Online courses directory (2511)

This course concerns the theory and practice of optical methods in engineering and system design, with an emphasis on diffraction, statistical optics, holography, and imaging. It provides the engineering methodology skills necessary to incorporate optical components in systems serving diverse areas such as precision engineering and metrology, bio-imaging, and computing (sensors, data storage, communication in multi-processor systems). Experimental demonstrations and a design project are included.

This subject is a seminar-style course aimed at anyone who is interested in founding a software company or working for a software company or company that uses software technology extensively as a senior manager, developer, or product/program manager. It is also appropriate for people interested in the industry or in working as an industry analyst. Many of the issues we discuss are highly relevant for companies whose businesses are heavily dependent on software, such as in e-business or financial services, or embedded software for industrial applications.

This half-term course introduces students to problems and analysis related to the design, planning, control, and improvement of manufacturing and service operations. Class sessions involve explaining concepts, working examples, and discussing cases. A wide range of topics are covered, including: process analysis, quality management, supply chain design, procurement, and product development. Toward the end of the course, students work in teams to manage a virtual factory in a web-based simulation exercise.

 This course helps students develop skills in marketing analysis and planning, and introduces key marketing ideas and phenomena, such as how to deliver benefits to customers and marketing analytics. It presents a framework for marketing analysis and enhances problem solving and decision-making abilities in these areas. Material relevant to understanding, managing, and integrating marketing concepts in managerial situations, from entrepreneurial ventures to large multinational firms, and to consulting are presented.

This course covers topics in time-dependent quantum mechanics, spectroscopy, and relaxation, with an emphasis on descriptions applicable to condensed phase problems and a statistical description of ensembles.

6.005 Software Construction introduces fundamental principles and techniques of software development, i.e., how to write software that is safe from bugs, easy to understand, and ready for change. The course includes problem sets and a final project. Important topics include specifications and invariants; testing; abstract data types; design patterns for object-oriented programming; concurrent programming and concurrency; and functional programming.

The 6.005 website homepage from Spring 2016, along with all course materials, is available to OpenCourseWare users.

This string theory course focuses on holographic duality (also known as gauge / gravity duality or AdS / CFT) as a novel method of approaching and connecting a range of diverse subjects, including quantum gravity / black holes, QCD at extreme conditions, exotic condensed matter systems, and quantum information.

The goal of this course is to help students learn to communicate strategically within a professional setting. Students are asked to analyze their intended audience, the purpose of their communication, and the context in which they are operating before developing the message. The course focuses specifically on improving students’ ability to write, speak, work in a team, and communicate across cultures in their roles as future managers.

This course examines both the structure of cities and the ways they can be changed. It introduces graduate students to theories about how cities are formed, and the practice of urban design and development, using U.S. and international examples. The course is organized into two parts: Part 1 analyzes the forces which act to shape and to change cities; Part 2 surveys key models of physical form and social intervention that have been deployed to resolve competing forces acting on the city. This course includes models of urban analysis, contemporary theories of urban design, and implementation strategies. Lectures in this course are supplemented by discussion periods, student work, and field trips.

This course is a project-based introduction to manipulating and characterizing cells and biological molecules using microfabricated tools. It is designed for first year undergraduate students. In the first half of the term, students perform laboratory exercises designed to introduce (1) the design, manufacture, and use of microfluidic channels, (2) techniques for sorting and manipulating cells and biomolecules, and (3) making quantitative measurements using optical detection and fluorescent labeling. In the second half of the term, students work in small groups to design and test a microfluidic device to solve a real-world problem of their choosing. Includes exercises in written and oral communication and team building.

Sometime after 1492, the concept of the New World or America came into being, and this concept appeared differently - as an experience or an idea - for different people and in different places. This semester, we will read three groups of texts: first, participant accounts of contact between native Americans and French or English speaking Europeans, both in North America and in the Caribbean and Brazil; second, transformations of these documents into literary works by contemporaries; third, modern texts which take these earlier materials as a point of departure for rethinking the experience and aftermath of contact. The reading will allow us to compare perspectives across time and space, across the cultural geographies of religion, nation and ethnicity, and finally across a range of genres - reports, captivity narratives, essays, novels, poetry, drama, and film. Some of the earlier authors we will read are Michel Montaigne, William Shakespeare, Jean de Léry, Daniel Defoe and Mary Rowlandson; more recent authors include Derek Walcott, and J. M. Coetzee.

