laws of nature
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Professor Kagan introduces the course and the material that will be covered during the semester. He aims to clarify what the class will focus on in particular and which subjects it will steer away from. The emphasis will be placed on philosophical questions that arise when one contemplates the nature of death. The first half of the course will address metaphysical questions while the second half will focus on value theory.
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Sheer brainpower, strength in numbers, and good old fashioned networking is how the nature of world influence is established. Skewed and disproportionate, modern power structures that regulate global problems happen only when the elite meet, says author David Rothkopf. And decisions made based on these meetings often do not adequately represent the people or the interests that they are meant to serve.
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The Gospel of John is a gospel dramatically different from the Synoptic Gospels. It is full of long dialogues, it speaks of "signs" rather than exorcisms or miracles, and its narrative differs at many points from the Synoptics. Themes in the Gospel are also repeated throughout--themes such as ascending and descending, light and darkness, seeing and knowing. Johannine literature also presents a high Christology that equates Jesus with God. ...more
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Professor Kagan discusses the two main positions with regard to the question, "What is a person?" On the one hand, there is the dualist view, according to which a person is a body and a soul. On the other hand, the physicalist view argues that a person is just a body. The body, however, has a certain set of abilities and is capable of a large range of activities.
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January 14, 2009 lecture by David Victor for the Woods Energy Seminar (ENERGY301). In his talk "New Ways to Think About Regulating Greenhouse Gasses," Victor discusses the need for an international and universal regulation on greenhouse gas emissions and he posits that the nature of the climate problem has been erroneously placed on compliance concerns rather than actual effort.
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At the beginning of the nineteenth century, communication was slow, even relatively short journeys were uncertain and time-consuming, and people were dependant on the forces of nature for energy; this lecture charts the development of new modes of communication, from the railway to the radio, the telegraph to the telephone, the steamship to the motor-car and examines their efforts on perceptions of time and space.
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Professor Sylvia Ceyer devotes this lecture to a discussion of the periodic table, beginning with its history. Period trends are covered, including ionization energy, electron affinity, elecrtonegativity, and atomic sizes. The lecture concludes with isoelectronicity, where two molecular entities have the same number of valence electrons and the same structure, regardless of the nature of the elements involved.
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This lecture is devoted to the electron diffraction experiment of 1927, where the wavelike nature of electron beams was experimentally established, thus supporting an underlying principle of quantum mechanics. Professor Sylvia Ceyer discusses how to calculate λ from θ, de Broglie wavelength, and concludes with Schrodinger's equation of motion for matter waves.
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One can look at biodiversity from several perspectives. An ecological point of view tries to determine how necessary diversity is for an ecosystem to function. An economic point of view tries to capture the value of the "services" nature provides for mankind. An evolutionary point of view shows how artificial the human "right" to dominance is. Finally, a personal point of view captures the emotional basis for the values that humans place o...more
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The economic concept of game theory can be readily applied to evolution and behavior. By analyzing encounters between organisms as a mathematical "game," important information such as fitness payoffs and the proportions of "strategies" played by each group within a population can be inferred. While oftentimes these games are too simplified to apply directly to actual examples in nature, they are still useful models that help convey importa...more
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This lecture continues the topic of harmonic motions. Problems are introduced and solved to explore various aspects of oscillation. The second half of the lecture is an introduction to the nature and behavior of waves. Both longitudinal and transverse waves are defined and explained.
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The product concept was always to build a low-cost device, but what this meant changed greatly as the founders continued to develop more features. The nature of this device morphed from an internet sponge into the much more complex synergized communicator.
