The Great Courses
Author
Series
Democracy and Its Alternatives volume 5
Language
English
Description
Investigate nationalism through a handful of case studies.
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
Among Greek city-states, Athens was not alone in having a form of democratic rule. As you'll discover in this episode, Greek governments ran on a sliding scale from oligarchy and democracy to kingship and tyranny. Delve into Homer's epics to examine several early examples of democratic assembly.
Author
Series
Great Music of the 20th Century volume 7
Language
English
Description
Learn about Schoenberg's friendship with Gustav Mahler, who defended Schoenberg's groundbreaking compositions. Study Schoenberg's remarkable metamorphosis in which he sought to free melody from the limits of functional tonality, as exemplified in his Six Little Pieces for Piano. Examine events in Schoenberg's personal life that may help explain his final break with musical tradition.
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
Brown dwarfs are low-mass objects whose dim glow is caused by slow gravitational contraction and the fusion of deuterium, a heavier but far less abundant isotope of hydrogen. Free-floating planets have even less mass than brown dwarfs and are not associated with any star.
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
Star clusters are gravitationally bound groups of stars that are all about the same age and the same distance from Earth. Astronomers can determine the approximate ages of clusters. This lecture also explains how the distance of extremely remote stars is found.
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
You've already seen how public speakers dominated the assemblies. Now take a look at the politicians whose voices rose above the fray. While every citizen theoretically had a voice in the democracy, a few politicians and demagogues tended to dominate. Learn about Cleon, Alcibiades, and others.
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
Who were the citizens of Athens? As you'll reflect on in this episode, perhaps as low as one-fifth of Athenian residents were citizens. Women, slaves, and resident aliens were excluded. Learn about the responsibilities of citizens, and the lives of those who could not participate.
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
A voyage to another star would require exact information on distances and properties of the stars. This lecture shows how astronomers measure the distance to nearby stars and how they determine their surface temperatures, which are the basis for stellar classification.
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
Start your journey through some of the most jarring misconceptions of science with this introductory look at the nature of science itself. You'll examine ways the scientific method deviates from the way it's taught, the true definitions of terms like "theory" and "model," and the relationship science shares with philosophy.
12) Understanding the Universe: An Introduction to Astronomy, 2nd Edition: The Inflationary Universe
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
The remarkable large-scale uniformity and "flatness" of the Universe pose a problem for the standard Big Bang theory. A startling but powerful suggested explanation is that the Universe went through an initial period of exponential expansion, called inflation.
Author
Series
Notorious London A City Tour volume 3
Language
English
Description
Go back in time to an evening in March of 1941, when the Café de Paris-a popular center of London nightlife in the 1930s and 40s-was destroyed in the Blitz. Uncover the history of the Café and see how its destruction reflects not only the horrors of wartime London, but the resiliency of the citizens who had to "keep calm and carry on" under the threat of war.
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
The course ends on a philosophical note, with reflections on intelligent life in the cosmos and of our place in its grand structure. Perhaps the most astonishing thing about the Universe is that we are able to contemplate and understand it through systematic studies.
17) Understanding the Universe: An Introduction to Astronomy, 2nd Edition: Enigmatic Gamma-Ray Bursts
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
Roughly once per day, somewhere in the sky, there is a short, intense burst of gamma rays. Most of these events originate in very distant galaxies, making them among the most powerful explosions in the Universe-but they are not evaporating black holes.
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
Why is the sky dark at night? In an infinitely old and large Universe the sky should be ablaze with light at all times. There are several possible answers to this paradox, each of which has profound cosmological implications. The relative youth of the Universe is now known to be the main explanation.
Author
Series
US Constitution through History volume 10
Language
English
Description
Although Abraham Lincoln was not elected as an abolitionist president, the era's tension between North and South boiled over into the Civil War shortly after his election. Here, reflect on the many constitutional questions posed by the war, from the right of habeas corpus to the legality (or illegality) of secession.
20) Understanding the Universe: An Introduction to Astronomy, 2nd Edition: Scale Models of the Universe
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
The best way to understand the size of the Universe is to investigate it in a series of steps, each 10 times larger or smaller than the one preceding. In this way, you explore the cosmos from the smallest to the largest scale.