The Great Courses (Firm)
Author
Series
Great Courses volume 9
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
Logic is intellectual self-defense against such assaults on reason and also a method of quality control for checking the validity of your own views. But beyond these very practical benefits, informal logic—the kind we apply in daily life—is the gateway to an elegant and fascinating branch of philosophy known as formal logic, which is philosophy’s equivalent to calculus. Formal logic is a breathtakingly versatile tool. Much like a Swiss army...
Publisher
The Great Courses
Language
English
Description
We commonly define the Pythagorean theorem using the formula a2 + b2 = c2. But Pythagoras himself would have been confused by that. Explore how this famous theorem can be explained using common geometric shapes (no fancy algebra required), and how it’s a critical foundation for the rest of geometry.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Language
English
Description
Quantum mechanics gives us a picture of the world so radically counterintuitive that it has changed our perspective on reality itself. In Quantum Mechanics: The Physics of the Microscopic World, award-winning Professor Benjamin Schumacher gives you the logical tools to grasp the paradoxes and astonishing insights of this field.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Description
No physical object in the Arthurian canon carries more symbolic weight than the Holy Grail. Discover the origins and varied manifestations of the Grail, explore the most celebrated of the literary Grail narratives, and investigate why the Grail has fired the imagination of writers from the medieval world to the modern one..
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2014.
Language
English
Description
Uncover the cosmopolitan character of this beloved Sicilian cathedral that encompasses Muslim, Byzantine, French, Italian, and Jewish influences. Delve into the remarkable decoration of the great cloisters, 12th-century doors, and above all the cathedral's ceiling and sublime narrative mosaics, comprising one of the world's most beautiful church interiors.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2013.
Language
English
Description
Travel enthusiasts take note: this is your ticket to capturing the beauty and awe of any scene, anywhere in the world. Filled with practical tips, techniques, and field demonstrations, this course, taught by National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore, helps you learn to see the world through the eyes of a professional photographer, so you can take compelling travel photographs worth framing and sharing.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Description
Look beyond recycling to the higher goal of sustainability. Then close the course by considering the Great Northeast Blackout of 2003. Caused by inadequately pruned trees and a software bug, this cascading sequence of infrastructure failures holds important lessons for the world of everyday engineering..
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2013.
Language
English
Description
Travel through time to the golden ages of 12 of Europe's most beautiful medieval cities. In 24 lessons that use extensive location footage, you'll discover the sights, sounds, and smells of teeming markets and mercantile centers, royal feasts and ritual, dramatic military engagements, magnificent religious pageantry, and the many colorful layers of daily medieval life.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Description
Not all aspects of musicality mature in the brain at the same rate. Trace the developing music faculty in infants, who have already learned to recognize their mother’s speech patterns and singing while in the womb. Examine research showing that singing is more effective than speech in calming infants..
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Description
Explore ways that teachers and students behave in classrooms across the globe, focusing on what seems to work in a few key systems. Discover why practices that produce a great outcome in one place—such as lengthening the school year—don’t necessarily lead to success in another..
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2018.
Language
English
Description
Dr. Amishi Jha shares her lab's exciting research on the effects of mindfulness-based training programs on cognition, emotion, and resilience. While other types of brain training do not seem to result in long-term benefits, mindfulness training can positively impact the physical structure and functioning of the brain, especially in the three distinct brain networks related to attention and focus.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Description
Visit Theodore Roosevelt, Badlands, and Mount Rushmore National Parks in the Dakotas, beholding the landscape that inspired Theodore Roosevelt to become an ardent conservationist. Learn how the fantastic forms of the badlands are the product of deposition, uplift, and erosion..
13) Nordic Noir
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
The last decade has seen Nordic noir enter the American mainstream, though they have been popular in their homeland for half a century. Professor Schmid takes you through this progressive form of mystery and suspense fiction, showing how many examples of Nordic noir provided a socially conscious look at powerful themes such as complicity with the Nazis, racism, misogyny, corruption, and class.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2000.
Language
English
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?
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Description
Discover the timeless riddles and paradoxes that have confounded the greatest philosophical, mathematical, and scientific minds in history. Stretching your mind to try to solve a puzzle, even when the answer eludes you, can help sharpen your mind and focus - and it’s an intellectual thrill!
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
Death serves as the horizon against which our lives unfold and shapes the choices we make about how to live. In fact, the knowledge of mortality has inspired much of human activity—religion, philosophy, music and visual arts, even scientific endeavors and monumental architecture have all been driven by our understanding of death. Whether viewed as a transition to paradise or punishment, an ultimate separation or ecstatic joining, the end of existence...
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Description
Look beneath the surface of a seemingly simple feature of music: beat. Discover that beat perception in humans is exceedingly complex and incorporates six distinct criteria. Then survey animal studies to see if other species share our talent for getting the beat..
18) Epictetus
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2001.
Language
English
Description
Born a slave, he was exiled from Rome for speaking too freely to the emperor. Despite offers to return, he lived on in a backwater, becoming one of the greatest exponents of that vastly influential approach to life known as Stoicism.
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Description
Where would we be without the scientists that brought to life the inventions and discoveries that are the foundations of modern medicine? In this lecture, meet some of the people who developed the tools to identify microorganisms, the means to pinpoint the source of a disease, the vaccinations to prevent them, and the drugs to treat them..
Publisher
The Great Courses
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
From the Greek “lyre,” a lyric poem expresses a writer’s thoughts and feelings through the intimacy of the first-person narrator, evoking a strong emotional reaction in the audience. Professor Cognard-Black demonstrates the similarities between a lyric poem and a lyric essay and shares a moving example of a lyric piece written by one of her own students that uses memory fragments and figurative language to synthesize experience into a kind of...