Courses October and November 2023
Nov. 20th, 2023 06:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smallhobbitOnly one FutureLearn course this time:
Humphrey Davy: Laughing Gas, Literature and the Lamp (Lancaster University & Royal Institution) Theoretically this should have been interesting, looking at Davy both as a scientist and as a poet. But somehow it didn't work for me. It may be because the lecturers really didn't convince me that Davy was worth knowing - yes, it's worth acknowledging someone's negative aspects, but at the same time, if I'm going to spend four weeks reading about them I want to feel that there's good reason to do so.
I also worked my way through four OpenLearn courses:
Understanding Science: what we cannot know This was a badged course, so required a certain amount of commitment over the eight weeks, and certainly taxed my understanding at times. But it was worthwhile, simply to look at areas where scientists don't have all the answers, and maybe will never have the answers. And now I know that if an astronaut was to fall into a black hole they would be spaghettified.
Galaxies, stars and planets. My current badged course is on exoplanets, so I thought it would be useful to take a beginners' course and give myself a reminder of some of the basics.
George Orwell & Nineteen Eighty-Four. It's some years since I read the book, but it was worth taking this short course and reminding myself of some of the themes. And also seeing how they are becoming applicable to current events.
Introduction to Music Theory 1: Form This is the first of a new eight-part series. I have a basic interest in music theory, so it seems like a good way of keeping the brain active over the next few months or so.
Humphrey Davy: Laughing Gas, Literature and the Lamp (Lancaster University & Royal Institution) Theoretically this should have been interesting, looking at Davy both as a scientist and as a poet. But somehow it didn't work for me. It may be because the lecturers really didn't convince me that Davy was worth knowing - yes, it's worth acknowledging someone's negative aspects, but at the same time, if I'm going to spend four weeks reading about them I want to feel that there's good reason to do so.
I also worked my way through four OpenLearn courses:
Understanding Science: what we cannot know This was a badged course, so required a certain amount of commitment over the eight weeks, and certainly taxed my understanding at times. But it was worthwhile, simply to look at areas where scientists don't have all the answers, and maybe will never have the answers. And now I know that if an astronaut was to fall into a black hole they would be spaghettified.
Galaxies, stars and planets. My current badged course is on exoplanets, so I thought it would be useful to take a beginners' course and give myself a reminder of some of the basics.
George Orwell & Nineteen Eighty-Four. It's some years since I read the book, but it was worth taking this short course and reminding myself of some of the themes. And also seeing how they are becoming applicable to current events.
Introduction to Music Theory 1: Form This is the first of a new eight-part series. I have a basic interest in music theory, so it seems like a good way of keeping the brain active over the next few months or so.
