Online courses directory (2511)

This course covers the basic principles of planet atmospheres and interiors applied to the study of extrasolar planets (exoplanets). We focus on fundamental physical processes related to observable exoplanet properties. We also provide a quantitative overview of detection techniques and an introduction to the feasibility of the search for Earth-like planets, biosignatures and habitable conditions on exoplanets.

This course provides an introduction to the physics and chemistry of the atmosphere, including experience with computer codes. It is intended for undergraduates and first year graduate students.

This course is an introduction to major books from both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. Particular attention has been given to literary techniques, issues resulting from translation from the original Hebrew and Greek, and the different historical periods that produced and are reflected in the Bible. Investigation of the Bible as influence in later narrative, philosophic, and artistic traditions.

Do you like teaching, but find yourself frustrated by how little students seem to learn? Would you like to try teaching, but are nervous about whether you will be any good at it? Are you interested in new research on science education? Research in science education shows that the greatest obstacle to student learning is the failure to identify and confront the misconceptions with which the students enter the class or those that they acquire during their studies. This weekly seminar course focuses on developing the participants' ability to uncover and confront student misconceptions and to foster student understanding and retention of key concepts. Participants read primary literature on science education, uncover basic concepts often overlooked when teaching biology, and lead a small weekly discussion session for students currently enrolled in introductory biology classes.

The instructor for this course, Dr. Kosinski-Collins, is a member of the HHMI Education Group.

What is the history of popular reading in the Western world? How does widespread access to print relate to distinctions between highbrow and lowbrow culture, between good taste and bad judgment, and between men and women readers? This course will introduce students to the broad history of popular reading and to controversies about taste and gender that have characterized its development. Our grounding in historical material will help make sense of our main focus: recent developments in the theory and practice of reading, including fan-fiction, Oprah's book club, comics, hypertext, mass-market romance fiction, mega-chain bookstores, and reader response theory.

This interdisciplinary course surveys modern European culture to disclose the alignment of literature, opposition, and revolution. Reaching back to the foundational representations of anarchism in nineteenth-century Europe (Kleist, Conrad) the curriculum extends through the literary and media representations of militant organizations in the 1970s and 80s (Italy's Red Brigade, Germany's Red Army Faction, and the Real Irish Republican Army). In the middle of the term students will have the opportunity to hear a lecture by Margarethe von Trotta, one of the most important filmmakers who has worked on terrorism. The course concludes with a critical examination of the ways that certain segments of European popular media have returned to the "radical chic" that many perceive to have exhausted itself more than two decades ago.

This course will cover the following topics:

• Magnetostatics
• Origin of magnetism in materials
• Magnetic domains and domain walls
• Magnetic anisotropy
• Reversible and irreversible magnetization processes
• Hard and soft magnetic materials
• Magnetic recording

Special topics include magnetism of thin films, surfaces and fine particles; transport in ferromagnets, magnetoresistive sensors, and amorphous magnetic materials.

This course examines wave equations for fluid and visco-elastic media, wave-theory formulations of acoustic source radiation and seismo-acoustic propagation in stratified ocean waveguides, and Wavenumber Integration and Normal Mode methods for propagation in plane-stratified media. Also covered are Seismo-Acoustic modeling of seabeds and ice covers, seismic interface and surface waves in a stratified seabed, Parabolic Equation and Coupled Mode approaches to propagation in range-dependent ocean waveguides, numerical modeling of target scattering and reverberation clutter in ocean waveguides, and ocean ambient noise modeling. Students develop propagation models using all the numerical approaches relevant to state-of-the-art acoustic research.

This course was originally offered in Course 13 (Department of Ocean Engineering) as 13.853. In 2005, ocean engineering subjects became part of Course 2 (Department of Mechanical Engineering), and this course was renumbered 2.068.

This class explores interaction with mobile computing systems and telephones by voice, including speech synthesis, recognition, digital recording, and browsing recorded speech. Emphasis on human interface design issues and interaction techniques appropriate for cognitive requirements of speech. Topics include human speech production and perception, speech recognition and text-to-speech algorithms, telephone networks, and spatial and time-compressed listening. Extensive reading from current research literature.

15.874 and 15.871 provide an introduction to system dynamics modeling for the analysis of business policy and strategy. Students learn to visualize a business organization in terms of the structures and policies that create dynamics and regulate performance. The course uses role playing games, simulation models, and management flight simulators to develop principles for the successful management of complex strategies. Special emphasis will be placed on case studies of successful strategies using system dynamics.

