Welcome to Great Explorers!
This general elective course is open to students from all schools, programs, and years. The language of instruction is English.
Here is the course syllabus, which includes the lectures schedule. It's important to consult this website before each lecture, for lecture materials and up-to-date zoom links (which may change during the semester).
June 7: Exploring Democracy
Reading
This week there are two readings, described in these Reading Guidelines.
Lincoln reading (mandatory) from "Team of Rivals" by Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Elements of Style (optional) , by Strunk and White. A treasure trove of tips and advice for expressing your thoughts in writing -- be it an essay, a presentation, a business plan, a formal email – if you wish to learn how to write well, and how to improve on ChatGPT, consult this classic resource.
More resources
The Baldwin - Buckley Debate was held at Cambridge University in 1965, over the motion: “Was the American Dream Achieved at the expense of the American Negro?” The video quality is poor, but everything else is a classic. James Baldwin and William Buckley were brilliant orators who crossed swords in this historic meeting. Make sure to turn on the video's captions/subtitles (CC).
Still I Rise, by Maya Angelou: A famous poem about the African American struggle. Here is a captivating reading by the poet herself.
Future reading (when you have time and interest)
Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America, by Gary Willis. The story of the famous speech and its remarkable impact.
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin. An outstanding Lincoln biography.
Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara. A great military novel about the Civil War.
The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, by Stephen Greenblatt. If you want to read one book about how the ancient Greeks shaped modern life as we know it, this is it.
Dreams from my Father: A story of race and inheritance. Barack Obama wrote several excellent books, and this memoire is a masterpiece.
The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White, The best little book about how to write forcefully and elegantly. Available on-line.
May 31: Lewis and Clark: The Opening of the American West
Mandatory reading: Lewis and Clark. Excerpts from the book Undaunted Courage, by Stephen Ambrose.
Quiz: There may be a quiz about the readings that was assigned last week (Watson and Crick).
More resources:
The Louisiana Purchase: A video account of the landmark political act that gave rise to the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Lewis and Clark and the Revealing of America: A Library of Congress website, featuring nice visuals and exhibits from the expedition.
The Lewis and Clark story, in video: With nice Missouri River scenes (there's no need to watch all of it, good for getting an impression of the landscape).
The Lewis and Clark story,in music: Sit back and enjoy some cool finger picking by Tommy Emmanuel, a great acoustic guitarist.
Crash course in early American history (optional):
The story of the American Revolution and the formation of the United States of America is a fascinating and crucially important chapter in modern history. The following books are all brilliant, written by authors who are both top notch historians and wonderful writers.
Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, by Joseph Ellis: If you read only one book in this genre, this is it.
His Excellency: George Washington, by Joseph Ellis. A biography of America's first president and most loved hero.
American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, by Joseph Ellis. A biography of Thomas Jefferson, third USA president who was also a gifted writer, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and scientist. Written by a great historian.
The First Salute: A View of the American Revolution, by Barbara Tuchman: A fascinating narration of the first events that led to the American revolution.
Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, by Walter Isaacson: A biography of America's remarkable behind-the-scene politician, who also happened to be a great scientist, printer, and statesman.
John Adams, by David McCullough: A biography of America's second president.
Undaunted Courage, by Stephen Ambrose: The "official" story of the Lewis and Clark expedition, superbly told by America's most celebrated history writer. A page turner!
May 24: Watson, Crick, Franklin: Discovering Life's Algorithm
The lecture today has moved to room SL302 (Radzyner Susutainability / Law building)
Mandatory reading: The Double Helix (excerpts) , by James Watson. A scattered collection of texts from Watson's hilarious personal account of his role in making the most stunning scientific discovery of the 20th century.
Quiz: There may be a quiz about the reading that was assigned last week (Darwin).
More resources:
Animation showing protein assembly. A nice animation, except for one annoying bug: from minute 2:10 onward, we see how the protein is built from amino acids. For some reason, the animation uses the same color to represent all the amino acids, giving the impression that the protein is made from many instances of the same amino acid. In fact, the protein is made from a varying sequence amino acids -- that's the whole point of the RNA coding scheme!
DNA Replication: This video describes the "choreography" of DNA replication. The video is about 17 minutes long, but the instructor is so clear and engaging that you don't feel how the times passes. There is no need to follow or remember the details – just focus on the spirit of things. Notice that much of the complexity arises because one DNA strand in replicated in a "normal" direction, whereas the other (complimentary) strand is replicated in reverse direction (DNA has two sides, one is called the '3 side and the other the '5 side). These details are not important for our course, but they are quite fascinating nonetheless.
