The Mechanical Universe
9.1IMDb162 votes
8.6TMDBThe Mechanical Universe... And Beyond is a 52-part telecourse filmed at the California Institute of Technology, produced by Caltech and INTELECOM Intelligent Telecommunications. The series introduces university-level physics, covering topics from Copernicus to quantum mechanics. Produced starting in 1985, the videos heavily utilize historical dramatizations and visual aids to explain physics concepts. These were state-of-the-art at the time, incorporating nearly 8 hours of computer animation created by computer graphics pioneer Jim Blinn. Each episode begins and ends with a "phantom" lecture by Caltech professor David Goodstein. After more than a quarter of a century, the series is still frequently used as a supplemental teaching aid for its clear explanation of fundamental concepts such as special relativity. The Mechanical Universe lectures are actual freshman physics lectures from Physics 1a and 1b courses at the California Institute of Technology. The room featured in the videos is the Bridge lecture hall. The series can be purchased or streamed from the Annenberg website, and is also available on other video streaming platforms like YouTube and Google Video.