Learning how to appreciate the unmatched beauty, genius, and power of concert music can permanently enrich your life. Why is this so? As award-winning composer and Professor Robert Greenberg explains, Music, the most abstract and sublime of all the arts, is capable of transmitting an unbelievable amount of expressive, historical, and even philosophical information to us, provided that our antennas are up and pointed in the right direction. A little...

Takes the viewer from the early study of motion through the path of modern discovery of relativity, quantum phenomena and the consequences of these discoveries for our understanding of space, time and the universe.

Ninety-six lectures, divided into ten sections, are designed to provide a non-technical description of modern astronomy, including the structure and evolution of planets, stars, galaxies, and the universe as a whole. Updated edition integrates discoveries reported in the 2003 course and includes recent findings (through mid-2006).

Interdisciplinary approach to the investigation of how the human brain is sculpted by evolution, constrained or freed by genes, shaped by early experience, modulated by hormones, and otherwise influenced to produce a wide range of behaviors, some of them abnormal. Explains how little can be explained by thinking about any one of these factors alone because some combination of influences is almost always at work.

This course of 48 lectures explores the essential contours of the human experience in what has come to be called "Western civilization." From its humble beginnings in the ancient Near East to the dawn of the modern world, these presentations cover developments from about 3000 B.C. to A.D. 1600.

Language is fascinating. It defines humans as a species, placing us head and shoulders above even the most proficient animal communicators. Professor McWhorter explores many of the common questions about language, such as: Why isn't there just a single language? Or, How does a language change, and when it does, is that change indicative of decay or growth? In short, everything about a language is eternally and inherently changeable, from its word...

Provides basic understanding of economic matters that will help explain both the U.S. and global economies on the microeconomics and macroeconomics levels. Defines basics terms used in economics to help non-specialists develop and understanding of how market forces relate to one another and affect fiscal health.

This course of twenty-four lectures examines the period know as the High Middle Ages (1000-1300). The first eight lectures cover medieval society. Lectures nine through sixteen examine the intellectual and religious history of Europe during this period. The final eight lectures cover the major political developments and events. Lecturer is Philip Daileader from College of William and Mary.

These 36 half-hour lectures are your initiation into the geological world that lies just outside your door. "The Nature of Earth: An Introduction to Geology" introduces you to physical geology, the study of Earth's minerals, rocks, soils, and the processes that operate on them through time.