The Great Courses

As I mentioned on the main page The Great Courses offers several classes, hosted online at their site and at Kanopy, and the Cincinnati Public Library also carries many of their classes on DVD. Here are my detailed thoughts.

The Remarkable Science of Ancient Astronomy

by Professor Bradley E. Schaefer, Ph.D. - Louisiana State University

The official course description is below. This is a 24 episode TV show style course with a good presenter and good visuals, although I think they move the cameras around too much to try to keep the topic "dynamic". It starts from prehistory, works through StoneHenge and the Greeks, and provides a good historical introduction to astronomy generally, ending at Copernicus and Kepler - as astronomy becomes an established science. Kanopy link to watch, or go to my Episode-by-Episode page.

In a world without artificial lights, the night sky was ablaze with over a thousand stars, whose patterns illustrated stories people had heard since childhood. Thus, ancient people viewed the sky differently than we do. Skywatching was crucial to daily life, since the motions of the heavens served as timekeeper, calendar, compass, and almanac for planning when to plant and harvest. The perfect regularity of celestial cycles was the only guaranteed aspect of life and inspired a wide range of religious and philosophical views, as different cultures struggled to grasp the unseen forces that govern the cosmos.

A Visual Guide to the Universe with the Smithsonian

by Professor David M. Meyer, Ph.D. - Northwestern University

The official course description is below. This is a 18 episode TV show style course with a good presenter and excellent visuals. It covers all of the recent (since about 1990) robotic space exploration missions, including all of the space telescopes, and what they have taught us. This one I had to buy to watch, and you can find it here. Go to my Episode-by-Episode page for my reviews of the episodes.

For the first time in human history, we can see the full splendor and mystery of the universe, thanks to instruments on scores of planetary probes and observatories that have been launched into space since the 1990s.

The Search for Exoplanets: What Astronomers Know

Professor Joshua Winn, Ph.D. - Princeton University

The official course description is below. This is a 24 episode TV show style course. I have not yet watched this series, but I plan to and will review it when I do. This show is available from the library on Kanopy here. Go to my Episode-by-Episode page for my reviews of the episodes.

Half a century ago, television viewers thrilled to the exploits of the original Star Trek series with its mission “to explore strange new worlds.” Today, astronomers are doing exactly that, analyzing the data from advanced telescopes and discovering strange worlds orbiting other stars in our galaxy.