limits

Noam Chomsky's 2011 University of Oslo lecture on Newton's contributions to the study of mind. He argues Newton abandoned mechanical explanation and lowered the bar for scientific intelligibility, with consequences for the limits of human understanding. Q&A starts at 45:33.

A Stanford EE380 seminar by Michael P. Frank of Sandia National Laboratories on generalized reversible computing. It surveys unconventional computing approaches as transistor scaling nears its limits and energy efficiency stops improving.

The preface to Herb Gross's MIT OpenCourseWare 'Calculus Revisited: Single Variable Calculus', an older black-and-white lecture series. It introduces his approach to teaching calculus from the basics.

Associate Professor Simon Michaux presents estimates of the metals needed to build one generation of renewable technology to replace fossil fuels. He argues current production and reserves fall far short, with copper a key shortfall.

Robert Sapolsky's Stanford lecture on chaos and reductionism, which he calls one of the hardest of the course. It examines the limits of breaking systems into parts to understand them and introduces chaotic systems.

Jean-Marc Jancovici lectures at ENS Paris on whether energy use, jobs and growth can all be preserved. He argues for a physical approach to economics, since resource depletion and climate limits make perpetual GDP growth unrealistic.

Admiral Grace Hopper holds up a length of wire to show how far light travels in a nanosecond, about 11.8 inches. She explains how she made the idea concrete to people who could not picture a billionth of a second.

A recording of physicist Albert Bartlett's well-known lecture on the arithmetic of exponential growth, applied to population and energy use. He argues that steady percentage growth in a finite world cannot continue and sneaks up suddenly.

Sacha Arnoud, Waymo's Director of Engineering, gives a lecture in MIT's 2018 deep learning for self-driving cars course on the rise of machine learning in autonomous vehicles. It covers how Waymo uses deep learning and how it handles tricky driving situations.