymmetry,' Seth Lloyd with 'Programming the Universe,' Anton Zeilinger with 'From Einstein to Quantum Information,' Raymond Laflamme with 'Harnessing the Quantum World,' and many other talks. The presentations feature a split-screen presentation with the guest speaker in one frame and their full-frame graphics in the other."
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Submission: Free, Fun Physics Lectures Online by Anonymous Coward
[+] Hawking Searching For Africa's Einsteins 276 comments
nuke-alwin writes "Stephen Hawking has traveled to South Africa in search of Africa's Einsteins. The project will create Africa's first post-graduate center for math and physics. The British government has unfortunately decided not to back the project, which is hoping to fight poverty by identifying the kind of talent that can create wealth." Neil Turok is deeply involved as well; he was recently named to head the Perimeter Institute in Canada, whose server we brought to its knees this morning.
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  • How do schools make science dull? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MosesJones (55544) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @07:26AM (#23389864) Homepage
    Last week at JavaOne there was a presentation on the LHC and Mars and simply put they just stunned me at how interesting this stuff was and I leapt back on the net to find out more. The Royal Institute in the UK has the Christmas Lectures [rigb.org] which always amazed me as a child.

    But at school? Apart from one teacher science was always a dull subject, it was numbers in a way that made Maths seem exciting and it just never covered where all this science was leading to. Its no wonder that there are a shortage of scientists and engineers out there when the school system turns the most exciting subjects into the dullest ones.

    So sure some of these presentations are beyond the level of kids at school, but isn't it sometimes worth blowing their minds to make them realise why they are doing what they are doing? Science is a stunning thing, can we please stop making it dull.

    • Re:How do schools make science dull? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Yvanhoe (564877) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @07:34AM (#23389904) Journal
      There are maybe a few dozens of wonderful high-level science speakers who can make science interesting, that's them that you see. There are millions of children that need teachers. These two numbers make things difficult.

      What I would like to see, however, is a national TV broadcast of this kind of speeches. That would be a heavily profitable investment on education.

      • Re:How do schools make science dull? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by egyptiankarim (765774) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @07:50AM (#23389986) Homepage
        I've enjoyed the efforts of universities like MIT putting lectures online via podcast. I'm also a big fan of the idea of educational programming on TV. I mean, this stuff already exists, but it gets generally low hit counts.

        I don't really think that the issue facing the country is a lack of science resources (though, more thoroughly trained teachers are definitely needed), but more a fundamental shortcoming in how people (at least in the states) perceive education, specifically science education. It's seen as a chore and not a privelage, and as a result people far too easily dismiss it as "boring".
        • As long as teaching is considered a lowly bad-paying job in the US this isn't going to change.
          I had (in Germany) some wonderful science (and math and CS) teachers. They all had MS or PhD degrees. And not in education. They knew what they were talking about, and they had a passion for it. And they were paid decent salaries.
      • I suggest reading up on some Richard Feynman or some Paul Davies. They are both WONDERFUL at "dumbing down" science with metaphors and models so just about anyone can read and understand it.

        Richard Feynman [google.com]

        Paul Davies [google.com]

        To paraphrase Feynman (as it has been a few years since I read "Surely You're Joking"):
        --"If you cannot teach a subject, ANY subject to elementary students, then you do not understand the subject."

      • What I would like to see, however, is a national TV broadcast of this kind of speeches. That would be a heavily profitable investment on education.

        I'd love to see this on TV. But it won't be profitable for the people who put it on. Because there are maybe 500 people besides myself who'd watch it.

        It won't actually help science education, either. The lads and lasses who saw this would be excited, ready to get serious about science, then they'd ask a question of their science (physics/chemistry/whatever)

    • Re:How do schools make science dull? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by egyptiankarim (765774) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @07:35AM (#23389906) Homepage
      Teaching science is a delicate balance, I suppose. On the one hand, you want to wow kids with the broad concepts and show them how vast and far-reaching the effects of science can be. On the other, you don't want to blind them to the fact that science at any kind of professional level is deeply steeped in complex mathematics.

      The "solution" thus far, is to weed out the kids early on who can't handle the complex mathematics, but I think the "solution" could benefit from a bit of balance.

