Browsing by Author "Wolfe, David"

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    The 2000 year old computer: the antikythera mechanism
    (2014-09-29) Wolfe, David
    In 1900 the first ancient marine wreck was discovered in the Mediterranean. It took a century to understand that the most interesting and unique find was a series of small bronze barnacle encrusted fragments. When investigated with sophisticated technology, they turned out to be from an analogue mechanical computer, built about 70 BCE and capable of predicting planetary positions and eclipses of the Sun and the Moon both in the past and the future. Its sophistication is centuries earlier than any mechanism that even began to emulate such a device. How did it work and who could have designed and built it? This double lecture will offer answers to these absorbing questions.
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    The birth of modern astronomy
    (2013) Wolfe, David
    by Emeritus Professor David Wolfe, University of New Mexico and visiting lecturer, Physics Department, UCT. Professor Wolfe explores the foundations of astronomy, beginning with the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Babylonians, to the early modern period and the works of Brahe, Kepler, Copernicus and Newton in condifying the mathematical and theoretical models that underpin modern astronomy.
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    Isaac Newton and his enemies
    (2011) Wolfe, David
    Lectures by David Wolfe, Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of New Mexico and Director, Oppenheimer Institute for Science and International Co-operation. These audio lectures will be of interest to anyone interested in learning more about Isaac Newton and physics from a historical perspective.
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    The Large Hadron Collider and the physics of elementary particles
    (2012) Wolfe, David
    The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN on the Swiss-French border is designed to search for new physics, a term primarily applied to the appearance of symmetries in nature. These audio lectures will be of interest to anyone interested in learning more about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
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    Natural Philosophy into Science: from the fall of the Roman Empire to the 17th Century
    (2014-09-29) Wolfe, David
    The distinction between natural philosophy and modern science is a subject of much debate amongst scholars. One of the most significant elements concerns the important place that theology and the belief in God played in natural philosophy for many centuries. The tendency of historians to label periods with terms such as ‘the Dark Ages’, ‘the Middle Ages’, ‘the Renaissance’ and ‘the Enlightenment’ has had the effect of leading us to think that nothing worthwhile could have happened in a ‘Dark Age’, while an era of ‘Enlightenment’ must surely be a positive thing. That this is not true is confirmed regularly, for instance by recent discoveries of lovely art work from the Dark Ages and by clear threads leading from the eighteenth century Enlightenment to various rigid dictatorial regimes. But one cannot understand modern science or modern philosophy without looking at their roots from 400 ADE. This course will explore key periods which created the questions, the search for answers, the theology and the technology that allowed modern science to flower. LECTURE TITLES 1. From the fall of the Roman Empire to the Arab conquest of Spain 2. Philosophy from the neo Platonism of Plotinus to Abelard 3. The rediscovery of Aristotle and the birth of scholasticism 4. Late Middle Ages, Buridan, Oresme, Duns Scotus, Swineshead 5. The Renaissance and the growth of humanism Recommended reading Collins, R. 1999. Early Medieval Europe 300–1000. 2nd ed. New York: St Martin’s Press. Hannam, J. 2009. God’s Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science. London: Icon Books. Russell, B. 2004. The History of Western Philosophy. London: Routledge This lecture series was part of the 2014 UCT Summer School programme http://www.summerschool.uct.ac.za/ Image details: "Portrait of Aristoteles" (2005) by Eric Gaba on Wikimedia Commons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Aristoteles_Louvre.jpg
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    Thomas Young: the man who knew everything
    (2011) Wolfe, David
    This audio lecture is conducted by David Wolfe, Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of New Mexico and the Director of the Oppenheimer Institute for Science and International Co-operation. These podcasts will be of interest to anyone who would like to learn more about Thomas Young, a British polymath, and his work on the discovery of light waves.