Steven L. Goldman -- Science in the twentieth century: a social-intellectual history
======================================================================================

[Note on the format -- this is a set of lectures on CD produced by
The Teaching Company (http://www.teach12.com).]

Goldman is well organized and enthusiastic.  His enthusiasm helped
make this series of lectures more interesting and entertaining for
me.  That's a terrific advantage, because a set of lectures that
covers the amount of materials and details that this one does could
have been deadly boring.  He also has a very clear speaking style
that helped me follow his descriptions and explanations, even on
very difficult and complex subjects, and science during the 20th
century has gotten extremely complex.  But, it is not just his clear
enunciation that helps; he repeatedly explains complex subjects in
terms and concepts that help make them understandable.

Goldman has at least two side goals: (1) to show commonalities
between the different sciences, in terms of how approaches in one
scientific field were picked up, used, and extended in another; and
(2) to show the significance of specific scientific advances, both
how a specific idea or development influenced and helped further,
future developments in that same field and how a particular
development in a scientific field enabled significant advances in
technology and its influence on society.

"Science in the 20th Century" is a survey of science from 50,000
feet.  In a set of 36 lectures, roughly 30 minutes each, there is no
way to cover more than important ideas with a few supporting
details.  To have tried to do so would have been confusing and
impossible to understand or remember.  Having said that, these
lectures give you most of the important developments in science in a
way that is understandable and present them in ways that help you
understand why each development was important.  This is *not* just a
collection of scientific facts and theories.  "Science in the 20th
Century" helps us understand *how* science proceeds and what
advances (e.g. in the technologies of research equipment) enabled a
particular science to proceed the way it did.  

And yet, despite the fact that it is a broad survey, you will never
get the feeling that you are being told the simple and the obvious.
Goldman keeps you engaged by helping you to see that each scientific
development was an exciting breakthrough in its time *and* giving
you some appreciation for how it was important for the future of
that scientific field and what it's consequences and significance
for technology or society were.

You will also get some idea of how science (the doing of scientific
research) has changed over the last 100 years.  It is increasingly
collaborative, and being done by teams of scientists or by scientists
who share their work and results.  And, it is increasingly being
done by public or governmental funding; in the U.S., in particular,
this funding is often channeled through university research
departments, to the extent that some argue that the really purpose
of the universities, teaching and education, is being slighted.

Give professor Goldman a chance and he is likely to make *you* a
science enthusiast, too.  Then you are just a few steps from the
edge of the slippery slope toward a subscription to "Scientific
American" magazine and ...

03/25/2015

.. vim:ft=rst:fo+=a: