Full Richard Feynman Messenger Lecture Series

My hobby is Physics, specifically information theory. Not a popular pastime to have, perhaps, but my Dad is a physicist and the interest rubs off.

One thing I’ve learned is that to get simple explanations for things, counter to popular belief it’s better to get the view of the best physicists than the best communicators. Richard Feynman was both.

There are many Feynman clips around, but Bill Gates has spent significant time and some of his fortune tracking down rights for a famous series of 7 lectures by Feynman at Cornell University in 1964, called the Messenger lectures. They have been put up for free at the Microsoft Research Web site, as part of project Tuva, with full transcripts and interactive features.

The extras are thorough and useful for this type of subject matter, but the format is very like an old school interactive CD-ROM, where the interface re-invents the wheel and omits standard functionality such as the ability to embed.

[ BTW – these Microsoft Silverlight powered videos were almost impossible to watch for me, due to stopping and starting. Like the bad old days before Youtube used flash embeds and web based video suddenly seemed good enough. Silverlight is, in theory solid, so what’s up here? Is it just me? ]

Watch them here.

6 comments science, smashing telly top 10 documentaries

Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock, presented by Orson Welles

Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

This is an absolute gem and an almost forgotten one – a documentary version of Alvin Toffler’s classic 70s book, Future Shock presented by Orson Welles.

The premise of Future Shock was that the pace of human progress had achieved a level which would create a pathological reaction, a metaphorical motion sickness caused by the fact that nothing seemed permanent.

Unlike most past views of tomorrow, which look hopelessly obsolete (‘nothing dates like the future’), the premise of Future Shock can only get stronger since not only progress itself, but the derivative of it, its increasing rate of change, exacerbates the core phenomenon.

Stylistically, however, Future Shock is a definitively dated period piece, an early 70s, Jumbo Fonted, psychedelic trip full of deliciously obsolete technology that conjures up wistful nostalgia where it is intended to do exactly the opposite. Even the poor quality of this video with its wavering audio track and bleached imagery actually adds to the effect.

Future Shock is both a perfect piece of vintage cultural nostalgia and still relevant scientific prophesy. It’s Everything retro-futurism should be.

1 comment nostalgia, smashing telly top 10 documentaries, society, the smashing list

In the Studio: Martin Parr

Continuing in the vein of the profound in the banal, here is a short clip of the photographer, Martin Parr, talking about his work. Parr takes photographs of ordinary people and shows them in a extraordinary light – something that is very difficult to do and which easily demonstrates to the unconvinced the difference between a great photograph and a snap.

(I’m sorry if all the recent posts have been very Brit centric, its not deliberate)

4 comments art, smashing telly top 10 documentaries

John Berger, Ways of Seeing

It has been 20 years since I read the John Berger book: “Ways of Seeing”, which was based on the classic, BAFTA award winning, series of the same name, made in 1972. Until now I hadn’t seen the original, which is a must see for TV connoisseurs. Here is episode 1.

The series deconstructed traditional paintings by reverse engineering the known methods used by advertisers to create their own compelling imagery. Of further interest is how this is a worthy example of an intellectual process that became subsumed within politically driven academia with prior agendas.

Thank you to James who recommended this classic piece of television.

Part 2 of 4 of Episode 1
Part 3 of 4 of Episode 1
Part 4 of 4 of Episode 1

Total running time, episode 1: 30 mins.

(I have added a tag called “the smashing list”, where I’ll be adding my picks of the all time greatest TV programs – Ways of Seeing makes the list)

6 comments art, smashing telly top 10 documentaries, the smashing list

Robert Hughes on Skyscrapers

Why Hughes is better known in print, in the US, is a complete mystery. He has been astounding as a documentary presenter for 30 years.

Eight minutes into this clip is an amazing snippet of the futuristic costumed dancers at the opening ceremony for the Chrysler building.

2 comments architecture, smashing telly top 10 documentaries

Jonathan Meades – On The Brandwagon

Jonathan Meades looks at the branding and regeneration of inner cities through spectacular, but ultimately vacuous, signature buildings such as Bilbao’s “museum with nothing in it” – Gehry’s Guggenheim, and through loft style modernism light – rather like the ridiculous and vapid Phillipe Stark or Armani Casa condos being built in Wall Street, where I live.

The case is put with great wit and erudition, complete with sarcastic marketing doublespeak, throughout. The conclusion is that the end result of this insincere, marketing driven, regeneration is that the once diseased inner cities have merely relocated their problems to the areas beyond the ring roads. The places where they burn cars nightly in the Banlieus, but its not just in France.

This is the trend that was identified years ago by Mike Davis in city of quartz, but the difference is that Davis realized it is a phenomenon independent of the brand of politics, social libertarianism (read Blairism), that Meades sees as the culprit. But its worth seeing Meades do his bit because he says it so well. He understands architecture so much better than a Frank Gehry or Daniel Libeskind, who have become glorified window dressers able to plonk a building anywhere in the word, to rapturous acclaim, without actually having ever been there.

Play all parts.

3 comments architecture, smashing telly top 10 documentaries, society, world

Claude Shannon

Link
Even if information theory doesn’t become the cornerstone of Physics, an outcome that now seems plausible, Shannon’s contribution to science is immeasurable. The encoding in this video itself is a result of Shannon’s ideas.

People are just starting to put up statues of Shannon, in future he will surely be remembered as the most important home grown scientist of the 20th Century.

Trivia: Shannon was a distant relative of Edison.

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Fermat’s Last Theorem

If I were to pick my favorite documentary of all time – it would be this. Mathematics, the most rational of all subjects may seem to be an unemotional topic. For this very reason, seeing the tears in Wiles’ eyes when he recounts the inspirations that enabled him to finally solve a centuries old enigma make this a dramatic piece of the most subtle kind. Simultaneously gentle and powerful.

Running time: 43 mins.

Full screen

31 comments history, science, smashing telly top 10 documentaries

Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles

A classic documentary from one of the greatest architecture critics. This film was made in the same year as Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour wrote ‘Learning from Las Vegas’, heralding the birth of the Post Modern architecture movement. Its a better legacy than the buildings that were subsequently produced.

Running time: 52 mins.

Full screen

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Connections Series 1 part 1.

Spanning three decades, James Burke made three fabulous series about the serendipitous connections between cultural events and scientific innovation.

This is the first program, made in the mid 70’s. It explores the events surrounding the cascading failure that wiped out New York City’s power supply in the 60’s. It opens in New York at the World Trade Center. Co-incidentally, it shows that the power blackout could have caused commercial airliner to crash into Manhattan had the pilot not averted disaster. The flight number of the plane was 911.

Link

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