12 Essential Scientific Concepts

Science is such a vast arena of knowledge that people looking for a better grasp of its secrets often wonder where to begin. The answer: with the essentials. Now, finally satisfy your desire for scientific inquiry in a way that makes this enormous field accessible, understandable, and undeniably captivating. Professor Viskontas boils down the scientific world into 12 key concepts every educated person should know. Devoting two lectures to each concept to give you more time to engage with it, her 24-lecture series is an engaging and enlightening introduction to everything from the behavior of subatomic particles to the latest theories about the Big Bang. Throughout, you'll get accessible looks at key building blocks of scientific knowledge, including brain plasticity, fluid mechanics, electromagnetism, genetics, quantum theory, emergence, evolution, thermodynamics, the Big Bang, and the nature of matter. Each concept is presented in a clear, concise way that will inform and delight you, and that will give you the opportunity to probe the invisible life of living cells, visit the universe seconds after its birth, and much more. Concepts that may have eluded you in school, that you may not be familiar with, or that you simply never appreciated for their intricate beauty are now brought to vivid life in a way that sticks. Welcome to the world of science - reduced to its powerful essence.

All Lectures:
1. The Miracle of Life
2. The Organization of Life
3. Evolution - The Tireless Tinkerer
4. Other Mechanisms of Evolution
5. DNA and Heritability
6. Epigenetics, Mutations, and Gene Insertion
7. The Illusion of Coherence - How We See
8. Acoustic Perception Deconstructed
9. Our Changing Brain
10. Plasticity, Brain Training, and Beyond
11. Magnetism and Its Magic
12. Electrical Forces, Fields, and Circuits
13. Thermodynamics - Heat, Energy, and Work
14. Metabolism - Energy in the Cell
15. Fluid Mechanics - Pressure, Buoyancy, Flow
16. Navigation and Propulsion in Fluids
17. The Big Bang That Didn't
18. The Four Forces of Nature
19. The Elements of Everything
20. Looks like a Particle, Acts like a Wave
21. Quanta, Uncertainty, and a Cat
22. String Theory, Membranes, and the Multiverse
23. Emergence - Simple Rules, Complex Systems
24. Order out of Chaos