Optional reading / resources:
The Double Helix, by James Watson: A startling window into the scientific method, packed with the kind of science anecdotes that are told and retold in the halls of universities and laboratories everywhere. A highly personal account of the great discovery – a unique combination of useful information and juicy gossip, packed in a small and compact book.
The Double Helix book review, by Shimon Schocken, published in Haaretz, 2003 (Hebrew).
The story behind the preface that Lawrence Bragg wrote to the Double Helix. It's quite a juicy story, since, in the book, Watson mocked Bragg (among many others).
What is Life, by Erwin Schrödinger: One of the great science classics of the twentieth century. Although it was written for the layman, it proved to be one of the spurs to the birth of molecular biology and the subsequent discovery of DNA. Had a profound impact on James Watson, and many other pioneering life scientists.
Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, by Brenda Maddox: A moving biography of the brilliant and talented scientist who was the unsung hero of the DNA discovery. Jewish, female, and opinionated, her career was an uphill battle. Yet today she is considered the founding mother of modern molecular biology.
DNA, by James Watson: A panoramic overview of the major discoveries in life science made in the 50 years following the discovery of the DNA in 1954. This highly readable book features numerous excellent diagrams and photographs, as well as "behind the scene" stories about the scientists and the discoveries.
What Mad Pursuit, by Frances Crick: Another personal account of The Discovery. Full of wit and passion.
The Billion-Dollar Molecule: The Quest for the Perfect Drug, by Barry Werth: The true story behind the drama of a startup pharmaceutical company that developed a molecular drug to combat AIDS. A page turner.
A Life Decoded: My Genome: My Life, by Craig Venter. In the year 2000, Celera, a company founded by Venter, won the race to sequence of the Human Genome (beating a team led by James Watson). Venter was a failing ADHD student who, through hard work and sheer bravado, became one of the world's a leading life scientists and entrepreneurs. A fascinating autobiography.
May 17: Charles Darwin: The Voyage that Launched the Modern World
Mandatory reading: A selection of texts about Evolution taken from the book "The Beak of the Finch" by Jonathan Weiner. The book tells the story of Rosemary and Peter Grant, a couple of life scientists from Princeton, whose 1980 study of the Galapagos Islands revealed that evolution progresses in a much faster pace than previously thought. The text also contains an excellent and passionate introduction to the theory of Evolution and Darwin's legacy.
Quiz: There may be a quiz about the reading that was assigned last week (Magellan).
More resources:
How the Human eye was shaped by evolution: An informal and compelling account. I include it here as an example of how such a fantastically complex instrument could be designed by the blind process of natural selection. Good vision implies a better chance to survive -- everything else is "details".
How the Cuckoo bird knows to lay eggs that look different in different host nests (55:15 to 1:05:20): Told by a leading evolution scholar, Richard Dawkins.
The tension between science and religion and the "God of the Gaps" approach to belief are discussed in this conversation between astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and author Neil Gaiman. Note that were the closed caption says "religious tax" they actually mean "religious texts".
Graduation Speech, Steve Jobs: As a student, Darwin took many "wild" courses from different disciplines. This famous speech conveys (among other things) an important lesson about the virtues of serendipitous, multi-disciplinary education.
Optional reading / resources:
A debate between Islam and Science: Worth watching, but don't hesitate to fast-forward here and there. Physicist Lawrence Krauss demolishes various religious arguments, but does it in the arrogant and patronizing way that gave Atheism a bad reputation.
A selection of texts about Darwin's life and career, taken from the next reference listed below.
Charles Darwin: A Biography, Vol. 1 - Voyaging, by Janet Browne. Many biographies were written about Darwin, and this is probably the best one.
Charles Darwin: A Biography, Vol. 2 - The Power of Place: Second volume of the Janet Browne biography, focusing on Darwin's post-voyage life and career.
Voyage of the Beagle: Darwin's own account of the great voyage around the world.
Last Chance to See: If you read one book by Douglas Adams (author of the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), you want to read them all. This book is about travelling around the world and visiting various fish and birds that are about to go extinct.
Longitude: by Dava Sobel. The story of a lone watchmaker genius who solved the greatest scientific problem of his time: Finding one's longitude anyplace on earth (there is also an album-style illustrated version of the same book). A must reading for navigation and seafaring aficionados.
The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World, by Andrea Wolf. Alexander Humboldt was the greatest nature explorer and scholar that operated before Darwin. More cities, roads and rivers are named after him than any other person that ever lived. A sweeping biography of this forgotten German scientist, who was the first European who explored Venezuela, Ecuador, and other parts of northern Latin America. An excellent Hebrew translation is also available.
