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This course explores the basic principles of chemistry and their application to engineering systems. It deals with the relationship between electronic structure, chemical bonding, and atomic order. It also investigates the characterization of atomic arrangements in crystalline and amorphous solids: metals, ceramics, semiconductors, and polymers (including proteins). Topics covered include organic chemistry, solution chemistry, acid-base eq...more
This course uses the theory and application of atomistic computer simulations to model, understand, and predict the properties of real materials. Specific topics include: energy models from classical potentials to first-principles approaches; density functional theory and the total-energy pseudopotential method; errors and accuracy of quantitative predictions: thermodynamic ensembles, Monte Carlo sampling and molecular dynamics simulations...more
Economics is the study of how people allocate resources to maximize returns. Cornell offers a broad range of economics courses through the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Industrial and Labor Relations, the Johnson Graduate School of Management, the College of Human Ecology, and the Department of Applied Economics and Management. Cornell faculty and students have applied economic principles to study the economies of whole conti...more
Prior to Malthus, population growth was seen as good for the power and wealth of a country. The rapid population growth of America was crucial in expelling England (via the Revolution) and France (via the Louisiana Purchase) from the US. But in fact, the numbers of the poor were growing in Europe in the 1700s. Malthus argued that poverty was due to an imbalance between people and resources; since population could rise very fast, it could a...more
Early Modern England: Politics, Religion, and Society under the Tudors and Stuarts (HIST 251)Professor Wrightson discusses the remarkable growth of the British economy in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. He examines the changed context of stable population and prices; regional agricultural specialization; urbanization; the expansion of overseas trade both with traditional European trading partners and with the Americas ...more
European populations grew only slowly during the period 1200-1700; factors include disease and wars. Human feces and rotting animal remains were not sequestered and often contaminated drinking water. Cities were so filthy that more people died in them than were born. About a third of children died in infancy, many from abandonment and lack of care during wet-nursing. Children that survived were subjected to harsh discipline to control thei...more
This lecture continues the analysis of the Capital Asset Pricing Model, building up to two key results. One, the Mutual Fund Theorem proved by Tobin, describes the optimal portfolios for agents in the economy. It turns out that every investor should try to maximize the Sharpe ratio of his portfolio, and this is achieved by a combination of money in the bank and money invested in the "market" basket of all existing assets. The market basket...more
Environmental Politics and Law (EVST 255) Professor John Wargo introduces the central question of the course, ''Can law shape a sustainable future for ten billion people?'' The purpose of the course is to examine the most important U.S. laws adopted over the past forty years, and to evaluate their effectiveness. Lectures will present histories of nuclear experimentation, industrial and organic agriculture, air quality, plastics, wilder...more
The boom in European colonial expansion in the second half of the nineteenth century, the so-called New Imperialism, can be seen to follow from three principle factors, in ascending order of importance: religious proselytizing, profit, and inter-imperial political strategy. With respect to the latter concern, the conflicts emerging from imperialism set the stage for World War I. Along with its military and industrial consequences, imperial...more
This lecture probes the reasons for confederate defeat and union victory. Professor Blight begins with an elucidation of the loss of will thesis, which suggests that it was a lack of conviction on the home front that assured confederate defeat, before offering another of other popular explanations for northern victory: industrial capacity, political leadership, military leadership, international diplomacy, a pre-existing political culture,...more
The war saw a transformation of politics at both elite and popular level. This led to the Liberals being replaced by Labour as the main party of the Left. The last purely Liberal government came to an end in 1915. The inter-war leaders, Stanley Baldwin and Ramsay MacDonald, sought to continue the mission of liberalism by civilizing the state. Yet Britain's industrial structure remained geared to the past rather than the future, and ...more
Professor Blight discusses the expectations, advantages, and disadvantages with which North and South entered the Civil War. Both sides, he argues, expected and desired a short, contained conflict. The northern advantages enumerated in this lecture include industrial capability, governmental stability, and a strong navy. Confederate advantages included geography and the ability to fight a defensive war. Professor Blight concludes the lectu...more
