Sunday, March 11, 2007

MIT's Open Courseware - Physics Lectures by Prof. Walter Lewin



"Professor Lewin puts his life on the line in Lecture 11 by demonstrating his faith in the Conservation of Mechanical Energy."

One evening after an attempt to explain relativity and the weird behavior of light to my cousin. I myself had a queasy feeling in my tummy of how little I knew. I decided to revisit some basic physics first. "Googling" for electromagnetism I stumbled upon MIT's open course ware. These videos are worth their price in gold (literally considering the tuition for one semester at MIT is about 25,000$ without scholarship). There are plenty of videos of actual courses taught at MIT. Believe it or not there are videos of the course "Introduction to Algorithms" by none other than Leiserson himself. One cannot ask for more. Just sip a cup of tea, sit back and enjoy. And while you are at it don't forget to support this initiative by giving (link on the upper right corner). I think this is a great thing that MIT has done.

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Physics/8-01Physics-IFall1999/CourseHome/index.htm

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Physics/8-02Electricity-and-MagnetismSpring2002/CourseHome/index.htm

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Physics/8-03Fall-2004/CourseHome/index.htm

Especially, the courses by Walter Lewin are gems. You can also find courses on quantum physics and relativity, but, I don't know how comprehensive they are. Give them a try, they will definitely be worth your while.

MIT Open Courseware

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Dell to offer Linux on laptops ...this time it may actually!


This has been considered a number of times, then removed from consideration, and then re-considered again by many like Dell, hp and IBM (Lenovo). It is being considered again. So what's new?...... This time the customers have asked for it and, in by no means a small measure. Dell was flooded with requests at DellIdeaStorm for Linux as a pre-installed OS option in their OS offerings. This time this may actually happen ...

10th March 2007: HP to beat Dell with Linux-loaded PCs?
14th March 2007: OpenOffice Openly Courting Dell

Reuters [Via] Engadget