physics class
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Rewriting RSG to Illustrate all Three Paradigms and Lambdas in Python, How Objects Are Implemented in Python, Python Dictionary Implementation, Writing an RSG Grammar in Python Using A Dictionary and Lists, Expanding the Start Terminal Using all Three Paradigms at Once, Changing the Expand Function to A Binary Function, Modifying the Map to Use A Python Lambda Function As A Result, Python Object Model From A Memory Standpoint, How Objects ...more
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Over time, economists' justifications for why free markets are a good thing have changed. In the first few classes, we saw how under some conditions, the competitive allocation maximizes the sum of agents' utilities. When it was found that this property didn't hold generally, the idea of Pareto efficiency was developed. This class reviews two proofs that equilibrium is Pareto efficient, looking at the arguments of economists Edgeworth and ...more
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We first play and then analyze wars of attrition; the games that afflict trench warfare, strikes, and businesses in some competitive settings. We find long and damaging fights can occur in class in these games even when the prizes are small in relation to the accumulated costs. These could be caused by irrationality or by players' having other goals like pride or reputation. But we argue that long, costly fights should be expected in these...more
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This lecture continues the analysis of Social Security started at the end of the last class. We describe the creation of the system in 1938 by Franklin Roosevelt and Frances Perkins and its current financial troubles. For many Democrats, Social Security is the most successful government program ever devised and for many Republicans Social Security is a bankrupt program that needs to be privatized. Is there any way to reconcile the views of...more
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The nineteenth century witnessed an unprecedented degree of urbanization, an increase in urban population growth relative to population growth generally. One of the chief consequences of this growth was class segregation, as the bourgeoisie and upper classes were forced to inhabit the same confined space as workers. Significantly, this had opposed effects in Europe, where the working classes typically inhabit the periphery of cities, and t...more
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Early Modern England: Politics, Religion, and Society under the Tudors and Stuarts (HIST 251)In this final lecture, Professor Wrightson reviews the major themes of the class through a reflection on the nature of the historical process. He explains how the developments traced in the course illustrate the complex and ambiguous nature of historical change and emphasizes the importance of studying history as a means of ''understanding ourselve...more
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Jeremy Bentham's formulation of classical utilitarianism is the first Enlightenment tradition that the course will cover in depth. In his Principles of Morals and Legislation, Bentham outlines the principle of utility; that is, the principle that all men are pleasure-seeking and pain-avoiding. Professor Shapiro presents the case that classical utilitarianism has five characteristics: (1) it is comprehensive and deterministic, (2) it is a p...more
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We first consider the alternative "Bertrand" model of imperfect competition between two firms in which the firms set prices rather than setting quantities. Then we consider a richer model in which firms still set prices but in which the goods they produce are not identical. We model the firms as stores that are on either end of a long road or line. Customers live along this line. Then we return to models of strategic politics in which it i...more
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The cultural transition from the romantic era of consumption to the era of tuberculosis derived not only from the germ theory of disease and the triumph of contagionism over anticontagionism, but also from political considerations. Worries over population decline and growing working-class militancy were aggravated by what now appeared to be a social disease, or a disease of poverty. One of the strategies deployed against the disease was th...more
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Although the harm principle as introduced in the last lecture seems straightforward at first glance, today Professor Shapiro discusses its ambiguities. If it "must be calculated to produce evil to someone else," who will be doing the calculations? Second, what does "calculated" mean? Does committing harm imply mens rea, or should strict liability be observed? The class discusses such issues as prostitution, free trade, same-sex marriage, s...more
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This lecture gives a brief history of the young field of financial theory, which began in business schools quite separate from economics, and of my growing interest in the field and in Wall Street. A cornerstone of standard financial theory is the efficient markets hypothesis, but that has been discredited by the financial crisis of 2007-09. This lecture describes the kinds of questions standard financial theory nevertheless answers well. ...more
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XML Processing and Python - Two Different XML Processing Models, Example XML Fragment, How an XML Parser Uses Tag Handlers to Break Up an XML Stream, How Python Can Parse XML Streams Using Urlopen, Make_Parser, and Contenthandler, Defining a Listfeedtitles Function that Takes in a URL and Parses it Using a Parser and an Rsshandler, Contenthandler Interface, Implementing The Rsshandler Class, Which Subclasses Contenthandler, to Fit The Spec...more