A proper understanding of modern military operations requires a prior understanding of both the material side of war, and the human or organizational side of war. This seminar will break apart selected past, current, and future sea, air, space, and land battlefields into their constituent parts and look at the interaction in each of those warfare areas between existing military doctrine and weapons, sensors, communications, and information processing technologies. It will specifically seek to explore how technological development, whether innovative or stagnant, is influenced in each warfare area by military doctrine.

How can we translate real-world challenges into future business opportunities? How can individuals, organizations, and society learn and undergo change at the pace needed to stave off worsening problems? Today, organizations of all kinds—traditional manufacturing firms, those that extract resources, a huge variety of new start-ups, services, non-profits, and governmental organizations of all types, among many others—are tackling these very questions. For some, the massive challenges of moving towards sustainability offer real opportunities for new products and services, for reinventing old ones, or for solving problems in new ways. The course aims to provide participants with access and in-depth exposure to firms that are actively grappling with the sustainability-related issues through cases, readings and guest speakers.

This course will provide a solid foundation in probability and statistics for economists and other social scientists. We will emphasize topics needed for further study of econometrics and provide basic preparation for 14.32. Topics include elements of probability theory, sampling theory, statistical estimation, and hypothesis testing.

2.26 is a 6-unit Honors-level subject serving as the Mechanical Engineering department's sole course in compressible fluid dynamics. The prerequisites for this course are undergraduate courses in thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, and heat transfer.

The goal of this course is to lay out the fundamental concepts and results for the compressible flow of gases. Topics to be covered include: appropriate conservation laws; propagation of disturbances; isentropic flows; normal shock wave relations, oblique shock waves, weak and strong shocks, and shock wave structure; compressible flows in ducts with area changes, friction, or heat addition; heat transfer to high speed flows; unsteady compressible flows, Riemann invariants, and piston and shock tube problems; steady 2D supersonic flow, Prandtl-Meyer function; and self-similar compressible flows. The emphasis will be on physical understanding of the phenomena and basic analytical techniques.

This course is an introduction to numerical methods and MATLAB^®: Errors, condition numbers and roots of equations. Topics covered include Navier-Stokes; direct and iterative methods for linear systems; finite differences for elliptic, parabolic and hyperbolic equations; Fourier decomposition, error analysis and stability; high-order and compact finite-differences; finite volume methods; time marching methods; Navier-Stokes solvers; grid generation; finite volumes on complex geometries; finite element methods; spectral methods; boundary element and panel methods; turbulent flows; boundary layers; and Lagrangian coherent structures (LCSs).

Prof. Pierre Lermusiaux is very grateful to the teaching assistants Dr. Matt Ueckermann, Dr. Tapovan Lolla, Mr. Jing Lin, and Mr. Arpit Agarwal for their contributions to the course over the years.

This course provides a critical analysis of mass media in our culture. Various types of media such as books, films, video games, and online interactions will be discussed and reviewed. This course will also evaluate how information and ideas travel between people on a large scale.

This subject provides an introduction to fluid mechanics. Students are introduced to and become familiar with all relevant physical properties and fundamental laws governing the behavior of fluids and learn how to solve a variety of problems of interest to civil and environmental engineers. While there is a chance to put skills from calculus and differential equations to use in this subject, the emphasis is on physical understanding of why a fluid behaves the way it does. The aim is to make the students think as a fluid. In addition to relating a working knowledge of fluid mechanics, the subject prepares students for higher-level subjects in fluid dynamics.

This course provides an introduction to the design of feedback systems. Topics covered include: properties and advantages of feedback systems, time-domain and frequency-domain performance measures, stability and degree of stability, root locus method, Nyquist criterion, frequency-domain design, compensation techniques, application to a wide variety of physical systems, internal and external compensation of operational amplifiers, modeling and compensation of power converter systems, and phase lock loops.

This course is the second of a two-term sequence with 6.450. The focus is on coding techniques for approaching the Shannon limit of additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channels, their performance analysis, and design principles. After a review of 6.450 and the Shannon limit for AWGN channels, the course begins by discussing small signal constellations, performance analysis and coding gain, and hard-decision and soft-decision decoding. It continues with binary linear block codes, Reed-Muller codes, finite fields, Reed-Solomon and BCH codes, binary linear convolutional codes, and the Viterbi algorithm.

More advanced topics include trellis representations of binary linear block codes and trellis-based decoding; codes on graphs; the sum-product and min-sum algorithms; the BCJR algorithm; turbo codes, LDPC codes and RA codes; and performance of LDPC codes with iterative decoding. Finally, the course addresses coding for the bandwidth-limited regime, including lattice codes, trellis-coded modulation, multilevel coding and shaping. If time permits, it covers equalization of linear Gaussian channels.