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The Mechanical Universe
1985 · TV series · documentary · 1 season
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.
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I will probably date myself with this comment, but in my highschool days there used to be this TV series called the Mechanical Universe produced by Caltech. It was so fantastically good, perhaps peak pedagogy for its time.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8_xPU5epJddRABXqJ5h5G0dk-XGtA5cZ&si=ejT8_7Dma0vWOodH
Prof Goodstein was my freshman physics professor. I didn't realize at the time how lucky I was.
Goodstein also was the host of "The Mechanical Universe".
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0396993/
I managed to snag one of the last copies before they went out of print.
* These videos were produced in 1985 to 1986. Please change the title to reflect this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mechanical_Universe
* The full playlist of 52 episodes: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8_xPU5epJddRABXqJ5h5G0dk-XGtA5cZ
* I love the way they animate the manipulation of mathematical formulas. When I work on algebra, I visualize the same sort of animations in my head (of moving, creating, and deleting terms). For example: https://youtu.be/MWrOozSSdW8?t=1163 ; https://youtu.be/w6ynSbzPhjc?t=1081 ; https://youtu.be/w6ynSbzPhjc?t=1280 ; https://youtu.be/MSUkQXA5_bU?t=1217 ; https://youtu.be/MSUkQXA5_bU?t=1289
and reading a book that teaches you something new. I can attest to this. I've noticed I sleep MUCH better when I watch the next episode of "The Mechanical Universe" on my phone in my bed right before I sleep.
Tom Apostol was also part of the team that put together "The Mechanical Universe", a highly acclaimed 52 episode series of video lectures that cover a full undergraduate physics course.
The creators of the program provide all episodes online at https://www.learner.org/resources/series42.html
I never met the man but I learned a lot from him. May he rest in peace.