sst-0518 So let’s just talk a little bit about a telescope. Our eye is the telescope we all are used to. It’s a little tiny five millimeter telescope, and it serves us very well. But if we make telescopes bigger, we get a couple of good things. We have larger telescopes and they collect a lot more light so we […]
sst-0517 But I think just to put this in a nutshell, that many basic social values are passed on unconsciously, already in babyhood. Adults convey a great deal to babies about the kind of society they’re living in. And, you know, the most basic level, for example, whether the world is supportive and safe or challenging and dangerous. And all […]
sst-0516 The glass ceiling is an idea familiar to many. It refers to the invisible barrier that seems to exist in many fields and which prevents women from achieving senior positions. Less well-known, but arguably a more pernicious problem, is the ‘glass cliff’. Originally recognised by academics Michelle Ryan and Alex Haslam back in 2005, this is the phenomenon of […]
sst-0515 Women systematically underestimate their own abilities. If you test men and women and you ask them questions on totally objective criteria, like GPAs, men get it wrong slightly high, and women get it wrong slightly low. Women do not negotiate for themselves in the workforce. A study in the last two years of people entering the workforce out of […]
sst-0514 Theater study is a difficult subject in the academy because it cannot be experimental and it is a mixture of literature and personal life experience. Theatre should show pure lives, although there will be new actors or directors. It is also a collection of different skills, such as writing and singing. To succeed in this subject, you need the […]
sst-0513 For many, these have been vital considerations for the future of artificial intelligence. But British computer scientist Alan Turing decided to disregard all these questions. In favor of a much simpler one: can a computer talk like a human? This question led to an idea for measuring artificial intelligence that would famously come to be known as the Turing […]
sst-0512 It’s time for this young loggerhead turtle to go to work. We can tether turtles in these little cloth harnesses, put them into this tank and dull swimming place. University of North Carolina biologist Ken Loman studies sea turtles that are programed from birth for an extraordinary journey. Mother turtles buried the eggs on the beach and then returned […]
sst-0511 Socialism – the word invented in the late 1810s, communism – the word first appeared in 1840. None of these things were words, much less ideologies before the French Revolution and the French revolution gives birth to much of the modern political world. Have you not wondered why we refer to the political left, and the political right? Does […]
sst-0510 In today’s class we’ll be examining some nineteenth-century pattern books that were used for building homes. I think it’s fair to say that these pattern books were the most important influence on the design of North American houses during the nineteenth century. This was because most people who wanted to build a house couldn’t afford to hire an architect. […]
sst-0509 The Right Honorable Sir Winston Leonard Spencer–Churchill, KG, OM, CH, FRS, PC(November 30, 1874 – January 24, 1965) was a British statesman, best known as prime minister of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. At various times a soldier, journalist, author, and politician, Churchill is generally regarded as one of the most important leaders in British and […]