      • Re:How do schools make science dull? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Thanshin (1188877) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @09:16AM (#23390696)

        you don't want to blind them to the fact that science at any kind of professional level is deeply steeped in complex mathematics.
        Then why teach them before they reach the mathematical understanding level needed to grasp the concepts?

        Why not start with pure mathematics until reaching the highest level they may need and only then start with the physics?

        For some reason teaching plans seem to still take into account the possibility of a child leaving the scholar system at any point. That may have been the norm half a century ago, but isn't anymore.

        It might be time to consider the entire cycle as a single block of time where all has to be taught in the most optimal way, instead of gradually advancing every discipline equally.

        • Why not start with pure mathematics until reaching the highest level they may need and only then start with the physics?
          Because when it comes to physics, that highest level is really, really high.
          • I meant the highest that will be covered in a given schooling block. i.e.: From birth to university.

            Then, already in higher studies, they may distribute the teaching in very much the same way.

        • Re:How do schools make science dull? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by egyptiankarim (765774) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @10:28AM (#23391514) Homepage
          I don't necessarily think that's the most "optimal" way. My fundamental understanding of calculus only came after I saw it in motion (as it were) through experimentation in physics class. Also, I didn't have my insights into several different (computer science) data types until after I had a firm grounding in linear algebra.

          I think math and science should be side by side because they compliment each other. One helps with the understanding the other.

          Again, I just think it's all about how you balance the load. You have to teach enough math to make the science solid, but you need enough science to keep the math interesting. Moreover, the satisfaction of teaching math through the practical lens of scientific experimentation, is an invaluable tool.

        • Re:How do schools make science dull? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Kemanorel (127835) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @04:31PM (#23396236)

          For some reason teaching plans seem to still take into account the possibility of a child leaving the scholar system at any point. That may have been the norm half a century ago, but isn't anymore.
          You haven't spent much time taking a look at the U.S. public school system lately, have you? Dropouts at age 16 with anywhere from a 3rd to 9th grade education are quite common throughout the inner cities, suburban, and rural areas, all for a variety of reasons. You also don't hear about dropout rates like you once used to. My district in a mid-to-upper class section of Orange County, California has a 1% or 2% dropout rate. The other 8% or so decrease in enrollment numbers that occurs in the high school years is reported as, "Moved, no new school known." That must be the trickle-down theory of creative bookkeeping... or something.

          I'm doing my part to keep math as enjoyable as possible, and I know by the modifications that had to be made to the fire alarms in the chemistry teacher's room, as well as the resounding bangs every month or so, that at least one of the science teachers here is trying to inspire.

          • You haven't spent much time taking a look at the U.S. public school system lately, have you?
            Note that the OP is almost certainly not in the US or talking about the US educational system, since he referred to mathematics as "Maths" (an idiom not used in the US).
    • .. and it wasn't just the Christmas lectures, but at least in the early 70's the Open University's programs (on before 7.a.m. on BBC2). Not to mention public libraries with decent popular texts (e.g. "Frontiers of Astronomy" (Fred Hoyle). Nothing like learning how stars work from someone who worked on how stars work...

      (plus of course Dr.Who, Star Trek, the Apollo Programme and Sci-Fi friendly public libraries).

      Talking about the UK. Wonder what experiences are in other countries...

      Truth is though, that

    • Re:How do schools make science dull? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jandersen (462034) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @08:49AM (#23390438)
      To paraphrase Death in Terry Pratchett's "Hogfather": "In a universe full of wonders humans have invented boredom". I think most people don't want to have their minds blown - this is why they keep watching never-ending, never-changing soap operas. People just want to fester in their own little stagnant pool of life.

      And that is probably why science teaching is always underfunded and sabotaged.

    • Teaching isn't easy (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Mr. Underbridge (666784) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @09:16AM (#23390704)

      But at school? Apart from one teacher science was always a dull subject, it was numbers in a way that made Maths seem exciting and it just never covered where all this science was leading to. Its no wonder that there are a shortage of scientists and engineers out there when the school system turns the most exciting subjects into the dullest ones.

      Well, the problem is that doing science requires understanding the basics. There are many different levels of stuff you have to understand before you can understand how they do the really cool things. That said, a good teacher can devise interesting problems that take the requisite skills to solve. This takes an inordinate amount of effort and creativity on the part of the teacher, and there lies the problem.

