The Mechanical Universe

“The Mechanical Universe” is a critically-acclaimed series of 52 thirty-minute videos covering the basic topics of an introductory university physics course

by AMMA · Published 4 de Novembro de 2020 · Updated 5 de Novembro de 2020

Introduction

The Mechanical Universe…and Beyond is a critically-acclaimed series of 52 thirty-minute videotape programs covering the basic topics of an introductory university physics course. The series was originally produced as a broadcast telecourse by the California Institute of Technology and Intelecom, Inc. with program funding from the Annenberg/CPB Project.

Each program in the series opens and closes with Caltech Professor David Goodstein providing philosophical, historical and often humorous insight into the subject at hand while lecturing to his freshman physics class. The Mechanical Universe contains hundreds of computer animation segments, created by Dr. James F. Blinn, as the primary tool of instruction. Dynamic location footage and historical re-creations are also used to stress the fact that science is a human endeavor.

Upon completion of the broadcast telecourse, Professor Richard Olenick, Associate Project Director, received funding from the National Science Foundation to produce a seven-hour High School Adaptation suitable for high school physics students. The Mechanical Universe has been translated into nine languages, and a Spanish language version of the High School Adaptation has just been completed.

The series has been broadcast as a telecourse over the PBS television network and can still be seen on many PBS stations. Available on consumer VHS videocassette and laserdisc, and accompanied by textbooks, The Mechanical Universe is arguably the most successful attempt to date to use video technology in the presentation of rigorous physics instruction.

Background

The Mechanical Universe is based on the physics course developed by Dr. David Goodstein at the California Institute of Technology. It was one of twelve projects initially selected for funding by the Annenberg/CPB Project. Course development began with the creation of a set of phantom lectures for the 52 lessons, covering the scientific revolution begun by Copernicus through to current quantum theory. The project was a joint production of Caltech and Intelecom, the largest college television consortia in the United States. The production team included distinguished scientists, video industry professionals, and gifted educators all working in collaboration.

To ensure the highest degree of academic and technical quality, a series of checks and balances was built into the development process. Each program underwent rigorous evaluation by an academic team and a production team, as well as an Oversight Committee, a Local Advisory Committee of educators and a National Advisory Committee comprised of distinguished professionals in film, science, education, and national affairs.

Contents

The Mechanical Universe…and Beyond was designed to cover the typical curriculum of a university freshman physics course. As an aid in viewing the topics and subject matter found in the 52 programs, one version of the Table of Contents is presented below.

The Mechanical Universe

Episode number	Title	Directed by	Written by	Episode via YouTube
1	“Introduction”	Peter F. Buffa	Jack Arnold	1
Brief overview of the material in the first 26 episodes.
2	“The Law of Falling Bodies”	Peter F. Buffa	Peter F. Buffa	2
How falling bodies behave and an introduction to the derivative.
3	“Derivatives”	Mark Rothschild	Pamela Kleibrink	3
Review of the mathematical operation the derivative.
4	“Inertia”	Peter F. Buffa	Albert Abrams	4
How Galileo used the law of inertia to answer questions about the stars.
5	“Vectors”	Peter F. Buffa	Deane Rink	5
Vectors not only have a magnitude but also a direction.
6	“Newton’s Laws”	Mark Rothschild	Ronald J. Casden	6
Newton’s first, second and third laws.
7	“Integration”	Mark Rothschild	Seth Hill & Tom M. Apostol	7
Integration and differentiation are inverse operations of each other.
8	“The Apple and the Moon”	Peter F. Buffa	Don Bane	8
An apple falls and the Moon orbits the Earth because of gravity.
9	“Moving in Circles”	Mark Rothschild	Deane Rink	9
A body in uniform circular motion has both constant speed and constant acceleration.
10	“Fundamental Forces”	Mark Rothschild	Don Bane	10
Gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces.
11	“Gravity, Electricity, Magnetism”	Peter F. Buffa	Don Bane	11
How electricity and magnetism relate to the speed of light.
12	“The Millikan Experiment”	Mark Rothschild	Albert Abrams	12
Millikan’s demonstration to accurately measure the charge of an electron.
13	“Conservation of Energy”	Mark Rothschild	Seth Hill	13
Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed.
14	“Potential Energy”	Mark Rothschild	Don Bane	14
Systems that are stable are at their lowest potential energy.
15	“Conservation of Momentum”	Peter Robinson	Jack George Arnold	15
Momentum is conserved when two or more bodies interact.
16	“Harmonic Motion”	Mark Rothschild	Ronald J. Casden	16
Disturbing stable systems will produce simple harmonic motion.
17	“Resonance”	Peter F. Buffa	Ronald J. Casden	17
Resonance is produced when the frequency of a disturbing force comes close to the natural harmonic frequency of a system.
18	“Waves”	Peter F. Buffa	Ronald J. Casden	18
Waves are a series of disturbances that propagate through solids, liquids and gases.
19	“Angular Momentum”	Peter F. Buffa	Jack George Arnold & David L. Goodstein	19
Objects traveling in circles have angular momentum.
20	“Torques and Gyroscopes”	Mark Rothschild	Jack George Arnold & David L. Goodstein	20
A force acting on a spinning object can cause it to precess.
21	“Kepler’s Three Laws”	Peter F. Buffa	Seth Hill	21
Kepler discovered the orbits of the planets are ellipses.
22	“The Kepler Problem”	Peter F. Buffa	Seth Hill	22
Newton proved that an inverse-square law of gravity implies that celestial bodies move in orbits that are conic sections.
23	“Energy and Eccentricity”	Peter F. Buffa	Seth Hill	23
The conservation of energy and angular momentum help determine how eccentric an orbit will be.
24	“Navigating in Space”	Peter F. Buffa	Don Bane	24
The laws that describe planetary motion are used to navigate in space.
25	“Kepler to Einstein”	Peter F. Buffa	Don Bane, David L. Goodstein & Jack George Arnold	25
Albert Einstein used Newton’s and Kepler’s laws to work on his theory of relativity.
26	“Harmony of the Spheres”	Peter F. Buffa	David L. Goodstein & Jack George Arnold	26
Harmonizing music to the orbits of the planets.

