Online courses directory (2511)

This is an advanced subject in computer modeling and CAD CAM fabrication, with a focus on building large-scale prototypes and digital mock-ups within a classroom setting. Prototypes and mock-ups are developed with the aid of outside designers, consultants, and fabricators. Field trips and in-depth relationships with building fabricators demonstrate new methods for building design. The class analyzes complex shapes, shape relationships, and curved surfaces fabrication at a macro scale leading to new architectural languages, based on methods of construction.

Study of physical effects in the vicinity of a black hole as a basis for understanding general relativity, astrophysics, and elements of cosmology. Extension to current developments in theory and observation. Energy and momentum in flat spacetime; the metric; curvature of spacetime near rotating and nonrotating centers of attraction; trajectories and orbits of particles and light; elementary models of the Cosmos. Weekly meetings include an evening seminar and recitation. The last third of the semester is reserved for collaborative research projects on topics such as the Global Positioning System, solar system tests of relativity, descending into a black hole, gravitational lensing, gravitational waves, Gravity Probe B, and more advanced models of the Cosmos.

This course introduces the various aspects of present and future Air Traffic Control systems. Among the topics in the present system that we will discuss are the systems-analysis approach to problems of capacity and safety, surveillance, including the National Airspace System and Automated Terminal Radar Systems, navigation subsystem technology, aircraft guidance and control, communications, collision avoidance systems and sequencing and spacing in terminal areas. The class will then talk about future directions and development and have a critical discussion of past proposals and of probable future problem areas.

Consists of a series of hands-on laboratories designed to give students experience with common techniques for conducting neuroscience research. Included are sessions on anatomical, ablation, neurophysiological, and computer modeling techniques, and ways these techniques are used to study brain function. Each session consists of a brief quiz on assigned readings that provide background to the lab, a lecture that expands on the readings, and that week's laboratory. Lab reports required. Students receive training in the art of scientific writing and oral presentation with feedback designed to improve writing and speaking skills. Assignments include two smaller lab reports, one major lab report with revision, and an oral report.

This course looks at the history of avant-garde and electronic music from the early twentieth century to the present. The class is organized as a theory and production seminar for which students may either produce audio/multimedia projects or a research paper. It engages music scholarship, cultural criticism, studio production, and multi-media development, such as recent software, sound design for film and games, and sound installation. Sound as a media tool for communication and sound as a form of artistic expression are subjects under discussion. The artists' work reviewed in the course includes selections from audio innovators such as the Italian Futurists, Edgard Varèse, John Cage, King Tubby, Brian Eno, Steve Reich, Afrika Bambaataa, Kraftwerk, Merzbow, Aphex Twin, Rza, Björk, and others.

This course covers organizational, strategic and operational aspects of managing Supply Networks (SNs) from domestic and international perspectives. Topics include alternative SN structures, strategic alliances, design of delivery systems and the role of third party logistics providers. Many of the activities exchanged among enterprises in a SN are of a service nature, and the final output is often a combination of tangible products and services which the end-customer purchases. A series of concepts, frameworks and analytic tools are provided to better understand the management of service operations. Guest speakers share their experiences in managing SNs and services. Restricted to MIT Sloan Fellows in Innovation and Global Leadership.

The course is designed to provide a practical - hands on - introduction to electronics with a focus on measurement and signals. The prerequisites are courses in differential equations, as well as electricity and magnetism. No prior experience with electronics is necessary. The course will integrate demonstrations and laboratory examples with lectures on the foundations. Throughout the course we will use modern "virtual instruments" as test-beds for understanding electronics. The aim of the course is to provide students with the practical knowledge necessary to work in a modern science or engineering setting.

8.01L is an introductory mechanics course, which covers all the topics covered in 8.01T. The class meets throughout the fall, and continues throughout the Independent Activities Period (IAP).

In this subject, we explore the harmonic, melodic, and formal practices of western music, principally the so-called "Classical" idiom of central Europe, ca. 1750-1825. Topics include a quick review of material covered in 21M.301, chromatic harmony (vii^o7, bII⁶, and chords of the augmented sixth), and chromatic modulation; lecture study and discussion are complemented by work in the keyboard laboratory and sight-singing laboratory. All areas of study will be integrated in a semester-long project of composing a theme and two variations in Classical style.

This is a graduate course in labor economics. The course will focus on covering theory and evidence on inequality, wage structure, skill demands, employment, job loss, and early-life determinants of long-run outcomes. Particular areas of focus are: (1) wage determination, including the Roy model, equalizing wage differentials, and models of discrimination; (2) the roles played by supply, demand, institutions, technology and trade in the evolving distribution of income.

This course analyzed the basic techniques for the efficient numerical solution of problems in science and engineering. Topics spanned root finding, interpolation, approximation of functions, integration, differential equations, direct and iterative methods in linear algebra.

Although attention will be devoted to the causes and long-term consequences of the Civil War, this class will focus primarily on the war years (1861-1865) with special emphasis on the military and technological aspects of the conflict. Four questions, long debated by historians, will receive close scrutiny:

1. What caused the war?
2. Why did the North win the war?
3. Could the South have won?
4. To what extent is the Civil War America's "defining moment"?