May 10: Magellan, Over the Edge of the World
Mandatory reading: Magellan.
There may be a quiz about the mandatory reading assigned on May 3.
Optional reading:
Magellan, by Stephen Zweig: A profound historical / psychological biography of Magellan, by one the 20th century's greatest authors.
1421: The Year China Discovered America: The title says it all -- that's 71 years before Columbus! A popular but controversial book written by a captain of an American nuclear submarine who became obsessed with the subject.
Nathaniel's Nutmeg: the Spice Trader Who Changed the Course of History, by Giles Milton: A fascinating history of trade and war in the spice islands.
More resources:
Where Good Ideas Come From: A TED talk about innovation, and about the impact of spices on the western culture.
Punta Arenas on the Strait of Magellan: an amateur video that gives a brief tour of Punta Arenas and one of Magellan's ships -- the Victoria. Feel free to mute the annoying music and fast-forward here and there...
Seychelles Islands and the Vanilla spice: Interesting short article written by Yaron London (Hebrew), who attended this course last year. Do you know that 1 kilogram of vanilla costs about $600 (as of today)? If you want to read more about vanilla, read on.
May 3: Shackleton, and the Saga of the Endurance
A TED talk about different leadership styles (in the context of conducting a philharmonic orchestra).
Shackleton crossing of South Georgia -- a modern look at South Georgia (the very last leg of Shackelton's epic journey).
Mandatory reading (which you are expected to read after the lecture):
Shackleton. This text is taken from the book "Shackleton" by Roland Huntford. Here are the pages that are missing in this document, sorry about this.
Mutiny on the Endurance: Benny Schnaider pointed out to me one case in which the expedition's talented carpenter, Harry McNish, rebelled against Shackelton.
Optional reading:
Endurance, by Alfred Lansing: the story of Shackleton's rescue. See the readers rating in Amazon...
Worst Egg Hunt Ever, This article describes The Worst Journey in the World, a classic book written by Espley Cherry-Garrard, a junior member of the Scott team. The text is available freely in the Guttenberg project. You may want to skim through the pages and see the captivating figures, maps, and photographs.
There may be a quiz about the mandatory reading assigned on April 26.
April 26: Racing to the South Pole
This week we are returning to on-campus lectures. We'll meet in the Elpern Auditorium, at 17:30. Students who have official RUNI permission to be away from the campus can attend the lecture in zoom. All other students are expected to attend the lecture in the campus. We will start checking attendance using the EZCheck app, so make sure that you've installed it on your phone before the lecture (Download for iPhone Download for Android).
Class Notes:
Video clip about polar sledging (3 minutes) Short illustration of the hardships of polar travel
Mandatory reading:
Amundsen and Scott: This text is taken from "The Last Place on Earth", by Roland Huntford.
Optional reading:
The Last Place on Earth, by Roland Huntford: about the epic race of Amundsen and Scott to the South Pole.
April 12: Two Lectures
On April 12 we'll have two lectures, back to back. The first lecture will complete the AI overview that we started on March 22. The second lecture will give an overview of Polar Explorations.
Both lectures will be given in zoom only: https://runi-ac-il.zoom.us/j/86585419308
Here are the First lecture slides (AI, 17:30 to 19:00)
Here are the Second lecture slides (Polar Explorations, 19:15 to 20:45)
AI Readings (optional):
The Illustrated Transfomer: By Jay Alammar, an AI engineer and author. Explains the key techniques that drive Chatbots and generative AI tools. It is recommended to focus on the main ideas and ignore the technical details.
Deep Reinforcement Learning: Pong from Pixels. (for technically inclined students): By Andrej Karpathy, co-founder of Open AI and former AI Director in Tesla. Here, too, you may focus on the main ideas and ignore the mathematical parts.
Polar expolrations reading (which, as usual in this course, you have to read after the lecture, and before the next one):
(Start by going over the reading guidelines)
First Attempt to the South Pole: this text is taken from the book "Shackleton" by Roland Huntford. The first section in the text describes some general details about diet and dogs in polar explorations. The rest of the text describes an early attempt to reach the south pole, in 1902. The team included Scott (leader), Shackleton (a young ambitious explorer who will be the subject of a later lecture in this course), and Wilson, a highly competent polar explorer. The text illustrates the problematic character and leadership style of Scott, and describes the unique British approach to polar exploration.
Optional Polar Explorations resources:
Video clip about Captain Scott (6 minutes): illustrates the hero status that Scott attained in the British public eye.