      I'm a scientist, and I really enjoyed my time as a TA in grad school. I tried hard to come up with good ways of explaining very difficult material that the freshmen could pick up. I tried to keep the class interesting, or at least did my best.

      So sure some of these presentations are beyond the level of kids at school, but isn't it sometimes worth blowing their minds to make them realise why they are doing what they are doing? Science is a stunning thing, can we please stop making it dull.

      Absolutely, sometimes you do have to do the "holy SHIT!" demo. The prof that taught the freshman class I TA'd would always take the kids out and do the "toss the alkali metals in the lake and watch them go BOOM!" demonstration. Kids love watching stuff blow up. You want to tailor it to things they actually can understand, though. Better yet is to come up with a really fun project where they can take what they're learning to build something cool.

      I kind of miss teaching. My mother was a teacher, and made history a fantastically fun, participatory subject. She took the kids out to do local archaeology. She had them act out fun stuff from history books to make it more than people and dates. One time a group of her students staged a "coup" - and of course she gently showed them what happens when you stage a coup against a strong dictator. ;) As a result, every time I'm in town visiting and we're out in town, invariably a former student of hers from decades past will come up and give her a huge hug. Good teachers mean a lot to kids. I never had a teacher that good (we agreed it was best for me not to take her classes), but then I guess I had a great mom instead.

      I would love to be able to bring that kind of excitement to science classes. I wish it was in any way financially viable, but I couldn't pay our mortgage.

      • Re:Teaching isn't easy (Score:5, Insightful)

        by EMeta (860558) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @11:08AM (#23391910)

        That said, a good teacher can devise interesting problems that take the requisite skills to solve. This takes an inordinate amount of effort and creativity on the part of the teacher, and there lies the problem.

        Here you've skimmed over one of the major errors in our education system. Pretty much, each teacher tries to reinvent the wheel to create interesting problems and ways to illustrate the information. We get a lot of great teachers, but there's no system for them to pass on their better ideas to others. So they retire, and some kid who's watched maybe a semester's worth of one other teacher teach takes over. It's like if Linux users all coded their own kernels.

        I've read that some other countries do a better job of this, but I don't recall where or how. Anyone know? I think some major investment here could make a huge difference.
        • That's the most interesting comment I've read on slashdot in a week. Would you be so good as to submit it as an Ask Slashdot? I'd like to read that.
        • Interesting - this seems to be something that is true of teaching in almost any setting.

          I was sitting in church thinking about how just about any sermon topic geared for mass-consumption has probably been explained far better at least 100 times in the last 10 centuries (I mean, how many different sermons can you dig out of a book that is 2000+ years old on average?). And yet, congregations expect their pastors to come up with original teaching - as if that is more divinely inspired than playing a video of

      • She had them act out fun stuff from history books

        To provide a different point of view, let me tell you that I would have hated it if my teachers had made me act things out. I'd rather have dull lectures, being told what to read, write the exam and be over with it than have to do such really awkward things, I would have thought.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by SeanDS (1039000)
      Another brilliant site for science-based lectures is ted.com [ted.com]. The lecture on the Large Hadron Collider doesn't go into as much detail as I would have liked as someone studying physics at university but it does serve as a great outline of the theories behind it. There is also another lecture on ted.com on superstring theory, which is also very interesting. Well worth checking out.

    • But at school? Apart from one teacher science was always a dull subject, it was numbers in a way that made Maths seem exciting and it just never covered where all this science was leading to.

      Speaking as someone who left the academic research track, I can that's because actually doing scientific research is a mathematically intensive, highly detail oriented job. You have to be the sort of person who finds the 30 seconds of enlightenment you feel when you see a graph that confirms your predictions worth the

    • Web server meltdown in 3....2.....1.....
      It's working fine here. Then again, I'm sitting in an office at the Perimeter Institute, so that may explain some of it.
  • From the blurb: John Ellis with 'The Large Hadron Collider,'

    That sounds dirty.

  • monti pyton ik den olii grailen (Score:5, Funny)

    by Speare (84249) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @07:41AM (#23389940) Homepage

    Presentations include Neil Turok's 'What Banged?,' John Ellis with 'The Large Hadron Collider,' ... Raymond Laflamme with 'Harnessing the Quantum World,' and many other talks.

    For some reason, after those titles, the phrase, 'Many Norweigian films including "The Hot Hands of an Oslo Dentist", "Fillings of Passion", and "The Huge Molars of Horst Nordfink"' floated through my head.

