Tunes U and Essential Mathematica

In a similar vein to the TED talks in the previous post, I’ve also been watching a lot of lectures from iTunes U lately. Mostly to get ready for preliminary exams, but also for their sheer awesomeness of the teaching and material. I’ve been most surprised how many people haven’t heard of this yet: Nearly everyone seems surprised when they hear about it. Anyways, here’s my list of favorites so far:

• MIT 18.02 - Denis Auroux’s Multivariable Calculus
• MIT 18.03 - Arthur Mattuck’s Differential Equations
• MIT 18.06 - Gilbert Strang’s Linear Algebra
• MIT 7.012 - Robert Weinberg and Eric Lander’s Introductory Biology
• MIT 8.01-03 - Walter Lewin’s Introductory Physics
• Stanford Modern Physics: The Theoretical Minimum - Leonard Susskind’s overview of physics (which I can’t seem to find any sort of semi-official link to, but it is in iTunes and YouTube.)
• Fourier Transforms and Its Applications - Brad Osgood’s take on Fourier Transforms

I’m particularly attached to the last of this list. Applications of Fourier Transforms were one of the things that motivated me to actually study applied mathematics in the first place, and continue to be a source of fascination for me. I was also throughly impressed with the biology lectures that I’ve heard so far; I hadn’t enjoyed biology much up to that point, but it really is really a far more satisfying and interesting subject than I’d given it credit for.

Even if learning about multivariable calc isn’t really your cup of tea, I still highly recommend watching what might have been the most entertaining 160 seconds of a math lecture ever caught on tape: A lovely Phone Call

In addition, my officemate also pointed to a wonderful reference on Mathematca, Essential Mathematica. It’s a great reference. What’d be most excellent though, is a similar overview of SAGE, the William Stein brainchild out of the University of Washington.