Comments on: Physics from Open Yale Courses

By: bn

bn — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 05:32:00 +0000

Mr. Baez,

I can’t begin to express how thankful i am for the streams on Group Representation Theory. I don’t know how much work you had to go through to do that but your efforts are very very much appreciated. I’m glad i have the good fortune of learning this topic from people like you and Mark Chu-Carrol. I hope more top-notch schools start to take this initiative. Keep up the good discussions.

By: John Armstrong

John Armstrong — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 03:52:06 +0000

(1) Yale’s system-wide IT is in a hellish state, though not so brain-damaged as to run all email through Outlook instead of a sensible UNIX system.

(2) Streaming requires bandwidth use requires money, and Yale didn’t become so rich by paying for anything.

By: Blake Stacey

Blake Stacey — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 02:57:02 +0000

Sounds like a good idea to me. I think their CC license would allow somebody to download the videos and re-upload them to Google Video, which would then permit streaming. In any case, maybe we could stuff their suggestion box with that request.

By: John Baez

John Baez — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 02:38:20 +0000

The courses you mention look good, but they seem to force me to download the lectures as .zip files. It would be nice to have streaming videos as an option, since then you can start watching a video and see if you like it before committing to a long download. If UCR can do streaming videos of classes, surely Yale can too. No? Am I missing something?

By: John Armstrong

John Armstrong — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:07:44 +0000

I can think of a good number in the math department that should be put up there. Zuckerman’s set theory, Frame’s fractal geometry (for non-mathematicians)…

Maybe after seeing the horrible quality of the rooms in Leet-Oliver Memorial Hall the public outcry will lead to Yale finally fixing up that building.