  • Neil Turok (Score:3, Informative)

    by notjim (879031) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @08:04AM (#23390104)
    Is also the next director of the Perimeter Institute and has just won the TED prize, partly for his work on physics and partly for his development work, he is behind the African Institute of Mathematical Science and wants to make sure that the next Einstein is from Africa: http://youtube.com/watch?v=UNbP7O6jasw [youtube.com]

  • Exciting, but (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jandersen (462034) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @08:56AM (#23390510)
    Exciting as these subjects are, what I'd really like to see is someone tackling these:

    1. What are particles? - Particles are simply assumed a priori. Nobody has ever managed to explain what a particle is.
    2. What is time - why is it different from space?
    3. Mass is 'curvature of space', so to speak. So what is electric charge?

    • Re:Exciting, but (Score:4, Funny)

      by MosesJones (55544) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @09:11AM (#23390644) Homepage
      1. Little bits, I mean really little, like even smaller than the republican vote in Greenwich Village
      2. Time is just another dimension, space is a different set of dimensions. Like you and your girlfriend/wife/partner/online bot perspectives on what constitutes romantic
      3. Electric charge is those new Visa swipe pay things, its all done by electricity to charge you

      Glad I could help. My other works include explaining relativity using your relatives and energy v entropy using only the medium of mime.

    • Exciting as these subjects are, what I'd really like to see is someone tackling these:

      1. What are particles? - Particles are simply assumed a priori. Nobody has ever managed to explain what a particle is.
      2. What is time - why is it different from space?
      3. Mass is 'curvature of space', so to speak. So what is electric charge?

      1 - Particle is a jam band formed in Los Angeles in 2000. The original members were Dave Simmons (guitar), Steve Molitz (keyboard), Eric Gould (bass), and Darren Pujalet (drums). Simmons died shortly after the formation of the band due to a sudden illness.

      2 - Time is a rock 'n' roll / classic rock band based in Windsor, Ontario, consisting of four members; Tony Slater on lead guitar and vocals, Nikki London on rhythm guitar and vocals, Bon Clayton on bass guitar and vocals, Scary Carey on drums and vocals.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ceoyoyo (59147)
      Lots of people are trying to tackle those subjects. Try "The Fabric of the Cosmos" by Brian Greene for an introduction.

      String theory suggests that particles might actually be vibrating filaments of energy (strings). Other hypotheses is that fundamental particles might actually be tiny little black holes, or something similar.

      There are lots of attempts to explain time and space, the differences, and why time seems to only run in one direction.

      In string theory and other higher dimensional theories gravity i
      • I suppose what I am really after is something that reduces everything to geometry - this is what makes Einstein's theoy so elegant, the way it allows us to interpret mass as something equivalent to a property of space. Intuitively, at least, it seems that this is the right place to start - Einstein attempted to define what a particle is, but it is of course difficult to explain how a particle would be able to persist.
        • That's one of the attractive things about string theory. Everything really does reduce to geometry. The number, type and properties of particles are supposed to be consequences of the geometry of the spatial dimensions. Unfortunately that geometry is so complicated that it's very difficult to actually make predictions.

    • Decent questions.. I have better.

      1. What exactly are black holes? They only have 3 unique traits: mass, angular momentum, and charge. Thos e3 triats seem very similar to how we distinguish particles. Are black holes macro-particles?

      2. Is time quantized? Energy appears in quanta, as does other particles of shapes and sizes. Is time the same?

      3. What is the carrier of the magnetic force? What is the carrier of the gravity force?

      • 1. I don't know.

        2. Yes. Planck time is considered the single smallest unit of time. To ask what happens <Planck Time after or

        3. The proposed carrier for gravity is the graviton. We haven't found evidence for it (other than gravity itself). The carrier particle for magnetic force is the photon (the photon is the carrier for electromagnetic force). The carrier force for strong and weak nuclear force is the gluon and W/Z bosons respectively. I believe we have experimentally found the other three carrier par
      • 1. I guess what one considers an explanation depends on what you think of as the 'fundamental truth'; in my view black holes are nothing strange - they are simply regions of space with extreme geometry. Of course we have to decide what to do about the singularity, whether it exists or not and how to interpret it. I have no problem with calling them particles either - anything can be considered a particle if the scale is sufficiently big. My problem is: what is a particle? Is it simply a region of space with
    • Don't confuse "nobody has managed to explain what a particle is" with "nobody has explained *to me* what a particle is". Particles are neither poorly-defined nor assumed a priori.

