LibGuides: Physics/Physical Science: Media Resources

Films on Demand

Films on Demand Master Academic Collection
The Master Academic Collection of streaming videos by Films on Demand provides online access to over 7,500 full length videos and 90,000 video clips. It covers the areas of Business & Economics, Humanities & Social Sciences, Science & Mathematics and Health & Medicine, as well as Archival Films & Newsreels. Please note that High-speed Internet access is required with a minimum of 380 kbps DSL, or 500 kbps Cable Modem connectivity.

Streaming Videos - Selected Examples

Breaking the Wall of Limited Resources: What Catalysis Can Do to Save Energy and Create Materials
According to the law of thermodynamics, any form of energy may be transformed into another form, but the total energy always remains the same. How can we use this principle to our advantage? This 2009 video lecture from the Falling Walls Conference features Matthias Driess, a philosopher and a scientist by training, who seeks an answer by transforming sunlight into hydrogen.
Breaking the Wall to Absolute Zero Temperature: How Ultracold Atomic Physics Is Creating Fundamentally New Materials
Physics has a long track record of discovering and studying new forms of matter. Apart from the four states of matter traditionally taught in physics class – solid, liquid, gas and plasma – there is a whole range of other, more exotic states which occur only under very particular circumstances such as ultracold temperatures or extreme density.
Chemical Whales
As the only landmass on Earth with hardly any people, you’d expect that Antarctica would be the cleanest continent. This video clip discusses how the polar regions of our world are actually accumulating a residue of toxic pollution from the rest of the world. For the southern hemisphere’s population of humpback whales to remain healthy, Antarctica needs to be free of chemical pollution.
Let There Be Life: The Secrets of Quantum Physics
Can quantum mechanics explain the greatest mysteries in biology? Could the strange laws of the sub-atomic world, which allow objects to tunnel through impassable barriers, affect the mechanism by which living species evolve?
Light and Space: The Theory of General Relativity—The Physics of Light
This film spotlights the quest of scientific truth in the early 20th Century. Isaac Newton, inspired by Albert Einstein, creates the law of gravity. Einstein, using the law of gravity, improves upon his special theory of relativity creating the general theory of relativity.
Newton's Laws of Motion
Newton’s three laws of motion are fundamental to many aspects of physics—including collisions. This clip covers the laws, explaining each and looking at how they apply to different examples of collisions. Calculations involving force, mass, acceleration, and stopping time are applied to various scenarios.
Science Under Siege
From many-worlds to the multiverse, does physics still need experiments? The Speaker George Ellis examines the fantasies of contemporary cosmology.
Stuff: A Horizon Guide to Materials
Using footage from the Horizon television series archives, this program reviews the advances that have shaped the modern materials age, with a look at uranium, manganese nodules, helium-3, superplastic metals, the discovery of superconductivity, silicon chips, and more.
What's the Universe Made of?
The universe is hiding something. In fact, it is hiding a lot. Everything we experience on Earth, the stars and galaxies we see in the cosmos—all the “normal” matter and energy that we understand—make up only 5% of the known universe. Find out how scientists are discovering new secrets about the history of the universe, and why they are predicting a shocking future.