Stanford University on YouTube.

Not having had the benefit/disadvantage of a university education (since the age of about 18 I’ve leant rather considerably towards the autodidactic), I occasionally find myself regretting that I never had the opportunity to attend lectures on the subjects that most appeal to and inspire me. It doesn’t trouble me too much, of course, since there are always other avenues of enquiry available — but a part of me has always had a niggling suspicion that it’s missed out on something vitally important.

And then I discovered the more intellectual provinces of that perceived dog-on-a-skateboard neighbourhood, YouTube, and suddenly I felt complete. (Well, as near as dammit 😉 )

The sheer volume of lectures now available is becoming positively staggering. Whether you want something on astrophysics or molecular biology, you’ll find it. Granted, it does to be selective — bad science can thrive in such an environment — but if you follow the basic rules, you won’t go far wrong.

I was especially pleased to discover The Stanford University YouTube Channel — the kind of “place” that makes me wish I had more time to spare.

The video below is the first of ten two-hour lectures from Stanford on Darwin’s legacy. I haven’t even begun to watch them yet but I thought I’d share now, anyway, before I forget. They’re bound to be good.

Twenty hours on Darwin’s legacy… call me sad if you like (though I’d rather you didn’t!), but if that isn’t as close as an atheist can come to heaven I don’t know what is.

All text © 2009 Gary William Murning

The Whole Universe in a Glass of Wine.

“A poet once said “The whole universe is in a glass of wine.” We will probably never know in what sense he meant that, for poets do not write to be understood. But it is true that if we look at a glass closely enough we see the entire universe. There are the things of physics: the twisting liquid which evaporates depending on the wind and weather, the reflections in the glass, and our imaginations adds the atoms. The glass is a distillation of the Earth’s rocks, and in its composition we see the secret of the universe’s age, and the evolution of the stars. What strange array of chemicals are there in the wine? How did they come to be? There are the ferments, the enzymes, the substrates, and the products. There in wine is found the great generalization: all life is fermentation. Nobody can discover the chemistry of wine without discovering, as did Louis Pasteur, the cause of much disease. How vivid is the claret, pressing its existence into the consciousness that watches it! If our small minds, for some convenience, divide this glass of wine, this universe, into parts — physics, biology, geology, astronomy, psychology, and so on — remember that Nature does not know it! So let us put it all back together, not forgetting ultimately what it is for. Let it give us one more final pleasure: drink it and forget it all!”

Richard Feynman.
The New Quantum Universe (2003) by Tony Hey and Patrick Walters; Epilogue. (Originally, from “The Feynman Lectures on Physics,” by Feynman, Leighton and Sands.)

Rutting Deer and Red Squirrels.

Ah, yes, it’s that time again — my favourite fortnight of the year (okay, I’m exaggerating a bit, but it is nonetheless a televisual event that I look forward to, almost as much as, ahem, Strictly Come Dancing.) The leaves start to turn, the evenings draw in, woolly jumpers become the staple and, sure enough, weekday evenings will find my attention focused on the windswept hair of Kate Humble and the comfortingly familiar beard and belly of former Goodie Bill Oddie as they and the Autumnwatch team guide us through the seasonal changes in the natural world around us.

From rutting deer to grey seals, from Heligan WebCams to oystercatchers and black-tailed godwits (don’t you just love that name?!), these are but a few of the delights in store. The central base for this year’s show is Brownsea Island, but additional reports will come from the surrounding area — including Poole Harbour, the Dorset coastline and the New Forest — as well as the Farne Islands and… Birmingham (believe it or not, there are apparently muntjac deer and otters to be found there.)

All in all, it looks set to be a thoroughly enthralling fortnight. And with a bit of luck, Bill just might manage to offend a few ridiculously prudish people again!

© 2008 Gary William Murning