      Likewise, I guess the trivial response to "what I'd really like to see is..." is "start looking". Such subjects are already of significant interest to theoretical physicists.
      • 1. No, not in particle physics. Particle physics starts off from the assumption that "there are particles" (basically small, hard lumps of matter, no explanations needed), and by Jove, they fit into a Poincare group when we look at it in this particular way. What I'm after is this: You have space - a manifold, possibly smooth, possibly mapped by real vectorspaces, but possibly not, so assume general modules. In this space provide an intrinsic definition of 'a particle' - ie, a definition based on nothing bu
  • TED: Ideas worth spreading [ted.org] is a great site for short lectures on a huge range of topics, from music to physics to economics to technology.
  • "Hot" and "Topics in modern physics" don't work in the same sentence for most people.
    I realize that some of you will have a hard time with this concept. See previous discussions regarding Slashdotters and girlfriends.
    • Girls seem to have an aversion to not showering and other antisocial behaviour. They rather like guys who are intelligent but otherwise normal.
  • Prof Walter Lewin at MIT has some entertaining lectures online as well at http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Physics/8-01Physics-IFall1999/CourseHome/index.htm [mit.edu]. Great image of consercation of mechanical energy on the opening page.

  • how to download and play in linux (Score:3, Insightful)

    by wes33 (698200) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @09:34AM (#23390918)
    anyone know how to do what the subject says? my firefox says there is no plugin for the weird plugin perimeter is using, but I'd rather download the videos anyway. But how?
  • General Relativity rocks. It is elegant in its minimialism. All efforts to add a little extra have failed, usually by allowing a dipole gravity wave mode of emission which has been ruled out by binary pulsar data.

    The only field theory that is manifestly better than GR is the Maxwell field equations. Every time we have added to it in the name of symmetry, the theory has done more. James did it himself by tacking on the Ampere current. Einstein looked to get rid of a duplicate law, and so special relativity was born. With the huge supply of new particles coming out of atom smashers, the gauge symmetry in EM (U(1)) was expanded to SU(2) for the weak force, and SU(3) for the strong.

    None of those smart cats listed in the initial post will be talking about the Maxwell equations. Too bad, the history of physics is clear: expand Maxwell, you win.

    Max depends on the field strength tensor d_u A_v - d_v A_u. There is a subtraction in there, a great thing (called an exterior derivative). But in the name of symmetry, we need to work with the rest of it, d_u A_v + d_v A_u. Do that right, and you get a unified field theory that Einstein failed to find by looking for workable extensions of GR. Extend Max, not GR.

    If anyone here wants to see the nuts and bolts of deriving the Maxwell equations using the Euler-Lagrange equations, search for "GEM action" on YouTube. A small variation - two minus signs - on the Maxwell equations leads to equations for gravity. Yes, I show that there is a metric solution (the Rosen metric if you are up on your GR jargon, a bunch of exponentials if not). Yes I know there is an issue of spin 1 and spin 2 which can be addressed if you get what the phase of current coupling really is.

    YouTube can survive being slashdotted.

    • Both are unable to prove anything
      I can see why you would say this, but I am stunned by the colossal gulf of ignorance it would have taken to be able to write this. Why don't you watch some of these lectures and get to know a bit about the subject?

      I, for one, welcome our new--uh, wait, wrong line.

      I, for one, haven't noticed a whole lot of disdain for psychology around here, except perhaps where it is justly deserved--e.g. when the methodology is suspect or the conclusions don't follow. Perhaps those sort of mistakes don't happen as often in the physics realm. Perhaps it's easier to get into the field of psychology, or easier for a non-expert to find flaws with the experiments. Perhaps it's because whenever we read a bad summary of a physics paper, we can go to arXiv and get the real story.

      In short, I much doubt that there's many on here who would claim that one field of scientific investigation that is more valid than another--if the science was done right, we must accept the results.
      • One of the problems with psychology is that there's psychology the (somewhat young, quite difficult) science, and psychology the art. When someone says they have a degree in psychology you don't always know whether it's a BSc or a BA.

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