The Mechanical Universe …and Beyond

Episode number	Title	Directed by	Written by	Episode via YouTube
27	“Beyond the Mechanical Universe”	uncredited	Jack Arnold	27
An overview of the subject matter for the latter half of the series.
28	“Static Electricity”	Mark Rothschild	Donald Button	28
Introducing the concept of electric charge.
29	“The Electric Field”	uncredited	Don Button, Jack Arnold	29
Michael Faraday gave science the image of the electric field.
30	“Capacitance and Potential”	uncredited	Graham Berry, Jack Arnold	30
The basics of the capacitor, with a historical emphasis on Benjamin Franklin.
31	“Voltage, Energy, and Force”	Mark Rothschild	Donald Button	31
Furthering the understanding of how electric charges exert forces and do work.
32	“The Electric Battery”	uncredited	Judith R. Goodstein	32
Thanks to Alessandro Volta’s invention of the electric battery, we can have steady electrical current.
33	“Electric Circuits”	Mark Rothschild	Donald Button	33
The “nuts and bolts” of how electrical circuitry was made practical, featuring Wheatstone, Kirchhoff and Ohm.
34	“Magnetism”	uncredited	Donald Button, Jack Arnold	34
William Gilbert found that the Earth itself is a magnet, a discovery built upon by modern science.
35	“The Magnetic Field”	Mark Rothschild	Jack Arnold	35
Electric currents create, and are influenced by, magnetic fields, per the Biot–Savart and Ampère laws.
36	“Vector Fields and Hydrodynamics”	Robert Lattanzio	Donald Button, Jack Arnold	36
Some concepts apply generally to all vector fields and are useful both in electromagnetism and in the study of fluid flow.
37	“Electromagnetic Induction”	uncredited	Jack Arnold	37
A changing magnetic field creates an electric current: electromagnetic induction, demonstrated by Faraday in 1831.
38	“Alternating Currents”	Mark Rothschild	Jack Arnold	38
In order to make the distribution of electric power practical over great distances, transformers are used to change the voltages of alternating currents.
39	“Maxwell’s Equations”	Mark Rothschild	Jack Arnold	39
By finding the missing conceptual piece in the mathematics of electricity and magnetism, Maxwell discovers light is an electromagnetic wave.
40	“Optics”	Robert Lattanzio	Jack Arnold, David Goodstein	40
Understanding light as a wave makes sense of reflection, refraction, and diffraction.
41	“The Michelson–Morley experiment”	uncredited	Don Bane	41
If light is a wave, what is waving? By careful and precise measurement, Michelson and Morley tried to detect the Earth’s motion through this medium, the “luminiferous aether”, and found nothing.
42	“The Lorentz Transformation”	uncredited	Don Button	42
Einstein realized that, if the speed of light is to be the same for all observers, then distances in space and durations of elapsed time must be relative.
43	“Velocity and Time”	uncredited	Jack Arnold, Richard Bellikoff	43
Einstein arrived at the Lorentz transformation from a deeper conceptual understanding, creating a theory full of surprises like the twin paradox.
44	“Energy, Momentum, and Mass”	uncredited	Jack Arnold	44
The conservation of momentum still applies in special relativity, but with new implications.
45	“Temperature and the Gas Law”	uncredited	Jack Arnold	45
The study of thermodynamics begins with gases.
46	“The Engine of Nature”	Mark Rothschild	Graham Berry, David Goodstein	46
An introduction to the Carnot engine, an idealized machine for converting thermal energy into mechanical work.
47	“Entropy”	uncredited	David Goodstein, Jack Arnold	47
Further investigation of Carnot engines leads to the concept of entropy.
48	“Low Temperatures”	uncredited	Judith R. Goodstein	48
Faraday makes chlorine gas into a liquid, kicking off the pursuit of lower and lower temperatures, culminating in the liquification of helium.
49	“The Atom”	uncredited	David Goodstein, Jack Arnold	49
The ancient Greeks introduced the notion that matter is made of atoms. In the early 20th century, spectral lines and the discovery of the atomic nucleus forced the development of new ideas.
50	“Particles and Waves”	uncredited	Donald Button	50
Light, which had been thought to be a wave, was found to act in some circumstances like a stream of particles. This puzzle led to quantum mechanics.
51	“Atoms to Quarks”	uncredited	Donald Button	51
Understanding the wavefunctions that can be assigned to the electron in a hydrogen atom illuminates the shape of the periodic table of the elements.
52	“The Quantum Mechanical Universe”	uncredited	David Goodstein	52
A review of the series.