Modern Physics: The Theoretical Minimum

For the past two years, Stan­ford has been rolling out a series of cours­es (col­lec­tive­ly called Mod­ern Physics: The The­o­ret­i­cal Min­i­mum) that gives you a base­line knowl­edge for think­ing intel­li­gent­ly about mod­ern physics. The sequence, which moves from Isaac New­ton, to Albert Einstein’s work on the gen­er­al and spe­cial the­o­ries of rel­a­tiv­i­ty, to black holes and string the­o­ry, comes out of Stanford’s Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies pro­gram (my day job). And the cours­es are all taught by Leonard Susskind, an impor­tant physi­cist who has engaged in a long run­ning “Black Hole War” with Stephen Hawk­ing. The final course, Sta­tis­ti­cal Mechan­ics, has now been post­ed on YouTube, and you can also find it on iTunes in video. The rest of the cours­es can be accessed imme­di­ate­ly below. Six cours­es. Rough­ly 120 hours of con­tent. A com­pre­hen­sive tour of mod­ern physics. All in video. All free. Beat that.

Mod­ern Physics: The The­o­ret­i­cal Min­i­mum

• Clas­si­cal Mechan­ics (Fall 2007) iTunes YouTube
• Quan­tum Mechan­ics (Win­ter 2008) iTunes YouTube
• Spe­cial Rel­a­tiv­i­ty (Spring 2008) iTunes YouTube
• Ein­stein’s Gen­er­al The­o­ry of Rel­a­tiv­i­ty (Fall 2009) iTunes YouTube
• Cos­mol­o­gy (Win­ter 2009) iTunes YouTube
• Sta­tis­ti­cal Mechan­ics (Spring 2009) iTunes YouTube

PS If you live in the San Fran­cis­co Bay Area, you should con­sid­er check­ing out Prof. Susskind’s new course. It will take a year­long look at new rev­o­lu­tions in Par­ti­cle Physics, and how impor­tant the­o­ries will be test­ed by the Large Hadron Col­lid­er in Europe. His course begins next week. Learn more here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Has Stephen Hawk­ing Been Wrong For The Last 30 Years?

Learn­ing Physics Through Free Online Cours­es