15.874 is a full semester course and 15.871 is a half semester course. The two classes meet together and cover the same material for the first half of the term. In the second half of the semester, only 15.874 continues.

Effective field theory is a fundamental framework to describe physical systems with quantum field theory. Part I of this course covers common tools used in effective theories. Part II is an in depth study of the Soft-Collinear Effective Theory (SCET), an effective theory for hard interactions in collider physics.

The strategic importance of information technology is now widely accepted. It has also become increasingly clear that the identification of strategic applications alone does not result in success for an organization. A careful coordination of strategic applications, information technologies, and organizational structures must be made to attain success. This course addresses strategic, technological, and organizational connectivity issues to support effective and meaningful integration of information and systems. This course is especially relevant to those who wish to effectively exploit information technology and create new business processes and opportunities.

This course examines fundamental issues in the philosophy of law, including the nature and content of law, its relation to morality, theories of legal interpretation, and the obligation to obey the law, as well as philosophical issues and problems associated with punishment and responsibility, liberty, and legal ethics.

This capstone course is a group design project involving integration of nuclear physics, particle transport, control, heat transfer, safety, instrumentation, materials, environmental impact, and economic optimization. It provides opportunities to synthesize knowledge acquired in nuclear and non-nuclear subjects and apply this knowledge to practical problems of current interest in nuclear applications design. Each year, the class takes on a different design project; this year, the project is a power plant design that ties together the creation of emission-free electricity with carbon sequestration and fossil fuel displacement. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.

This course is an elective subject in MIT’s undergraduate Energy Studies Minor. This Institute-wide program complements the deep expertise obtained in any major with a broad understanding of the interlinked realms of science, technology, and social sciences as they relate to energy and associated environmental challenges.

16.225 is a graduate level course on Computational Mechanics of Materials. The primary focus of this course is on the teaching of state-of-the-art numerical methods for the analysis of the nonlinear continuum response of materials. The range of material behavior considered in this course includes: linear and finite deformation elasticity, inelasticity and dynamics. Numerical formulation and algorithms include: variational formulation and variational constitutive updates, finite element discretization, error estimation, constrained problems, time integration algorithms and convergence analysis. There is a strong emphasis on the (parallel) computer implementation of algorithms in programming assignments. The application to real engineering applications and problems in engineering science is stressed throughout the course.

This seminar will focus on three sports: swimming, cycling and running. There will be two components to the seminar: classroom sessions and a "laboratory" in the form of a structured training program. The classroom component will introduce the students to the chemistry of their own biological system. With swimming, running and cycling as sample sports, students are encouraged to apply their knowledge to complete a triathlon shortly after the term.

This course deals with solid-state diffusion, homogeneous and heterogeneous chemical reactions, and spinodal decomposition. Topics covered include: heat conduction in solids, convective and radiative heat transfer boundary conditions; fluid dynamics, 1-D solutions to the Navier-Stokes equations, boundary layer theory, turbulent flow, and coupling with heat conduction and diffusion in fluids to calculate heat and mass transfer coefficients.

This course is devoted to the theory of Lie Groups with emphasis on its connections with Differential Geometry. The text for this class is Differential Geometry, Lie Groups and Symmetric Spaces by Sigurdur Helgason (American Mathematical Society, 2001).

Much of the course material is based on Chapter I (first half) and Chapter II of the text. The text however develops basic Riemannian Geometry, Complex Manifolds, as well as a detailed theory of Semisimple Lie Groups and Symmetric Spaces.

This course focuses on the tools and programs available to economic development practitioners to address capital needs for businesses and economic development projects. It provides an overview of private capital markets and financing sources to understand capital market imperfections that constrain economic development, business accounting, financial statement analysis, federal economic development programs, and public finance tools. The course covers policies and program models, including revolving loan funds, guarantee programs, venture capital funds, bank holding companies, community development loan funds and credit unions, micro-enterprise funds, and the Community Reinvestment Act. The objective of this course is to provide students with a comprehensive overview of economic development finance practice in the United States, and to develop a knowledge base and skills to either be a development finance practitioner, or apply economic development finance approaches to other fields of planning and community development.

22.56J aims to give graduate students and advanced undergraduates background in the theory and application of noninvasive imaging methods to biology and medicine, with emphasis on neuroimaging. The course focuses on the modalities most frequently used in scientific research (X-ray CT, PET/SPECT, MRI, and optical imaging), and includes discussion of molecular imaging approaches used in conjunction with these scanning methods. Lectures by the professor will be supplemented by in-class discussions of problems in research, and hands-on demonstrations of imaging systems.