Farthest North (by Fridjtof Nansen): written by the pioneer of modern polar exploration, this book describes an early epic attempt to reach the North Pole.
Kabloona (by Gontran de Poncins): the author spent several years among the Inuit (Eskimo) people of the Arctic, and wrote an empathic rendition of the Inuit lifestyle, courage and stamina. This is a rare book, available only from used book sellers. However, it is a gem. If you buy it, try to purchase the hardcover version, which includes beautiful water color paintings by the author.
The Last Gentleman Adventurer (by Edward Beauclerk Maurice): if you read one book about life with the Inuit people, this is it. A funny and heart breaking memoire written by an Englishman who, at age 16, was sent to man a trading post in one of the most remote places on the globe. This book is also available in Hebrew.
March 22: AI: Foundations
This lecture will be given in zoom only: https://runi-ac-il.zoom.us/j/87242608461
(This lecture will be also be attended by many first-year students who are now taking a course named DNAI. Note that the zoom link is different than the normal link of the Great Explorers course. I will start the lecture with a few words in Hebrew, and then switch to English).
Here are the Lecture Slides.
Homework: Here are some questions about what was learned in the lecture. Each question provides references to some additional 15-minute reading. Pick two questions and answer them, using no more than one page. This is a self-study exercise, there is no need to submit it.
The readings below are optional. They are aimed at students who want to get a solid understanding of Machine Learning.
Reading 1: “Why Machines Learn”, by Anil Ananthaswamy. The book's title is strange, but the contents are brilliant. Start by reading the first two chapters. Chapter 1 discusses the architecture and performance of a single artificial neuron, also known as Perceptron. Chapter 2 is an elegant introduction to basic Linear Algebra artifacts (vectors and matrices) that are at the very heart of the theory and practice of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. There is no way to understand AI/ML deeply without some mathematical background. This reading provides a gentle (but non-trivial) introduction to the key mathematical ideas underlying AI and ML, aimed at readers without previous mathematical knowledge beyond basic high school math. If you don't have access to RUNI's digital library, you can access most of this reading here.
March 22: AI: Foundations
This lecture will be given in zoom only: https://runi-ac-il.zoom.us/j/87242608461
(This lecture will be also be attended by many first-year students who are now taking a course named DNAI. Note that the zoom link is different than the normal link of the Great Explorers course. I will start the lecture with a few words in Hebrew, and then switch to English).
Here are the Lecture Slides.
Homework: Here are some questions about what was learned in the lecture. Each question provides references to some additional 15-minute reading. Pick two questions and answer them, using no more than one page. This is a self-study exercise, there is no need to submit it.
The readings below are optional. They are aimed at students who want to get a solid understanding of Machine Learning.
Reading 1: “Why Machines Learn”, by Anil Ananthaswamy. The book's title is strange, but the contents are brilliant. Start by reading the first two chapters. Chapter 1 discusses the architecture and performance of a single artificial neuron, also known as Perceptron. Chapter 2 is an elegant introduction to basic Linear Algebra artifacts (vectors and matrices) that are at the very heart of the theory and practice of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. There is no way to understand AI/ML deeply without some mathematical background. This reading provides a gentle (but non-trivial) introduction to the key mathematical ideas underlying AI and ML, aimed at readers without previous mathematical knowledge beyond basic high school math. If you don't have access to RUNI's digital library, you can access most of this reading here.
Reading 2: “Machine Learning Yearning”, by Andrew Ng, a leading Machine Learning educator, researcher, and practitioner. This freely available digital book assumes basic knowledge of AI and ML concepts and theory. It is recommended to start reading it after the next AI lecture, on April 12.
March 15: Explorations in Mathematics
We normally discuss explorations in Math, Computer Science, and AI later in the course. This year we'll do so at the beginning of the course, for reasons that will be explained in the lecture.
This lecture will be given in zoom only: https://runi-ac-il.zoom.us/j/86347129284
Here are the Lecture Slides.
More resources
Computer Science education in a nutshell. Pay special attention to minutes 11:00 onward, where I talk about early age mathematics education.
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ... = -1/12: This bizarre result can be derived correctly, if you are not going to the infinite, on the one hand, and you are not willing to say when you stop adding, on the other. A striking illustration of the elusive nature of what we call "infinity".
Optional reading
About Compass and Straightedge (Hebrew): An article about their role in mathematics.
Three great books about the spirit and beauty of mathematics:
Journey Through Genius, by William Dunham,
Men of Mathematics, by E. T. Bell
Number: the Language of Science, by Tobias Dantzig